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Citizens of the world on the same wavelength
Would governments that adopt measures to combat poverty and climate change have the support of the population? “Since international disagreements on how to share the burden are generally seen as obstacles to worldwide cooperation on these goals, few social science studies have considered public opinion on these topics,” reports Adrien Fabre, a researcher at the CIRED1. “However, in an initial series of surveys conducted in 2021 covering more than 40,000 people in 20 countries, we found overwhelming support (82% in high-income nations) for a global tax on millionaires to fund low-income countries.”
“We first asked the panel members for their opinions on certain political actions, described in detail to ensure that they were clearly understood,” Fabre says. The respondents were asked to express a position on a number of measures, including:
– “An international carbon emission trading scheme, in which countries that emit more than their national share would pay a contribution to those that release less than their credit;
– “A tax on all millionaires around the world to support low-income countries that meet international standards for climate action. This tax would be used to finance infrastructure and public service projects like access to clean drinking water, healthcare and education;
– “A democratic world assembly whose role would be to draft international treaties to combat climate change, with every adult in the world having one vote to elect the members of the assembly.”
Better redistribution among countries
To verify the sincerity of this support for global redistribution of wealth and to understand its motivations, Fabre and his team conducted additional surveys covering 8,000 people in the United States and four European countries (France, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom). Their findings were recently published2. The representativeness of the respondents was ensured by criteria such as gender, income, age, education level and degree of urbanisation.
This second study confirms the support for more international redistribution. For example, when asked how to allocate the proceeds of a global millionaire tax, the median respondent prefers to assign 30% to low-income countries and 70% to those that collect the tax, to be used to fund education and health programmes.
Other data from the inquiry confirms that most people are ready to take action against climate change and world poverty. For instance, more than 60% of the respondents want to increase development aid to Southern Hemisphere countries, to compensate for the damage caused by global warming, help them adapt to climate change, or fund renewable energy sources.
Support in rich countries despite the cost
The authors also described a “Global Climate Plan” consisting of a worldwide carbon price to finance a transfer of €30 per month for every person on Earth, with a view to reducing extreme poverty3. They explained to the respondents that spending increases (due to higher fossil fuel prices) would only be partially offset by this monetary transfer, and informed them of the cost to the average person in their country (e.g., a loss of €10 per month in France and $85 per month in the United States). Even with a clear understanding of the costs involved, this measure was supported by 54% of Americans and 76% of Europeans.
Only two measures attracted little enthusiasm: the “cancellation of public debt in low-income countries” and a “wealth cap”, the latter policy receiving majority support (excluding “no opinion” responses) in Europe but not in the United States.
Of course, there can be a considerable gap between declarations of good intentions and what individuals are actually willing to do to save the planet or eradicate poverty. “Still, the various methods that we combined made it possible to assess the sincerity of this support,” Fabre explains. “For example, a list experiment (which indicates whether people are hiding their real attitudes due to a social norm effect), a petition sent to the government (to make the respondents feel that they can have a real influence) and conjoint analyses.”
In conjoint analysis, the researchers propose two political programmes in which they conceal the measures they want to test, so that the respondents cannot know which items are of particular interest. They then observe the effect of the presence or absence of one of these measures on adherence to the programmes. Generally speaking, all the methods seemed to indicate that the support was quite or totally sincere.
Redistribution measures increase support for a given programme
Using the conjoint analyses method, the scientists even determined that including global redistribution policies can increase approval for a given programme. For example, they presented two groups with hypothetical schemes, one progressive and one conservative. The only difference between them was that the former incorporated the Global Climate Plan, but not the latter. The results showed that a progressive candidate supporting the Plan would not lose a significant number of votes in any country, and could even gain 11% of the voting intentions in France.
It is not possible to list here all the responses from the various countries to the many proposals tested. But the study shows that it is possible, using a neutral survey (69% of the respondents considered it to be politically unbiased), to identify expectations on these sensitive subjects and, perhaps, to facilitate public decision-making.
To cite one telling example, when asked at what level(s) should public policies to fight climate change be implemented, 85% of those surveyed choose the worldwide scale, with the local level receiving the least support.
Proposals from the African Union, India, Brazil...
At the end of the survey, the respondents were asked to rate randomly-selected policies on a scale of 0 to 100 according to how much they personally support each one. In every country, the Global Climate Plan ranked in the middle or higher than the other policies, with average ratings ranging from 15.4 in the United States to 22.9 in Germany. The global millionaire tax featured in the top five most popular measures in every country.
“In recent years, various innovative solutions for funding sustainable development have been put forward at the international level,” Fabre points out. The African Union has called for a global carbon tax, while India has requested increased funding from developed countries for action on climate change. At the G20 Summit, Brazil proposed the coordinated taxation of billionaires to fund anti-poverty programmes. How then can the relative absence of global policies in the public debate be explained? According to the authors of the study, “The decision-makers are no doubt unaware of their fellow citizens’ support for universalist values.”
For further reading
- 1. Centre International de Recherche sur l’Environnement et le Développement (CNRS / AgroParisTech-Paris Saclay / CIRAD / École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées).
- 2. A. Fabre, T. Douenne, L. Mattauch, “Majority support for global redistributive and climate policies,” Nature Human Behaviour 9, 1583–1594 (2025): doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02175-9.
- 3. The “Global Climate Plan” (a proposed international climate policy submitted to the survey respondents) would implement a worldwide trading system for carbon emission quotas. Emission allowances would be auctioned annually, with the proceeds used to fund a global basic income. Based on the price and emissions trajectories of the Stern & Stiglitz report (2017), and given a price of €90 per tonne of CO2 in 2030, the authors of the study estimate that the basic income would amount to €30 per month for each person over the age of 15.
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