Successful implementation of climate policies requires public acceptability. Fuel prices may impact policy support. Here we examine this relationship by analysing retail gasoline prices and individual-level survey data from Italian and US metropolitan areas. We do not find a significant association between gasoline prices and support for funding renewable energy research, regulating CO₂ emissions or requiring companies to pay carbon taxes. We do find that support for phasing out combustion-engine cars decreases when gasoline prices increase. In exploratory analyses, we find that lower-income and more liberal individuals reduce their support more as gasoline prices rise. Using an additional US nationally representative survey dataset, we find that higher gasoline prices are associated with lower support for environmental protection when it comes at the risk of curving economic growth. The negative effects of gasoline prices on climate policy support do not seem driven by reduced environmental concerns.

气候政策的成功实施需要公众的接受。燃油价格可能会影响政策支持。在这里，我们通过分析零售汽油价格以及来自意大利和美国大都市地区的个人调查数据来研究这种关系。我们没有发现汽油价格与资助可再生能源研究、监管CO ₂排放或要求公司缴纳碳税之间存在显着关联。我们确实发现，当汽油价格上涨时，对逐步淘汰内燃机汽车的支持就会减少。在探索性分析中，我们发现，随着汽油价格上涨，低收入和更自由的个人会更多地减少他们的支持。使用另一个具有美国全国代表性的调查数据集，我们发现，当环境保护面临经济增长曲线风险时，较高的汽油价格与较低的环境保护支持相关。汽油价格对气候政策支持的负面影响似乎并不是由环境问题减少所致。