Public support for climate mitigation and adaptation policies across Europe

Understanding the drivers of public support for climate policies is crucial for designing socially feasible policy packages. However, most large-scale public opinion surveys focus primarily on mitigation policies. Here, we combine two representative survey waves from nine European countries (n = 27,910) to directly compare determinants of public support for climate change mitigation versus adaptation measures. We find that respondents support both mitigation and adaptation as policy objectives, but support specific adaptation policies slightly more than specific mitigation measures. Moreover, support for the two is shaped by a different composition of individual characteristics and policy evaluations. While adaptation support is driven primarily by perceived effectiveness, mitigation support is mostly driven by cost salience and politicisation. Our results suggest a stark difference in how Europeans incorporate the costs and benefits of mitigation versus adaptation policies into their support, and suggest avenues for remedying this imbalance.