Firstly, it is important to mention that the level of support for each one of the policies analysed is quite different: while only a third of those surveyed give active support to the measure of banning cars that emit CO2 by 2029, in the case of the water measure the support rate is multiplied by two, reaching two thirds. One initial conclusion, therefore, is that the support of citizens for measures against climate change depends significantly on the type of measure proposed, independently of whether they directly affect the person asked or not.

Apart from this first consideration of the impact of the type of measure on the support that citizens would lend, analysis of the five factors highlights some interesting elements regarding designing effective public policies.


Specifically, the data show that:
In fact, the most important factor is people’s perception of the measure’s effectiveness: the higher its perceived effectiveness, the higher the active support that it receives.
Although this effect is even higher when citizens do not feel directly affected by the measure, the analysis suggests that, even in cases where the measure brings with it an important change in habits, the effectiveness logic is maintained: the more probable it is, according to citizens’ perceptions, that the measure will effectively achieve the goals it pursues (for example, reducing CO2 emissions or water consumption), the higher the support for the initiative.
Thus, the more responsible a person feels and the more compelled to take action against climate change, the greater the support that person gives to policies geared towards fighting it. This effect is small in the two measures analysed, whether people are affected directly by the measure or not.
As we would expect, people who feel more capable of changing their habits – with the aim of complying with the demands derived from a specific policy measure – accredit a higher degree of support for the measure although, in this case, only for the measure relating to banning cars that emit CO2 by 2029. This effect is not detected for the measure relating to water.
One possible explanation for this divergence could be that the measure relating to water aims to adjust a behaviour (in this case, the pattern of water consumption of Spaniards) to a future situation (scarcity of water resources as a consequence of climate change). These policies of adjustment or adaptation are viewed, generally, to be the responsibility of government authorities, which should adapt the country’s infrastructures to the new situation, a process in which citizens would be involved only passively. The result of this view is that it minimises the role that personal effectiveness plays in people’s opinion when it comes to deciding whether or not to give support to the initiative.
Contrarily, people’s resistance to any kind of change has no effect on the degree of support that they show for the measure relating to water. This result could be explained by the fact that adaptation policies, as we have seen in the previous section, are associated in general with weaker efforts on an individual scale. In addition, the measure analysed in this case is based on the use of incentives; thus, a “prize” (discount on the water bill), compensates the individual effort that is represented by reducing its consumption.
In contrast, with regard to the measure relating to cars, the people who are most resistant to any kind of change are slightly more likely to give it support. This surprising result could be explained because people perceive a certain compensation between the current demand of a small change (not using the polluting car), against the future demand of greater changes, deriving from the severe impacts of climate change in Spain.
In contrast with what we could expect, the distance with which people perceive the effects of climate change does not have a direct effect on the degree of support for the measure relating to polluting vehicles, and only a slightly negative effect on the measure relating to water consumption (in other words, people who do not believe in the pernicious effects of climate change or that, despite accepting them, think they will not be affected personally by them, give slightly lower support to the water measure).
The distance with which people perceive the negative effects of climate change affects two further factors: the perceived effectiveness of the measures and the perceived degree of individual responsibility for taking action against climate change. Thus, the more distant the effects of climate change are seen to be, the lower the perceived effectiveness of the measures and the lower, too, the feeling of individual responsibility.
In short, although the direct effect of the distance with which the negative effects of climate change are perceived is negligible or low, there are two indirect effects that intervene in the equation: the perceived effectiveness of the measure and personal responsibility with regard to climate change. Thus, the global causative effect of this factor in the degree of support for the measures is considerable and its importance cannot be denied.