Action in the combat of climate change: exploring conceptions of effectiveness and fairness of policy among youth in Sweden

This article presents findings on students’ conceptions about the effectiveness and fairness of climate policies such as taxation, subsidies, regulations and bans, and how these conceptions relate to support of climate policies. A survey was administrated to 340 participants between 15 and 17 years old. Results show that students show strongest support for stronger regulations on business, followed by support of subsidies and taxes. Bans are supported by a minority. Conceptions about effectiveness and fairness are significantly and positively related to willingness to support policies. Concerning the relationship between conceptions of effectiveness and fairness to support taxes, subsidies and bans, correlations are stronger for the same policy instrument, e.g. conceptions of effectiveness of taxes and support for taxes. As climate change education has been reported to show a lack of focus on public sphere actions, such as climate policies, this study points to the importance of supporting student understanding of policies—how policies reduce greenhouse gas emissions—and thus to the important role of social science in climate change education.