Own trade-off and synergy beliefs, not others’, drive public acceptance of energy technologies

Abstract The decarbonization of energy systems can create both synergies and trade-offs with societal goals such as biodiversity conservation and landscape protection. Although existing research has focused on objective and physical trade-offs, the politics around energy technologies like Alpine photovoltaics (PVs), wind energy, and nuclear energy are not least shaped by how trade-offs are perceived by the people (first-order beliefs about trade-offs), including how respondents believe others in society view them (second-order beliefs about trade-offs). However, these remain insufficiently understood. Here, we conduct a population-representative survey experiment among 1,899 Swiss residents. We find that most participants perceive biodiversity conservation and landscape protection to be synergetic rather than a null-sum trade-off. Furthermore, most participants underestimate others’ preferences for emission reductions over landscape protection. Rural residents—who typically report lower trust in science and are more conservative—are more likely to expect that others favor landscape protection over emission reductions, even though 62% of Swiss residents prefer emission reductions. Strikingly, our survey experiment showing respondents information about the true societal preferences reveals that people are reluctant to revise their own preferences when seeing information about others’ trade-off preferences (social influence) or their acceptance of energy projects, like Alpine PV, wind parks, sustaining nuclear stations, and new nuclear power plants. Non-experimental results show that people’s own trade-off beliefs and perceptions of synergies with landscape protection and biodiversity conservation are more important for energy technology acceptance than second-order beliefs about how others in society view these trade-offs. Thus, people are unlikely to give way to peer pressure. This suggests that political debates may strategically emphasize trade-offs to advance particular agendas. Where renewable energy preferences are polarized, or political awareness is high, as in Switzerland, preferences may remain stable even when individuals learn that others hold different views.