Choosing the right policy: Factors influencing the preferences of consumption-side personal carbon reduction policies

With the development of the social economy and the improvement of personal income, the government must consider formulating personal carbon reduction policies to reduce carbon emissions from the consumption side. Therefore, it is valuable to understand the public's preferences for different policies and the factors influencing the willingness of policy support, which can help policy selection and promotion. Using data collected from 2801 college students and a multinomial logit model, this study explores the influence of personal and social factors on preferences for three different personal carbon reduction policies (personal carbon trading, carbon tax, and carbon generalized system of preferences). The results show that individuals with higher levels of affluence, social trust, and social norms prefer personal carbon trading; individuals with higher levels of affluence, self-motivation, and social norms prefer carbon tax; individuals with higher levels of low-carbon behavioral attitudes and social trust prefer carbon generalized system of preferences; and low-carbon responsibility, access to low-carbon information, and social equity are beneficial to all three policies. In addition, this study examined the heterogeneity of individuals with different levels of affluence and low-carbon behavioral attitudes. This study compares the differences in influencing factors of policy preferences, clarifies the effects of various personal and social factors, which can help the government to design consumption-side personal carbon reduction policies in the future, and provide a reference for the promotion of corresponding policies.

COVID-19 related policies: The role of environmental concern in understanding citizens' preferences

COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented health and economic crisis worldwide. Many governments of the world have accelerated an adoption of public policies to address this crisis; however, a trade-off between the economy and public health exists. Previous studies in this area have mainly focused on the impact of COVID-19 on human life and the environment. This work adds to the literature by analyzing how individual environmental concern can affect citizens' preferences for public policies that deal with COVID-19. A data set of 26,131 participants from 26 countries was used to test the research model. Results indicate that environmental concern is positively associated with a preference for long-term oriented altruistic policies, and it shapes the relationship between economic and health problems at the country level on our dependent variable. Specifically, as the level of environmental concern increases, the negative effect of COVID-19's economic problems on the preference for long-term altruistic policies is diminished. In turn, in the case of health problems, the impact on the preference for long-term altruistic policies increases as environmental concern increases. Also, both individual-level and country-level characteristics affect citizens' preferences for policies related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Toward low-carbon development: Assessing emissions-reduction pressure among Chinese cities

Assessing emissions-reduction pressure among Chinese cities is a critical task for local governments formulating and implementing environmental policies. From the perspectives of carbon intensity and carbon inequality, this study develops an improved carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions-reduction index to quantify emissions-reduction pressure on 284 cities in China. Results indicate that driven by the decrease of overall carbon intensity and the rise of inter-city carbon inequality, emissions-reduction pressure on 41.38% of provinces and 49.65% of cities was greater than the overall national level; emissions-reduction pressure on 52.35% of cities exceeded the provincial average level. The central government determines national emissions-reduction pressure by adjusting carbon-inequality tolerance between cities and determines carbon-inequality preference based on population and economic output principles. These determinations become benchmarks for local governments' CO₂ emissions-reduction pressure. Provinces and cities that exceed benchmarks become foci for promoting energy savings, emissions reduction, and low-carbon development in the future.