Group 07
Generational Views on Climate Change and How They Affect Action to Combat It
Dear Group 7,
Thank you for your thoughtful work on generational differences in climate attitudes and actions. You’ve connected the topic well to intertemporal discounting, intergenerational externalities, and behavioral economics. The project has strong potential, especially if you narrow your focus to a few key dimensions and link observed differences more explicitly to economic concepts like discounting, present bias, and perceptions of long-term risk.
Your task is to develop a clear environmental economics narrative using existing literature and descriptive patterns from prior studies.
Next Steps
Sharpen your central research question
Focus on one or two key dimensions, such as:- Perceived seriousness of climate change by generation
- Support for specific mitigation policies across age groups
- Willingness to accept near-term costs for long-term climate benefits
Rely on existing survey and panel evidence (no new data analysis required)
Use existing empirical work and survey summaries (e.g., Pew, other reputable surveys) to illustrate generational differences. You can borrow simple tables or figures and briefly explain what they show in your slides to motivate your research question.Consider citing key research on generational gaps in climate beliefs
- “Generational differences in climate-related beliefs, risk perceptions and emotions in the UK” (Communications Earth & Environment, 2023)
- “Ten-year panel data confirm generation gap but climate beliefs increase at similar rates across ages” (Nature Communications, 2021)
- “OK Boomer: A decade of generational differences in feelings about climate change” (Global Environmental Change, 2022)
From these papers (and related reports), you may include one or two visualizations and/or descriptive statistics in your slides (e.g., graphs of concern by age cohort) to motivate your environmental economics framing.
- “Generational differences in climate-related beliefs, risk perceptions and emotions in the UK” (Communications Earth & Environment, 2023)
Translate generational differences into an economics framework
- Interpret differences in concern or policy support as reflecting different effective discount rates, present bias, or perceptions of long-run risk.
- Connect these to intergenerational externalities and justice: who bears climate damages vs. who decides current policies?
Write a short “Policy Implications” section
Summarize how generational differences in preferences and discounting might:- Influence which policies are politically feasible
- Shape communication strategies (e.g., emphasizing co-benefits for older voters vs. long-run risk for younger voters)
- Affect coalition-building across age groups
- Influence which policies are politically feasible
Questions to Think About as You Refine Your Final Proposal
You do not need to answer all of these, but they may help you clarify your narrative and policy recommendations.
1️⃣ Perceptions vs. Actions
- Do younger generations actually behave differently (consumption, travel, voting, activism) than older generations, or are the differences mainly in attitudes and rhetoric?
- What kinds of evidence would you need (from existing studies) to convincingly separate “talk” from “action”? For example, differences in voting records, protest participation, or consumption patterns by age group.
2️⃣ Intergenerational Coalitions and Political Power
- What kinds of intergenerational coalitions would be needed to move from awareness to meaningful climate policy (e.g., youth movements plus older voters with high turnout)?
- What might each age group contribute?
- Younger cohorts: mobilization, innovation, long time horizon
- Older cohorts: political power, financial resources, institutional knowledge
- How might environmental economics help you reason about who pays and who benefits across generations?
3️⃣ Framing and Narrative
- Does framing climate change primarily as a “youth issue” help mobilize action, or does it risk letting older decision-makers off the hook?
- How might different framings affect political support for long-term climate policies?
- Youth rights / intergenerational justice
- Shared stewardship and common responsibility
- Co-benefits (health, jobs, energy security) that matter to all age groups
4️⃣ Policy Design and Discounting
- If younger cohorts show lower implicit discount rates (more weight on the future) than older cohorts, how should that influence:
- The design of climate policies (carbon pricing, green investment, adaptation)?
- The timing of costs and benefits emphasized in communication?
- Are there policies that can align incentives across generations, such as:
- Using current revenues (e.g., from carbon pricing) to fund visible near-term co-benefits
- Intergenerational transfers or climate funds that formally recognize future generations’ interests?
Best,
Byeong-Hak