Climate Protection: Politicians Underestimate Public Support
2025-07-15 Lüneburg/Bochum. German politicians underestimate the public’s willingness to support effective climate protection measures. This novel finding comes from a study conducted by Dr Timur Sevincer at Leuphana University of Lüneburg in collaboration with Professor Dr Wilhelm Hofmann from Ruhr University Bochum.
The psychologist and expert on sustainable behaviour and his colleague found, among other things: “The underestimation is greatest with respect to measures that could make the most significant contribution to climate protection, such as regulation and taxation of climate-damaging products.” Citizens themselves also underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to accept more climate protection measures, but they are closer to reality than politicians, the researchers noted.
For their study, the two psychologists and their team surveyed around 6,000 elected officials from all political parties. Approximately one quarter of those contacted responded. In addition, two representative population samples were surveyed to assess public acceptance of enhanced climate protection measures. The researchers used the same scale for both groups. The surveys focused on problem awareness, the desire for government action, acceptance of instruments used to promote climate protection, and the willingness to invest financially in such efforts.
The results revealed that politicians were relatively accurate, or only slightly off the mark, in assessing the public’s problem awareness, desire for support, and acceptance of informational measures. The greatest discrepancies, however, were found precisely in those measures that are most effective in combating climate change: acceptance of taxation and regulation, as well as the willingness to spend money on climate protection.
These findings suggest that political decision-makers—regardless of party affiliation—may be pursuing policy agendas that are overly cautious. The erroneous assumption that public support for effective climate protection measures is lower than it truly is, may pose a major obstacle to meaningful climate action.
Background
The study was funded by a research fellowship from the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg in Delmenhorst. It is currently undergoing the publication process and is publicly accessible as a preprint: osf.io/preprints/osf/kav53_v4. The findings will be presented at the Conference of the Social Psychology Division of the German Psychological Society, to be held in Bochum from 14 to 16 September 2025.
Sevincer, A. T., Hostlowsky, L., Styhler, F., & Hofmann, W. (2025). Politicians underestimate support for climate action even more than the general public. OSF Preprint.