Zeitschrift für Umweltpolitik und Umweltrecht

Against the backdrop of the wide range of climate and energy policy measures that have been introduced since the beginning of the decade, this article presents the results of a panel survey from 2022 in which the acceptance and perceived fairness of selected measures for the energy and transport transition were analyzed. The survey of around 6,000 respondents was part of the panel surveys of the Socio-Ecological Panel established by RWI. The key findings are that the energy transition is supported by an overwhelming majority of almost 90% of respondents and that this support is positively correlated with the respondents’ education and net household income. On average, however, the energy transition is much less strongly favored in eastern than in western Germany. The information presented in a randomized control experiment on the costs and benefits of the energy transition did not significantly change the acceptance rate in the corresponding experimental groups compared to the control group. Only in the group that was presented with one-sided information on the costs of the energy transition for private households was the acceptance rate around 16 percentage points lower than in the control group, which received no such information. With regard to selected measures to promote the transport transition, the results were surprising. Given the national carbon pricing that has now been in place for four years to make the consumption of fossil fuels more expensive for climate protection reasons, it is somewhat surprising that an absolute majority of 65.6%of participants are against an annual increase in state levies on petrol and diesel prices. An almost equally large proportion of respondents also consider this measure to be unfair.