Marta Antunes, Agathe Blanquet, Michael Gillesberger, Cosimo Zatti and Xinpei Zhou – a team of students from Sciences Po – took part at the first EIB Climate Survey hackathon and explored the link between media environments and public support for green investment in Europe. In their research, titled Media environment and climate knowledge as drivers of public support for green investment in Europe, they examine how independent and diverse media, combined with citizens’ ability to identify misinformation, influence climate knowledge and willingness to fund climate action. Drawing on the EIB Climate Survey and external European indices, the team presents evidence that better-informed societies are more likely to back ambitious climate policies.
Could you summarise the focus of your research? What was the main question your team set out to answer?
We studied how the quality of information people receive in their country influences their understanding of climate change and, in turn, their willingness to financially support large green investments in Europe. Our main goal was to see if having better media – meaning more independent and diverse news (pluralism) and citizens better able to spot fake information (media literacy) – leads to greater public support for climate action.
Could you tell us which non-EIB datasets you used, and which questions from the EIB Climate Survey were most important for your findings?
External Databases: We used specialised European indices that measure the quality of media environments across countries: the Media Pluralism Index (MPI) and the Media Literacy Index (MLI). We also included standard economic and educational indicators – GDP per capita and tertiary education rates – from Eurostat.
EIB Survey Questions: We created two main measurements from the 2023 EIB survey data. The first was the Climate Knowledge Index (CKI), which assesses knowledge based on 12 factual questions (Q2 to Q13) about the causes, consequences, and solutions for climate change. The second was the Support for Climate Investment Index (SCI), which measures respondents’ willingness to financially support climate measures, using questions that gauge support for public spending or taxation (Q1r4, Q1r10, Q14i, Q17, Q18, Q20).
If you had just 30 seconds to speak to a decision-maker or journalist, what key insights about public support for climate action would you want them to understand?
1. Knowledge is a crucial driver of support for green investment: We found that the more people know about climate change, the stronger their willingness is to fund necessary climate policies. For instance, a notable improvement on our knowledge index—moving from 40% to 60% correct answers—corresponds to an estimated four-percentage-point increase in support for climate investment.
2. A better information environment creates more knowledgeable citizens: There is evidence suggesting that countries with higher media literacy (the ability to critically judge information) and more diverse media outlets have citizens who generally score higher on climate knowledge. This means that education and fighting misinformation are key foundations for building public backing.