Can acceptance of location-specific carbon capture and storage be tipped? The causal effects of information and question framing

Today, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is an emerging technology that remains relatively unknown to the public. Informing and educating lay people about the technology, including, e.g., technical processes, potential and associated risks, is essential for obtaining well-informed public opinions about the technology, its deployment, and choices between storage locations. Based on the stated acceptance of offshore, nearshore, rural onshore and urban onshore CCS from 3877–3879 respondents from a Danish national survey, we test how three information experiments and question framing (order) affect location-specific acceptance and relative cross location acceptance while controlling for CCS familiarity. We find significant effects from information about international CCS experience, Danish onshore underground gas storage experience and question order effects. The significance of the effects, though, varies with CCS location. The results also denote that information and question order effects significantly affect the relative acceptance of nearshore CCS, onshore rural and urban CCS, but not offshore CCS. Offshore CCS is always significantly more accepted than the other CCS locations. Finally, we find a significant positive correlation between CCS familiarity and accepting offshore, nearshore and rural CCS locations.