Global public opinion on tradeoffs between environmental protection and economic growth

Abstract

Studies have shown that many people prioritize environmental protection over some levels of economic growth, even when tradeoffs exist. However, to date, most research on these tradeoffs has primarily been conducted in the Global North and has lacked cross-country comparisons. We elevate this research to a global level by analyzing data from the World Values Survey across 92 countries, focusing on how people's prioritization relates to demographic and socio-economic factors. Our results confirm previous findings that a majority of the global population favors environmental protection over economic growth (57.99%), especially in high-income countries in Western Europe, the Americas, and Oceania, as well as in Southeast Asia. Across the global average and in many countries, stronger support for the environment is found among more educated people, those leaning politically to the left, females, and younger individuals. Income does not have a significant effect on the global scale. However, and this is where our study offers new insights, the analyzed demographic and socio-economic factors have fundamentally different effects on prioritization within individual country samples. Especially in non-Western countries, the often-expected predictors for environmental support do not behave as anticipated. While our results cannot be interpreted as direct public support for post-growth systems change, they indicate that diverse groups of people, distinct across countries, support placing less emphasis on economic growth and more on the environment. Politicians and world leaders need to consider this when deciding on future political priorities.