Validating the Climate Policy Support Scale in 63 countries and examining responses across political divides

We examined data from 59,508 participants across 63 countries to construct a measure of climate policy support and document associations with political orientation across the resulting scale. Preregistered analyses identified a three-factor model capturing support for tax-based, nature protection, and green transition policies. The scale demonstrated configural and metric invariance across all 63 countries, scalar invariance across 49 countries, and each subscale showed good reliability. There was substantial variability in the associations between political orientation and support for each policy domain: in many countries, conservatism predicted less support, but in a substantial minority, it predicted greater support. Policies were less supported in nations with higher emissions per capita, and there was some evidence that the negative associations between conservatism and policy support were stronger within higher emission nations. Rather than universally suppressing climate policy support, conservatism might be a more important barrier to climate policy support within high emission societies.