PCLM-D-25-00225

Policy goal communication increases support for ambitious renewable energy policies

PLOS Climate

Dear Dr. Brückmann,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Climate. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Valerio Lembo

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

Journal Requirements:

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The article examines how the communication of policy goals influences public support for renewable energy policies, using Switzerland as a case study but with clear international relevance. It is very interesting and deserves publication given the urgency of the issues it tackles and the valuable insights it provides. Some sections are somewhat repetitive, and I suggest making the text more concise to improve readability and flow.

Specific comments

1-The introduction and theoretical background are solid but at times repetitive. A more concise synthesis of these two sections, with emphasis on the two hypotheses, would improve readability. In the section on Theoretical Expectations, it would be clearer to present each hypothesis first, followed by the related discussion.

2- The methods section could be made more concise. The survey should be presented in a more direct and accessible way, with clearer wording of the questions. Finally, it would be useful to discuss whether the questions were easily understandable to all invited recipients, as this aspect may have affected survey participation.

3) Results. It would also be helpful to report in the section Results whether differences by gender, age, and income influenced the findings, as these factors may shape policy support.

Reviewer #2: This article studies the role of goal communication in supporting renewable energy policies using a large-n survey conducted in Switzerland. The authors’ arguments are well supported, and the research framework is grounded. Their findings highlight that when citizens are told what the policy is expected to accomplish they are more likely to support more ambitious policy options in the context of renewable energies. This study is a good contribution to the journal; I think that clarity could be improved, and discussion be slightly further elaborated.

I am not a specialist in policy communication, and at times I found it difficult to navigate some of the terminology—particularly where terms are used interchangeably (e.g. no goal or control, in figures it is 'no goal' while in tables it is 'control'). Please ensure that the terminology is used consistently throughout the manuscript for clarity.

The authors already note that renewable energy is a relatively uncontested domain and acknowledge that the role of goals may be more ambiguous in other policy areas. Other climate policies—like carbon taxes, fossil fuel bans, or even geoengineering—tend to be much more controversial. The authors mention this briefly, but I think it should be described more clearly as a limitation and possible future research, since their results might not apply in those more politically controversial situations. I would appreciate further discussion on this issue, especially as these controversial policies are likely to become increasingly important in future climate governance.

I would also be interested to hear why the authors think they did not find a “backfire effect” when goals were very ambitious, while others have reported such effect.

The results are framed around two hypothesis being made at the beginning; why are not the authors using the same framing in the discussion and conclusions section, at least mention them? This would further increase clarity.

The authors already provide implications for policymakers; perhaps they could expand slightly on how these insights might translate to other policy domains or governance contexts beyond renewable energy.

Out of curiosity: given that public climate goals can later serve as legal or moral benchmarks, as seen recently in climate law, could respondents’ awareness of this have influenced their answers? Some might avoid supporting very ambitious goals if they think unmet promises could later lead to criticism or political conflict.

The supplementary material is quite extensive; a brief guide or clearer structure could make it easier to navigate.

Typo in Figure 9 (Decicions).

In general: figure numbers and labels (specially figs 8 and 9) are not very visible. Please increase fontsize.

Reviewer #3: The paper studies whether how policy goals are communicated affects public support for ambitious renewable-energy policy mixes. Using a large Swiss survey (n = 5,655; Aug–Oct 2022) with a randomized vignette experiment, the authors vary (i) whether goal information is embedded alongside each policy mix or not communicated, and (ii) the ambition of the goal. They also provide mismatch feedback and observe whether respondents revise policies or goals.

The paper is well written, interesting and policy relevant. In my opinion it has potential for publication after having addressed the following comments.

1) First result: why do effects concentrate in the High-goal group? Your conclusion states that communicating policy goals—specifically, including information about the objectives a policy can likely achieve—raises support for ambitious packages. Figure 8 shows this is true for the High-goal condition: within High goal, Policy+Goal is significantly higher than Goal Assigned and No Goal. By contrast, differences are not significant for Low/Medium, where medium options already suffice. Please (i) explain why this is the case and why the low and medium goals do not have the same pattern, and (ii) report percentage-point differences with 95% CIs between treatments to complement χ² and p-values.

2) Second result: From Fig. 9 there are no significant differences between Goal Assigned and Goal Selected in how people react after feedback. Please say this in the text. Also, in the sentence “The number of those who chose to alter the policy was significantly higher than the group who changed the goal (p = 0.682)”, it is not clear to me what is the 0.682. Also highlight that goal-reductions are more likely when the initially assigned goal is high (bring the SI result into the main text). Finally, consider reporting the net pp change in policy ambition after feedback and the share ending up aligned with their goal.

3) Market-based vs. regulatory policy mixes: You present six mixes that differ in emphasis (e.g., “emphasis on incentives” vs. “emphasis on regulation”), but you do not analyze whether treatments shifted which type respondents chose. Please clarify whether there are no meaningful treatment effects on policy type, or add a short analysis to justify why these distinctions are included but not discussed.

4) “None” option: Because some respondents reject all mixes, please report treatment effects on (i) choosing any policy vs. none and (ii) conditional on choosing any policy—pieces of this exist in the SI; elevate to the main text to separate general policy aversion from ambition differences.

5) Show the six mixes in a compact table and summarize their modeled effects.

6) The paper speaks to the climate policy credibility literature (e.g., Sitarz et al., 2024; Campiglio et al., 2024). Clarify how your results relate to this literature, what do they say about credibility? You briefly mention that your results do not support the backfiring effect of too ambitious policies. However, I suggest you to connect more to that literature and show better how many respondents degraded the ambition of their goal.

Minor comments:

1) Use “Policy+Goal” consistently (no space).

2) Fix small errors, e.g., “agreed up” → “agreed upon” (Abstract), “inital” → “initial” (Fig. captions),

3) p. 10: “In sum, the the three-step…” → “In sum, the three-step…”

References

Campiglio, Emanuele, Francesco Lamperti, and Roberta Terranova. "Believe me when I say green! Heterogeneous expectations and climate policy uncertainty." Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 165 (2024): 104900.

Sitarz, Joanna, et al. "EU carbon prices signal high policy credibility and farsighted actors." Nature Energy 9.6 (2024): 691-702.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Comments.docx

Policy goal communication increases support for ambitious renewable energy policies

PCLM-D-25-00225R1

Dear Dr. Brückmann,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Policy goal communication increases support for ambitious renewable energy policies' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Climate.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow-up email from a member of our team.

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

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Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Climate.

Best regards,

Valerio Lembo

Academic Editor

PLOS Climate

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #3: All comments have been addressed

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2. Does this manuscript meet PLOS Climate’s publication criteria? Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe methodologically and ethically rigorous research with conclusions that are appropriately drawn based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available (please refer to the Data Availability Statement at the start of the manuscript PDF file)?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception. The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS Climate does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: My comments have been addressed.

Reviewer #3: I am satisfied with the changes made as they address all my previous concerns.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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