The impact of politicized and costly climate policies on trust in scientific information and policy support

Abstract

We investigate how politicization and the financial cost of climate policies influence public trust in scientific information about climate change. We find that citizens' trust in science-based information on climate is influenced by its political context. When climate policy is associated with a political affiliation, trust in the scientific information decreases, independent of the political party supporting the policy. However, there is no effect on policy support on political endorsement. Varying the financial cost of the policy to induce cognitive dissonance had no significant effect on trust in the scientific information; instead, as expected, higher cost substantially reduced policy support.