Who supports a (just) green transition? Eco-social divides and public opinion towards green and social policies in Europe

The European Green Deal has fuelled a political backlash against EU climate policies, strengthening Eurosceptic parties. This backlash reflects politically sensitive tensions inherent in the trade-offs between environmental protection, economic growth, and social inclusion. Against this backdrop, this paper asks: who feels threatened by the green transition? Do workers and occupational groups differ in their support for environmental and social policies? And does support increase when environmental sustainability is combined with social protection? We address these questions using original public opinion data collected at the University of Milan (Ferrera et al. 2022), which distinguish preferences across different types of policies: social protection and social investment, as well as green taxes, subsidies, and regulations. Our findings are threefold. First, we identify a widespread perception of socio-ecological risk linked to the unintended consequences of climate policies. Concerns about job losses associated with the green transition are highly salient across countries, particularly among lower- income and less-educated individuals, and among precarious segments of the labour market. Second, our analysis refines our understanding of eco-social divides in relation to specific policy types: social (protection) policies find broad support among vulnerable groups, whereas green taxes emerge as the least popular measure. Interestingly, however, some occupational groups — not only those better positioned in the labour market — show support for both social and environmental policies. Third, our results suggest that combining environmental and compensatory measures such as support for workers and wealth taxes can help broaden public backing for a just green transition, mitigating perceived trade-offs and distributional conflicts.