Blame the Billionaires? How media exposure to carbon inequality divides mainstream and populist voters

As inequalities have grown across Western democracies, public demand for policies targeting the super-rich has intensified. Climate change represents a significant instance of this tension, with a small global elite accounting for a disproportionate share of carbon emissions. Whether awareness of this inequality translates into public support for climate action remains an open question. We address this with a pre-registered survey experiment in France, exposing respondents to real newspaper headlines about private jet emissions by the super-rich, and measuring support for a battery of climate policies and willingness to donate to a climate organisation. Overall, we find no average treatment effect. Instead, the information polarises participants along party lines. Among mainstream party supporters, it increases support for elite-targeting and progressive policies while leaving unchanged support for policies imposing direct costs on ordinary households. However, among anti-elite party supporters – particularly on the far right – it reduces support for elite-targeting policies such as a ban on private jets. Our results offer evidence of a polarising effect of carbon inequality information among politically divided publics, and inform wider debates about how to best develop support for redistributive politics across policy areas.