Right-wing and populist support for climate mitigation policies: Evidence from Poland and its carbon-intensive Silesia region

doi:10.1016/j.regsus.2022.11.001

Abstract

Abstract:

Research on environmental behaviour is often overlooked in literature on regime destabilization in energy transitions. This study addresses that gap by focusing on socio-political and demographic factors shaping support for carbon regime destabilization policies in one of the most carbon-intensive regions of Europe. Carbon-intensive industries, especially coal mining and coal-based power generation, are often concentrated in a few carbon-intensive regions. Therefore, decarbonization actions will affect those regions particularly strongly. Correspondingly, carbon-intensive regions often exert significant political influence on the two climate mitigation policies at the national level. Focusing on Poland, we investigate socio-political and demographic factors that correlate with the approval or rejection of the two climate mitigation policies: increasing taxes on fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal and using public money to subsidize renewable energy such as wind and solar power in Poland and its carbon-intensive Silesia region. Using logistic regression with individual-level data derived from the 2016 European Social Survey (ESS) and the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES), we find party-political ideology to be an important predictor at the national level but much less so at the regional level. Specifically, voting for right-wing party is not a divisive factor for individual support of the two climate mitigation policies either nationally or regionally. More interestingly, populism is a strong factor in support of increasing taxes on fossil fuel in the carbon-intensive Silesia region but is less important concerning in support of using public money to subsidize renewable energy in Poland overall. These results show the heterogeneity of right-wing party and populism within the support for the two climate mitigation policies. Socio-demographic factors, especially age, gender, education level, employment status, and employment sector, have even more complex and heterogeneous components in support of the two climate mitigation policies at the national and regional levels. Identifying the complex socio-political and demographic factors of climate mitigation policies across different national versus carbon-intensive regional contexts is an essential step for generating in situ decarbonization strategies.

Key words: Decarbonization actions, Right-wing party Populism, Climate mitigation policies, Poland, Silesia

Mahir YAZAR, Lukas HERMWILLE, Håvard HAARSTAD. Right-wing and populist support for climate mitigation policies: Evidence from Poland and its carbon-intensive Silesia region[J]. Regional Sustainability, 2022, 3(4): 281-293.

Figures/Tables 4

Table S1

Distribution properties of the 2016 European Social Survey (ESS) and the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) variables considered by this study."

Variable	Category	Distribution description	Proportion of respondents against complete sample size for Poland (%)	Proportion of respondents against complete sample size for Silesia region (%)
Dependent variable	Respondents’ extent of support for increasing taxes on fossil fuels	Strongly and somewhat in favour	14.0	20.0
		Other than strongly and somewhat in favour (neither in favour nor against, somewhat against, and strongly against)	86.0	80.0
	Respondents’ extent of support for using public money to subsidize renewable energy	Strongly and somewhat in favour	76.0	79.0
		Other than strongly and somewhat in favour (neither in favour nor against, somewhat against, and strongly against)	24.0	21.0
Socio-political factor	Respondents voted party-political ideology	Voted for extreme-right party	14.0	12.0
		Voted for right-wing party	45.0	33.0
		Voted for center party	31.0	37.0
		Voted for left-wing party	11.0	18.0
	Respondents voted party anti-elitist and anti-establishment rhetoric	Voted for party for which populist rhetoric is not important or closer to not important	41.0	47.0
		Moderately to extremely important	59.0	53.0
	Respondents concerned about climate change	Extremely, very, and somewhat concerned	65.0	74.0
	Respondents concerned about climate change	Not at all and not very concerned	35.0	26.0
Socio-demographic factor	Respondent gender	Female	51.0	58.0
	Respondent gender	Male	49.0	42.0
	Respondent age	≤40 years old	39.0	28.0
		41-55 years old	24.0	45.0
		≥56 years old	37.0	27.0
	Respondent education level	College, graduate/professional school	32.0	45.0
	Respondent education level	Grades of 1-11, high school, community, vocational, technical	68.0	55.0
	Respondent employment status	Employed	56.0	53.0
	Respondent employment status	Unemployed	44.0	47.0
	Respondent employment sector	Carbon intensive sector	18.0	35.0
	Respondent employment sector	Other than carbon-intensive sector	82.0	65.0

Table S1

Table S2

Table 1

Table 2

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Variable pair	Cramer’s V
Variable pair	Poland	Silesia region
Voted party ideology (VPA) and populism	0.1762510	0.1461240
VPA and concern about climate change	0.1298744	0.2910516
VPA and gender	0.1432053	0.2009083
VPA and age	0.2441867	0.2471347
VPA and employment status	0.1774700	0.2227578
VPA and employment sector	0.3181341	0.5422207
VPA and education level	0.1941230	0.2122858
Populism and concern about climate change	0.1328435	0.2963634
Populism and gender	0.1442447	0.2036453
Populism and age	0.2450344	0.2483338
Populism and employment status	0.1847627	0.2344642
Populism and employment sector	0.3117971	0.5283008
Populism and education level	0.1902861	0.2375252
Concern about climate change and gender	0.0774495	0.2481088
Concern about climate change and age	0.0776424	0.2110847
Concern about climate change and employment status	0.1161647	0.1868813
Concern about climate change and employment sector	0.2612512	0.5276983
Concern about climate change and education level	0.1759413	0.2809426
Gender and age	0.0555019	0.7173746
Gender and employment status	0.1355360	0.2613072
Gender and employment sector	0.2289976	0.2695296
Gender and education level	0.2463501	0.3511801
Age and employment status	0.1158719	0.1210854
Age and employment sector	0.3455976	0.4905879
Age and education level	0.2590689	0.2858667
Employment status and employment sector	0.3792286	0.6298269
Employment status and education level	0.3821664	0.4780276
Employment sector and education level	0.2670497	0.4709967