TY - JOUR

T1 - Do trust and renewable energy use enhance perceived climate change efficacy in Europe?

AU - Dirksmeier, Peter

AU - Tuitjer, Leonie

N1 - Funding Information: For their intensive, critical, and very helpful discussion of an earlier version of this paper, we thank very much Harriet Bulkeley and Lars Mewes. We also thank the six anonymous reviewers for their supportive and critical comments, which significantly improved our paper.

PY - 2023/8

Y1 - 2023/8

N2 - In the European Union, mitigation policies in the energy sector are one of the most important fields of political intervention for reducing emissions to achieve sustainability. Using renewable energy is moreover a central arena for perceived personal and political climate change efficacy, which describes an individual’s perceived ability to positively contribute to the fight against climate change and their belief in the effectiveness of government and society to tackle climate change collectively. In this paper, we distinguish between perceived personal and political efficacy beliefs. We use multilevel regression to investigate the relationship between these two dependent variables and trust in national governments as well as renewable energy use in 20 European countries for the first time. Our analysis first finds that socio-demographic predictors for perceived personal and political climate change efficacy operate almost diametrically. Second, we find that trust in governments is a much stronger predictor for perceived political efficacy. Third, we find that renewable energy use is a significant and positive predictor for perceived personal efficacy but correlates negatively with political efficacy. Finally, we find some cross-national variation in our European sample for both dimensions of efficacy beliefs. Understanding what shapes personal and political efficacy is salient to enhance public acceptance for sustainable energy transitions.

AB - In the European Union, mitigation policies in the energy sector are one of the most important fields of political intervention for reducing emissions to achieve sustainability. Using renewable energy is moreover a central arena for perceived personal and political climate change efficacy, which describes an individual’s perceived ability to positively contribute to the fight against climate change and their belief in the effectiveness of government and society to tackle climate change collectively. In this paper, we distinguish between perceived personal and political efficacy beliefs. We use multilevel regression to investigate the relationship between these two dependent variables and trust in national governments as well as renewable energy use in 20 European countries for the first time. Our analysis first finds that socio-demographic predictors for perceived personal and political climate change efficacy operate almost diametrically. Second, we find that trust in governments is a much stronger predictor for perceived political efficacy. Third, we find that renewable energy use is a significant and positive predictor for perceived personal efficacy but correlates negatively with political efficacy. Finally, we find some cross-national variation in our European sample for both dimensions of efficacy beliefs. Understanding what shapes personal and political efficacy is salient to enhance public acceptance for sustainable energy transitions.

KW - Europe

KW - Mitigation

KW - Perceived personal climate change efficacy

KW - Perceived political climate change efficacy

KW - Renewable energy

KW - Trust

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130483743&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s10668-022-02421-4

DO - 10.1007/s10668-022-02421-4

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85130483743

VL - 25

SP - 8753

EP - 8776

JO - Environment, Development and Sustainability

JF - Environment, Development and Sustainability

SN - 1387-585X

IS - 8

ER -