Previous research in environmental education has called for attention to the impact of knowledge on action, where action is seen as ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’(Kollmuss & Agyeman 2002). Indirect action is for example supporting climate policies that lead to change of behaviour at a collective level. We report a studythat is part of project focusing on the impact of social science knowledge on indirect action, with the aim of investigating students’ understanding of causes toclimate change (e.g., consumption), conceptions of effectiveness of policies – tax, subsidies and regulations and bans – and if this may impact on indirect action; support for the aforementioned policies. Preliminary results show students who find policies effective, support policies, but support bans to a lesser degree thantax, subsidies and regulations. This is interesting as bans is an effective way of changing markets; reducing production of climate impacting goods andincreasing climate friendly goods and services. We also find that students believing that the cause to climate change is lack of information do not supportpolicies. Further research investigating if beliefs in policy being effective/functioning are due to education or other sources of information at anational/international level is a next step. Teachers interested in designing climate education with a focus on solutions at the societal level and policies need topay attention to students’ conceptions of anthropogenic causes as it may impact how relevant they find such a focus, and attention to students’ conceptions ofpolicy as they may differ in relation to product/service.