Climate knowledge matters: A causal analysis of knowledge and individual carbon emissions

In this paper, we investigate the causal link between individuals' objectively assessed knowledge of climate change and their personal carbon footprints. Using a novel survey of 780 participants, we comprehensively measure perceived and actual climate knowledge, as well as individual beliefs, intentions, and behaviors. We find that individuals tend to overestimate their climate knowledge, with those possessing lower actual knowledge exhibiting the highest overestimation. While simple correlations indicate a weak negative relationship between objective knowledge and carbon footprint, our instrumental variable approach reveals a substantially stronger causal effect: individuals with greater objectively assessed climate knowledge tend to exhibit significantly lower carbon footprints. This effect varies across footprint subcomponents, showing strong proportional reductions in transport-related emissions, moderate reductions in food-related emissions, and no discernible effect in housing, miscellaneous and digital consumption. Our results highlight the importance of addressing knowledge gaps as a pathway to enhancing climate action at the individual level. By using a refined knowledge scale and accounting for confounding variables, we provide robust evidence that increasing factual climate knowledge can meaningfully contribute to lowering carbon footprints - by up to 1 ton of CO₂-equivalent per year. These findings call for targeted educational interventions that go beyond raising awareness to actively improving public understanding of effective mitigation strategies.