School is not enough: The role of climate-specific knowledge for transformative climate policy and economic system preferences

Despite risen awareness of human-made climate change, there are still gaps in knowledge about the precise nature and the impact of the climate crisis for many people. This paper investigates to what extent factual knowledge about climate change is linked to publics’ policy preferences regarding climate crisis measures. It expands on existing research by widening the focus beyond climate-specific policy and also investigates whether knowledge about the crisis is connected to preferences for greater state involvement in the economy structurally. Comparing representative survey results from eight European countries and the USA, this paper shows that climate-specific knowledge is indeed strongly linked to both—while greater formal education does not show strong associations or is even linked to a preference for the status quo in some countries. Important cross-country variations and the implications of emphasising climate specific knowledge in advocacy and policy contexts are discussed to demonstrate how enhancing public knowledge could increase support for transformative climate policies and broader economic change.