Unequal Treatment, Fairness Perceptions, and Rural Opposition to Carbon Taxation

What is this research about and why did you do it?

Many economists and environmental campaigners believe that carbon taxes would be an effective and efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus mitigate climate change. Yet, support for carbon taxes among the public is low, especially in rural communities. This research aims to shed new light on why there is such strong opposition to carbon taxes in rural areas. We look beyond the direct costs borne by rural communities to explore the role of fairness considerations. Specifically, we focus on how rural communities’ perceptions of being unfairly disadvantaged by the state may dampen their support for carbon taxation.

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How did you answer this question?

We carried out an information-provision survey experiment with a representative sample of around 3,000 respondents from the United Kingdom. Respondents randomly assigned to receive the treatment were shown information about the highly geographically unequal distribution of public spending on transport (per person) in the UK, which is heavily skewed towards London, the country’s largest urban area. We then looked at how this information, which was aiming to shift respondents’ perceptions of unequal treatment by the state, affected fairness perceptions and support for carbon taxation of those living in both rural and non-rural areas.

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What did you find?

We find that rural respondents in the treatment group are more likely to believe that carbon taxes are unfair as the costs fall on those that have already been disadvantaged by the state. The treatment also lowers support for carbon taxes in rural areas by around 10 percentage points. In contrast, we do not find any statistically significant effects on carbon tax support in non-rural areas.

Treatment effect on carbon tax support. The figure shows the effect of the information provision treatment on support for carbon taxation and how this differs for rural and non-rural respondents. Thick inner bars denote 90% confidence intervals and thin outer bars denote 95% confidence intervals. ^∗∗∗ p < 0.01, ^∗∗p < 0.05, ^∗ p < 0.1.

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Our results have important policy implications. They suggest that compensating rural communities through revenue recycling schemes may not be sufficient to overcome their opposition to carbon taxes, and that tackling deep-rooted perceptions of unequal treatment in rural areas (e.g., by increasing public transport spending in rural areas) may be crucial for building broad public support for carbon taxation.

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What implications does this have for the study (research and teaching) of wealth concentration or economic inequality?

This study is part of a wider research agenda we have that looks to better understand how growing inequalities in society might be making it more difficult to address the challenge of climate change. In this study, we focus on the UK, where regional inequality has risen sharply in recent decades, with income and productivity growth becoming more concentrated in London and the surrounding areas. Our findings show that the perception that the government is reinforcing these inequalities in ways that increase the exposure of rural communities to carbon taxes has significantly bolstered rural opposition to taxing carbon.

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What are the next steps in your agenda?

We are currently designing a follow up survey experiment to continue our research into inequality perceptions and preferences for carbon taxation. We plan to explore the relationship between different types of perceived inequalities and preferences for carbon taxation—e.g., economic inequalities, generational inequalities, regional inequalities etc.

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Citation and related resources

Hope, D., Limberg, J., & Steinebach, Y. (2025). Unequal Treatment, Fairness Perceptions, and Rural Opposition to Carbon Taxation.

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