In order to enact mitigation policies needed to avoid the most devastating impacts of the climate crisis, the collaboration of political parties that have previously not been supportive of climate policy is necessary. However, sudden support for progressive climate policy creates inconsistency in the behaviour of those parties, which past research has found diminishes trust in the inconsistent actors and fosters disapproval of their actions. Here, we thus examine to what extent people support progressive policies proposed by political parties that have previously not supported climate action.


To address this question, we conduct multiple survey-embedded vignette experiments on a convenience sample of EU citizens, as well as on representative samples in Slovenia and the Netherlands (total N = 3,020). In the experiments, we vary whether a fictional party proposing a progressive climate policy has previously supported climate action (consistent) or not (inconsistent). Then, we measure support for the policy package, trust in the political party, multiple policy package perceptions, and individual political/climate attitudes.


We find that inconsistency does not directly lower policy support. Rather, it diminishes the trust people have in the inconsistent political party, which in turn decreases policy support. This effect persists across groups of people with different political ideologies, policy perceptions, and climate attitudes. Our results suggest that sudden shifts towards enacting climate policies may not be as detrimental as past research suggests if the inconsistent parties are able to restore citizens' trust.