# **I Introduction**

The costs and consequences of climate change are enormous and multifaceted (Carleton and Hsiang, 2016; Graff Zivin and Neidell, 2013; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2022; Isen, RossinSlater and Walker, 2017; Park, Behrer and Goodman, 2021), with monetized impacts estimated to be as large as 20% of annual global GDP within a generation (Nordhaus, 2007). On current trajectories, the world is on track to experience 2.7°C warming above pre-industrial levels within the next century, far above the global goal of 1.5°C (Climate Action Tracker, 2022). Individual behavior change and government policy are needed to dramatically alter the trajectory of emissions. Despite the urgency and scale of the challenge, current efforts are underwhelming, in part because sizable populations around the globe remain skeptical about climate change and policies to tackle it (Bechtel, Scheve and van Lieshout, 2020; Dechezleprˆetre et al., 2022; Sunstein et al., 2017). Surprisingly little is known about how to overcome such resistance. One promising approach is the accumulation of human capital through increased educational attainment.<sup>1</sup> More educated individuals may be better equipped to understand the complexities of climate science and have more awareness of the risks of climate change. Descriptive correlations suggests this might be true: a global survey found people with more education were more likely to see climate change as a major threat (Pew Research Center, 2019). More education might also yield transferable skills across occupations, encouraging voting for policies which promote less-polluting industries, such as renewable energy subsidies. Yet determining the causal effect of human capital accumulation on pro-climate beliefs and behaviors is challenging. People who choose to pursue more education are, by revealed preference, forward looking and thus more concerned with the future consequences of climate change. It might not be education that is causing pro-climate beliefs and actions, but rather time preferences. Reverse causality is another challenge: individuals who believe in climate change might choose to pursue more education to better adapt to a changing world.

In this paper, we overcome causal inference challenges by assembling a new database on compulsory schooling laws (CSLs) to estimate the causal effect of human capital accumulation on a series of climate outcomes in Europe. The use of CSLs as a plausibly exogenous shift in educational attainment has a rich tradition in labor and health economics (Angrist and Krueger, 1991; Black, Devereux and Salvanes, 2008; Brunello, Fort and Weber, 2009; Gathmann, J ̈urges and Reinhold, 2015; Goldin and Katz, 1997; Lleras-Muney, 2005; Oreopoulos, 2006), but is much more limited on climate.<sup>2</sup> Moreover, due to data limitations, studies have been largely limited to single countries. We build on this nascent climate literature leveraging 39 CSL reforms in 16 countries, identified via a new reforms database and data-driven definition of CSLs that lead to meaningful educational improvements. In addition, studies to date analyze limited outcomes. We study new climate outcomes which extend well beyond standard measures of beliefs and behaviors, also examining the highly consequential domains of policy preferences and voting.

> 1Human capital captures an individual’s knowledge and skills (Becker, 1962) and is typically measured by education metrics including years of schooling (Barro, 2001) and learning (Angrist et al., 2021).

> 2A small set of studies explore environmental outcomes (Meyer, 2015; Powdthavee, 2021).

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