Abstract

Understanding public responses to environmental policies can"br/"help in achieving a move towards more renewable energy. Focusing on two"br/"types of public responses to a policy, namely public acceptance and"br/"public support, this study utilizes a survey of car owners (N=1,422) to"br/"explore public responses to an environmental transport policy in Sweden."br/"The results demonstrate higher levels of public acceptance than support"br/"for the policy and that adopters of Alternative Fuel Vehicles (AFVs) are"br/"more prone to accept and support the policy by expressing higher"br/"intentions for continuous AFV adoption. Results of regression analyses"br/"show that policy acceptance can be explained by environmental beliefs and"br/"previous experience with AFVs. In addition, public support is also"br/"explained by public acceptance, even when controlling for other factors,"br/"which lends support to the deduction that policy acceptance can be"br/"theorized as antecedent to policy support. This study emphasizes the"br/"importance of understanding different types of public responses to an"br/"energy policy in order to recognize drivers for, and barriers against,"br/"successfully implementing a policy and communicating it with the public.