Fuel rationing could work for climate—if designed right, study finds
A new taxonomy shows that fuel rationing policies can be perceived as fair or unfair depending entirely on how they're structured. The finding matters to policymakers weighing drastic climate measures: perceived fairness determines whether the public will accept or reject them.
Originaltitel: Designing fair climate policies: a taxonomy and its application to fuel rationing
This article explores whether rationing of transportation fuel for climate mitigation could be designed to be perceived as fair. To do so, it reviews literature on rationing policies to derive four key design elements for a rationing system and then examines four unfairness objections people frequently raise against climate policies. By theorising how a fuel rationing system can be designed to mitigate common unfairness objections against climate policies, it is concluded that the perceived fairness of rationing is strongly conditioned by its specific design, and that fuel rationing can neither be portrayed as intrinsically fair nor unfair. This points to a greater need for research on the instrument and to tackle the issue of perceived unfairness of climate policies through new approaches. The article concludes by presenting avenues for future research on rationing as a climate policy instrument and on fairness preferences in the context of climate policy.