EN ROUTE TOWARDS FAIRER BURDEN SHARING: Targeting transport-related carbon taxes towards the rich and the rest

Abstract

Carbon taxation is an effective policy instrument for reducing GHG emissions, but its adoption and development is often hampered by public resistance. Since distributional fairness has emerged as a key determinant of carbon tax acceptability, efforts are needed to explore ways of strengthening carbon taxation in a fair manner. In this thesis, I applied experimental survey methodology to test how fairness perceptions of a carbon tax increase on car fuels were affected by packaging the tax increase with the introduction of a luxury carbon tax. Furthermore, it was examined which of two framings of the luxury carbon tax most improved fairness perceptions: one relating the policy to a principle of equality or needs, respectively. Based on OLS regressions on newly collected data from 178 adult Swedish residents, the policy package was found to significantly improve perceived fairness, with a small-to-medium effect size. Results regarding motivation framing were more indecisive, but at least a needs frame was found to significantly improve perceived fairness.