Papers

Climate change is a worldwide problem that requires an individual as well as a coordinated solution. The EU, as a supra-national institution, can play a crucial role in tackling the causes and consequences of the climate crisis. We take advantage of the “More in 24” campaign, which aims to educate young voters about the EU and make institutional language more accessible, fun, and engaging, as well as raising awareness to increase youth turnout and conduct a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT). We aim to study whether political (civic) education can positively affect high-school students’ attitudes towards the EU, and whether encouraging them to think about cross-country coordination makes them more likely to support a globally coordinated response led by the EU. The target population of the Civic Education programme utilised in this study comprises young teenagers, allowing us to test the effects on minds that may not be highly politicised. The overall objective of the RCT is to track students’ opinion formation around the issues of climate change when a) they received a session on climate change compared to when they do not receive one and b) when they consider a climate change policy that requires cross-country coordination compared to when they consider a climate change policy through national lenses. Preliminary results show how participating in the Workshop did have an effect on attitudes towards and knowledge of the EU. Our project aims to contribute to our understanding of the effects of Citizenship Education programmes and tackles a very current question: the crisis of climate change and how the EU project can help mitigate it while increasing its support base.