Climate change policies in Norway: preferences for plan A versus plan B

Abstract

This contingent valuation study provides rare willingness-to-pay (WTP) estimates for climate policies in Norway. The highly controversial topic climate change policy, associated with massive costs, emphasizes the importance of policy-makers founding their decisions on the general publics vote. Norway is often considered a pioneer within climate politics because of the country´s ambitious target levels for CO2 reduction and early adoption of emission taxes, but to what degree are the policies supported by the Norwegian population? In this thesis we examine the Norwegian population´s attitudes, knowledge, and preferences for climate policies. More specifically we investigate the willingness to pay for mitigation strategies versus adaptation strategies. Based on a survey of 1164 Norwegian adults, results show that the majority generally has a positive WTP for climate policies. On average Norwegian households are willing to pay somewhere between 1200 and 2500 NOK per year in support of implementing some climate strategy. The initial analysis indicates that there is no difference between the WTP for mitigation versus adaptation, or among the various policies that exist within the mitigation or adaptation categories. However, a discrete policy-choice question implies that if Norwegian people were allowed to choose among the five policy scenarios, a considerable majority prefers that Norway participate in a global cooperative mitigation strategy.