Abstract

Who is willing to pay for the future without climate issues and why? Conventional wisdom states that younger generations tend to be more supportive of climate policies than older generations. This assumption has traditionally guided policymakers in developing targeted environmental policies to elicit greater positive public feedback. However, how do people's attitudes towards financial contributions to the environment change when questions of affordability and institutional trust arise? This paper examines public willingness to pay (WTP) for climate mitigation policies across 28 post-socialist countries using data from the second (2010) and fourth (2023) waves of the Life in Transition Survey (LITS). It reveals a picture that challenges prevailing knowledge. Findings suggest that belonging to a younger generation does not automatically lead to greater support for climate. Differences between cohorts emerge when the birth cohort interacts with income and disappear when it interacts with trust. The paper argues that willingness to pay for climate policies in post-socialist countries is shaped less by generational differences than by economic capacity, institutional trust, and political context, including EU membership and post-Soviet legacy.