Conventional approaches to policy design fail to recognise the plasticity of citizens’ beliefs and social preferences. Based on a representative sample from Germany, this column shows that mandated carbon-reducing lifestyle changes such as limiting heating and the use of cars in city centres may crowd out pre-existing green values. Effective climate policy design requires recognising that (a) to succeed, essential policies including bans, carbon taxes, and the promotion of new technologies must be both implementable and politically sustainable, entailing (b) a critical role for citizens’ green values, which (c) may be either diminished or cultivated, depending on policy design.



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