Climate change beliefs, environmental policies support and the fossil fuels industry

Sammanfattning: This thesis aims to provide a contribution to the analysis of how relevant the presence of the fossil fuels industry is in shaping the attitudes toward climate change and environmental policies. This presence is studied in the form of coal plants at county-level and in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of 2010 in Louisiana, a state that largely relies on oil and gas extractive activities. Using a repeated cross-section analysis in the first approach and a Synthetic Control Method (SCM) in the second one I confirm and further explore the results of the previous literature: the more relevant the fossil fuels industry to the local economy the lower the share of people that believe that climate change is happening and that supports environmental policies. And the effect is larger and robust in rural areas. However, some green policies seem to be more acceptable than others among coal plant-communities. The closure of a local coal-fired generator does not seem to influence these same variables. While Louisiana has experienced an exponential growth in solar energy consumption after 2010 I find no causal relationship with the oil spill and many other states actually share the same path. These results are consistent with the theory that the presence of the fossil fuel industry is a determinant of climate change beliefs and of support for environmental policies.