Converging climate beliefs and willingness to pay across progressive and conservative voters: evidence from Australia

Understanding climate change beliefs across the political spectrum is a necessary prior step to assessing the acceptability of climate change policy. Using large national samples, we examine the change in stated Willingness to Pay for two different Australian climate policies (Direct Action and a Carbon Tax) between 2011 and 2016 and also examine stated Willingness to Pay for an Emissions Trading Scheme in 2016. We find evidence of convergence of Willingness to Pay according to voting intention in our 2016 survey. We also found increases in beliefs in human-induced climate change, scientific consensus, whether respondents believed they have personally experienced the effects of climate change and how worried they are about climate change. However, the proportion of respondents having these views remains small for some of these beliefs.