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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 24th Aug 2026, 01:50:46am WEST

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Daily Overview

Session

Egg-Timer: Climate Policy and Public Acceptance
Location: D-110
Session Chair: da Costa Pascal, Laboratoire Genie Industriel, SERG, CentraleSupélec, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette

Presentation 6

Building stable public support for urban climate policies: The case of an urban toll in Barcelona

Charlotte Liotta¹, Jeroen van den Bergh^1,2,3, Joan Checa Rius^1,4

1: UAB, Spain; 2: ICREA, Spain; 3: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands; 4: Metropolis Institute, Spain

Public support for climate policies is key to ensuring their successful implementation. However, there is a trade-off between implementing an early, ambitious policy that can deliver rapid results, and gradual scaling up to ensure initial acceptance. This is particularly true for urban policies, which can generate visible co-benefits but also uneven welfare impacts across spatial and income groups. We examine this dynamic process for an urban toll in Barcelona. To this end, we combine a spatially-explicit policy-impact model and a public-support model calibrated using original survey data. We find that, despite high initial resistance, inhabitants strongly value the policy's benefits in terms of reduced emissions and improved quality of life. This enables gradual strengthening of the toll and a reinforcing cycle between stringency and acceptability. In our baseline scenario, the toll converges to €3.6, reducing transport emissions by 12.7% and pollution inside and outside the zone by 16.7% and 8.3%, respectively. We also explore alternative policy designs, notably exemptions and revenue recycling.