Discussion paper

DP11525 Environmental awareness: The case of climate change

The extent of provision of a public good often relies on social awareness and
public support for it. This applies, in particular, to global reduction of greenhouse
gases and its relevance for mitigating climate change. We examine the
concept of “public awareness” by introducing a formal model that analyzes
efforts to mitigate climate change in a setting with heterogeneous countries.
In the theoretical part we examine the Nash equilibrium of the contribution
game. The effects of awareness and economic parameters on mitigation
efforts can be disentangled, raising the possibility of linking awareness of
climate change with economic wealth. The second part provides some empirical
observations and offers the rankings of countries regarding awareness
for climate change, as well as an empirical relationship between awareness
and economic wealth.

£6.00
Citation

Weber, S and H Wiesmeth (2016), ‘DP11525 Environmental awareness: The case of climate change‘, CEPR Discussion Paper No. 11525. CEPR Press, Paris & London. https://cepr.org/publications/dp11525