The impact of political attitudes on statewide carbon dioxide emissions

Increasing knowledge about climate change, and concern about its expected impacts, cause behavioral changes in individuals. This paper finds that in the US, these individual choices made as consumers and as voters do have a measurable aggregate impact on the total carbon dioxide emitted from fossil fuel consumption. This effect is measured using a two-way fixed effects econometric model. The magnitude of this impact is increasing over the years, but is not as great as the impact of changes in the prices of carbon-intense fossil fuels.