Raising environmental awareness flattens pollution peaks and boosts policy effectiveness.
Environmental awareness has a positive impact on environmental quality and income-pollution relationships. By looking at how countries control pollution, researchers found that higher environmental awareness in less developed countries leads to better environmental policies and quality. It also changes the environmental Kuznets curve, making it peak earlier. This was confirmed by real-world data, showing that in countries with more environmental awareness, environmental spending is higher and the curve peaks sooner.