International climate adaptation assistance: Assessing public support in Switzerland

PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0317344 February 12, 2025 2 / 26 PLOS ONE Support for adaptation assistance in Switzerland global climate adaptation assistance [12–14]. More specifically, we examine to what extent and in which ways domestic support for overseas climate adaptation among donor countries might depend on how citizens view the relationship of their own country with the country that will receive adaptation assistance. Thus, our paper provides a new direction to the study of climate politics by suggesting that while climate mitigation might be impeded by distri- butional implications, climate adaptation might be influenced by domestic perceptions of countries that receive adaptation support. Historically, climate policy research focused predominantly on mitigation [15]. This was probably motivated by the concern that a focus on adaptation might reduce incentives to invest in mitigation; a moral hazard problem [16]. Some noted that adaptation was a “taboo” in the climate discourse [17]. While adaptation has slowly begun to feature more in climate discussions, it is not clear how it might be financed. The United Nations Framework Con- vention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) recognizes that advanced industrialized countries bear substantial responsibility for climate mitigation due to their significant contribution to the accumulated stock of greenhouse gases (GHG). Importantly, “shared but differenti- ated responsibility” should hold for adaptation as well. Because climate change is already in

motion, Global North countries have a responsibility to support adaptation in Global South countries, which bear a disproportionate burden of climate change due to their high levels of exposure to climate risks along with meager resources to address them [18,19]. Thus, scholars note that climate adaptation has an important justice component [20]. The reality is that while Global North countries have made pledges at international forums to support climate adap- tation overseas, the actual appropriations have fallen short [21]. Moreover, it is not clear what counts as adaptation aid, and whether Global North countries are double counting develop- ment aid as adaptation aid [22]. Why are Global North countries showing inadequate commitment to overseas climate aid? In part, this might be due to its low policy salience or low public support among their citi- zens. Moreover, most governments, even in Global North countries, struggle with managing multiple priorities within a limited budget. While opinion polls suggest that a majority of the population in the Global North is worried about climate change and wants governments to take action it is less clear if they are willing to support spending that creates adaptation bene- fits overseas. This paper seeks to advance the understanding of factors driving domestic support for overseas adaptation aid [13,14]. While the foreign (development) aid literature explores public support in donor countries [23] and the implications for different ways of disbursing aid [24],

the subject of public support for climate adaptation aid remains relatively underexplored (exceptions include Gampfer et al. [25] and Uji et al. [26]). More specifically, we examine how international issue linkages and domestic politics might interplay to shape public support for bilateral climate adaptation aid. We build on Uji et al. [26], by asking survey respondents to choose between policy pack- ages that include different levels of two forms of adaptation assistance: adaptation finance and accepting climate migrants. While Uji et al. examined public support in Japan using a conjoint experiment, we modified their instrument to the Swiss context. This allows us to make several contributions. First, the replication of the methodology in another donor country expands the comparative understanding of the factors that shape public support for overseas adapta- tion assistance in the form of adaptation aid and acceptance of climate migrants, as well as the overall external validity of the results. Second, we replicate the methodology in a political context where immigration is a highly salient issue, namely Switzerland and Europe more broadly [27–29], while migration is not a highly salient issue in Japan [26]. Moreover, aid and migration politics seem to be closely linked in Europe. Unlike Japan, European countries have Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.