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Support for carbon taxes isn鈥檛 linked to a nation鈥檚 belief in climate change 鈥� instead, it may depend on how much people in a country trust their government.

Malcolm Fairbrother at Ume氓 University in Sweden and his colleagues used data from the 2016 European Social Survey to study the opinions of people in 23 countries.

The data was based on face-to-face interviews conducted on more than 40,000 Europeans. The researchers analysed the participants鈥� responses about their views of their governments, climate change and whether they believed carbon taxes should be increased to help reduce CO2 emissions.

The results threw up examples of when these elements don鈥檛 align. For example, Sweden had the highest levels of support for carbon tax increases but didn鈥檛 consider climate change to be as serious as most of the other countries studied.

On the other end of the scale, Spain and France had very little climate change scepticism but low support for increasing carbon taxes, perhaps because they had far less trust in their governments.

The fuel tax protests that gripped Paris last year may point to a need to change tactics when governments propose such price hikes.

鈥淎 government which wants to increase fossil fuel taxes must ensure its people trust their money is being used in an effective way鈥� says Fairbrother. 聽He also argues that focusing on climate change scepticism isn鈥檛 important. Instead, governments should maximise transparency as to where the money is going, perhaps by spending it on visible infrastructure such as renewable energy plants.

Fairbrother also points to the revenue-neutral carbon tax recently introduced in Canada, which provides rebates for citizens, Such a tax highlights the stance the government is taking on fossil fuels, while also ensuring the government can鈥檛 be accused of using the environment as an excuse for a cash grab.

Rick Van Der Ploeg at the University of Oxford says the conclusions of the study are too simplistic, as there could be a whole host of other reasons why certain countries support increasing carbon taxes over others, such as being heavily reliant on fossil fuels for its jobs market. 鈥淚鈥檓 not convinced at all,鈥� he says. Still, he agrees that for carbon taxes to work, citizens who lose out must be compensated.