Hello!
I’m Dr. E. Keith Smith, a Senior Researcher (Oberassistent) at the Chair of International Political Economy and Environmental Politics at ETH Zürich. I study how we can identify and implement feasible, effective solutions to urgent environmental challenges.
My research explores how governance shapes environmental outcomes, economic development, political feasibility, and social equity, often adopting a global and comparative perspective. I work across a wide range of issues, including air pollution, climate change, energy transitions, and sustainable mobility. My approach is interdisciplinary, combining diverse theoretical frameworks with innovative, mixed-methods research designs.
My recent work has appeared in journals such as PNAS, Nature Communications, Nature Climate Change, and Nature Sustainability, with emphasis on topics such as the political feasibility of climate policy, air pollution in developing countries, political polarisation, sustainable supply chain governance, and social tipping dynamics.
Recent News and Announcements
-
Does it matter who is proposing an EU carbon tax?
Our paper “Attitudes towards carbon taxation in the EU: messenger effects vs. content effects” was just published (open access) in the Journal of Public Policy (link). Using a pre-registered vignette experiment in Germany and Poland (n=3,192), we test how support for EU carbon taxes shifts when identical proposals are attributed to the European Commission, the…
-
Where do we not know what people think about air pollution?
Our paper “Global blind spots in air pollution public opinion: an LLM-assisted mapping of research coverage and survey availability” was just published in Environmental Research Letters (open access). We use an LLM-assisted mapping approach to identify where in the world we have — and, more importantly, do not have — evidence on public perceptions of…
-
Strong demand for clean air policies in Majority World cities
Our new paper is out in Nature Cities (link). Air pollution is a leading health risk in many emerging markets and developing economies, but it has been unclear whether residents actually demand mitigation, or whether they see poor air quality as a necessary price of development. We surveyed 11,417 adults in four severely polluted cities…
-
Most Europeans still see economic growth as essential for a sustainable future
Debates about post-growth and degrowth have become increasingly prominent in academic and policy circles, but it has been unclear how widely these views are held by the public. Our new paper in Nature Communications surveys 16,781 people across 13 EU countries and finds that nearly 60% of citizens hold pro-growth views, seeing economic growth as…
-
Personalised climate mitigation plans highlight cost, lifestyle constraints, and inequality
Our new paper in npj Climate Action uses a “personalised scenario testing” tool to examine what people actually choose when asked to reduce their own emissions by 30% (Swiss sample, n=2,793). We find that people gravitate toward options that are inexpensive and require fewer lifestyle changes. A key distributional result is that uptake of high-impact…