**4. Results**

The survey was conducted by a professional agency in December 2019. Altogether, 1,002 people participated in the telephone survey. Data obtained from the national survey were analyzed using the statistical package IBM SPSS 19. The sample is almost representative of the German population in terms of age, gender, education, and city size and residence in the 12 German federal states. Regarding the number of people per household, single households were underrepresented in our sample (27.9% as compared with 41.9%), whereas households with two persons were overrepresented (40% as compared with 33.8%) [45]. The household income was approximately representative of the German population, with the restriction that 10% of the respondents refused to answer this question. Accordingly, the lowest and the highest

<sup>3</sup> Since the survey was conducted among the German population, the original language of the survey was German.

income classes are underrepresented in our survey, which is in line with the common observation that people in extreme classes of income more often refuse to reveal their household income [46].

#### **4.1 Willingness to pay—yes or no**

Altogether, 47.2% of the surveyed people stated to be willing to pay an amount between 3€ and 1000€ for the preservation of the Hambach Forest. Furthermore, 49.7% answered the question about their WTP with "no," and 3.1% refused to provide an answer. In this case, a clear distinction between true zeros and protest zeros was not possible, since we did not ask for the reasons based on which they would refuse to pay. However, an indication for the occurrence of protest answer can be seen in the fact that 20% of the survey participants who stated a WTP of zero refused the further run of coal-fired power plants completely. For those with a positive WTP, the rate was 38%. According to a meta-analysis of Meyerhoff and Liebe [44], the mean share of protest responses in CV surveys is about 18% with a median value of 16%. The share is higher in scenarios with taxes or entrance fees as payment vehicle, and also the survey method may have an impact with onsite-, web-, and phone surveys leading to a lower share of protest zeros [44].

In order to observe differences between those with and those without a positive WTP for the preservation of the forest, we excluded all participants who did not answer this question with either "yes" or "no," which resulted in a total of 971 cases. We observed no differences regarding the WTP per se in terms of sociodemographic aspects except that females were more likely to state a positive WTP than males (p = .05). Highly significant differences between the two groups were observed for revealed activities listed in question 5.2 (**Table 2**): "Which of the following did you do within the last 12 months?" People with a positive WTP were much more likely to confirm those. Correlation coefficients are calculated as Pearson's r, since the variables were dichotomous (yes-no).

Participants with a positive WTP also favored nearly all surveyed aspects of a renewable energies, including the application of biogas, biofuels, and renewables in the industry, more than those who were not willing to pay. Those who stated they were willing to pay rated themselves as more informed regarding the energy


#### **Table 2.**

*Correlation between reported pro-environmental behavior (Q5.2) and a positive WTP.*

#### *The Hambach Forest in the German Debate on Climate Protection: Is There a Symbolic Value… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.101597*

transition. Furthermore, they had a more positive attitude toward solar energy, wind turbines, water turbines, and energy from biomass. Accordingly, the same was observed with a negative correlation for coal-fired and nuclear power generation. Furthermore, they rated themselves as more informed regarding the coal phase-out. All of those correlations were significant at the 0.01%level. No significant differences between the two groups were found for attitudes toward conventional and nonconventional natural gasoline.

Those who refused to answer the question whether they would be willing to pay at all apparently have strong pro-environmental attitudes, even compared with those who stated a positive WTP. For example, all of the 31 respondents from this category answered Q5.2e whether they changed their mobility behavior, e.g., by taking more often the bicycle instead the car, with "yes," while around 65% of those with a positive and 42% with a negative WTP affirmed this question. A similar distribution was observed for Q5.2d, whether respondents had consciously forgone packaging while doing groceries during the last 12 months. Those who refused and those who stated a positive WTP answered most other questions regarding attitudes and behavior toward environmental issues similarly.

#### **4.2 Willingness to pay: amount**

For the analysis of the amount of the WTP, we omitted those 31 cases with no answer as to whether they would be willing to pay. Of the 971 considered cases, 498 (51.3%) declined a willingness to pay. For further analyses, we treated these values as true zeros, although it cannot be ruled out that, by doing so, protest zeros are neglected. Therefore, the results should be considered a conservative estimate, and real preferences might be higher. In a first step, we checked the theoretical validity of the stated amounts by analyzing some of the variables, such as the income and attitudinal variables [47]. The mean WTP for all participants, including the zero values, was 26.83€, and the most frequently stated positive value was 50€, provided by 124 participants (12.8%). The mean WTP considering only positive values was 55.08€, whereas about 10% of the sample had a WTP higher than 50€. The highest stated amount was 1000€, expressed by three survey participants. Since none of the three profiles provided an indication for unreliable values, due to high income, high education, and a strong attitude toward environmental issues, we did not exclude them from further analyses. The same correlations were also checked for the whole sample. As expected, significant positive correlations were observed between stated pro-environmental behavior of Q5.2 and the level of income. Furthermore, also significant positive correlations were observed for preferences for renewable energy technologies such as solar, wind, biomass, and hydro, and negative correlations for coal power and nuclear engineering. Here, again, no significant differences in attitudes regarding conventional and nonconventional natural gas were found. People who rated themselves as more informed regarding the coal phase-out also had a significantly higher WTP. When considering only cases with a positive WTP, no significant differences regarding preferences for energy technologies were observed. Regarding stated pro-environmental behavior, only minor significant correlations were observed for the acquisition of green energy Q5.2c (positively) and the adaptation of the mobility behavior Q5.2e (negatively). Furthermore, people living in an owned house or flat, bigger household size, and higher income were linked to a significantly higher WTP. Although

females had a significantly higher WTP overall, males with a positive WTP stated significantly higher amounts.
