Individuals can contribute to mitigating climate change by reducing their personal carbon footprint, financially supporting mitigation efforts, or endorsing climate policies such as carbon taxes. However, action in each of these domains is often limited by misperceptions about the carbon footprint of everyday activities, misunderstandings of climate policy design, and underestimation of the consequences of climate change. Although information interventions aimed at correcting such misperceptions have been studied, there is no systematic comparison of how different types of interventions operate and how effective they are in promoting climate action.

In this study, we examine three comparable information interventions designed to improve climate-related literacy and correct misperceptions in three domains. Participants either received information about (i) the causes and consequences of climate change, (ii) the greenhouse gas emissions associated with five everyday activities (flying, car travel, consumption of chicken or pork, and electricity use), or (iii) the design and functioning of carbon tax policies. We evaluated the effects of these interventions using a nationally representative survey (n = 3,400).

We find that providing information on the carbon footprint of everyday activities increases willingness to mitigate climate change (+6% compared to the control group) and it increases the willingness to reduce travel- and energy-related activities, although it has no significant effect on diet-related actions. Clarifying the design of carbon tax policies significantly increases support for carbon taxation, while information about the causes and consequences of climate change does not have a significant effect.

We further examine heterogeneity in treatment effects by respondents’ climate literacy. To do so, we develop a novel three-dimensional climate literacy scale capturing (i) understanding of climate change, (ii) knowledge of climate policies, and (iii) understanding of the carbon footprint of everyday activities. Overall, our study provides insights of how the policymakers could tailor the information interventions to achieve behavioural change in a desired domain.