Global warming expectations of German firm representatives are overly optimistic, uncertain, and easily influenced
Abstract What expectations do firm representatives hold regarding future climate change, and how certain are they in their expectations? We analyze German firm representatives’ expectations and effects of the firms’ policy affectedness and engagement, and firm representatives’ knowledge using an inf...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Nature Portfolio
2025-04-01
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| Series: | npj Climate Action |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-025-00244-3 |
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| _version_ | 1850181563236483072 |
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| author | Dominik Schober Claudia Schmiedeberg |
| author_facet | Dominik Schober Claudia Schmiedeberg |
| author_sort | Dominik Schober |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract What expectations do firm representatives hold regarding future climate change, and how certain are they in their expectations? We analyze German firm representatives’ expectations and effects of the firms’ policy affectedness and engagement, and firm representatives’ knowledge using an information treatment experiment. We find modest economic sector differences and a positive association of engagement (i.e., energy and emission metering and reduction target setting) with expected global warming. The information treatment increases the global warming expectations in the optimistic (low warming) scenarios and decreases expectations in the pessimistic (high warming) scenarios. Moreover, representatives from less engaged firms appear rather uncertain and overly optimistic and tend to be pushed upwards in their expectations by the information treatment, while a downward shift is observed among the more engaged firms. Our results imply that the majority of respondents have a high degree of uncertainty and limited knowledge regarding climate change and appear easily influenceable. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-623dccddd0e54071924c9f3ecc04f34c |
| institution | OA Journals |
| issn | 2731-9814 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-04-01 |
| publisher | Nature Portfolio |
| record_format | Article |
| series | npj Climate Action |
| spelling | doaj-art-623dccddd0e54071924c9f3ecc04f34c2025-08-20T02:17:52ZengNature Portfolionpj Climate Action2731-98142025-04-014111010.1038/s44168-025-00244-3Global warming expectations of German firm representatives are overly optimistic, uncertain, and easily influencedDominik Schober0Claudia Schmiedeberg1Deutsche Bundesbank, Frankfurt/MainDepartment of Sociology, LMU MünchenAbstract What expectations do firm representatives hold regarding future climate change, and how certain are they in their expectations? We analyze German firm representatives’ expectations and effects of the firms’ policy affectedness and engagement, and firm representatives’ knowledge using an information treatment experiment. We find modest economic sector differences and a positive association of engagement (i.e., energy and emission metering and reduction target setting) with expected global warming. The information treatment increases the global warming expectations in the optimistic (low warming) scenarios and decreases expectations in the pessimistic (high warming) scenarios. Moreover, representatives from less engaged firms appear rather uncertain and overly optimistic and tend to be pushed upwards in their expectations by the information treatment, while a downward shift is observed among the more engaged firms. Our results imply that the majority of respondents have a high degree of uncertainty and limited knowledge regarding climate change and appear easily influenceable.https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-025-00244-3 |
| spellingShingle | Dominik Schober Claudia Schmiedeberg Global warming expectations of German firm representatives are overly optimistic, uncertain, and easily influenced npj Climate Action |
| title | Global warming expectations of German firm representatives are overly optimistic, uncertain, and easily influenced |
| title_full | Global warming expectations of German firm representatives are overly optimistic, uncertain, and easily influenced |
| title_fullStr | Global warming expectations of German firm representatives are overly optimistic, uncertain, and easily influenced |
| title_full_unstemmed | Global warming expectations of German firm representatives are overly optimistic, uncertain, and easily influenced |
| title_short | Global warming expectations of German firm representatives are overly optimistic, uncertain, and easily influenced |
| title_sort | global warming expectations of german firm representatives are overly optimistic uncertain and easily influenced |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-025-00244-3 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT dominikschober globalwarmingexpectationsofgermanfirmrepresentativesareoverlyoptimisticuncertainandeasilyinfluenced AT claudiaschmiedeberg globalwarmingexpectationsofgermanfirmrepresentativesareoverlyoptimisticuncertainandeasilyinfluenced |