Abstract We introduce a novel, psychological perspective on the acceptability of carbon pricing in which we differentiate between a citizen’s perspective and a consumer’s coping style. We expected acceptance to be determined by three factors: a citizen’s perspective that is rooted in a pro-environmental orientation (mediated via the personal norm to support climate policies) and a consumer’s perspective, comprising two kinds of coping foci, i.e., an action-oriented coping focus (trying to reduce one’s carbon footprint to avoid the costs of carbon pricing) and an affective, state-oriented coping focus (reacting with fear, anger, and hostility toward carbon pricing). Furthermore, we expected the coping foci to be related to people’s evaluations of their own personal situation (whether they produce a lot of CO2 or not and whether they see options for reducing their carbon footprint). We tested the hypotheses via path models in a sample of n = 603 German participants. The results showed that a pro-environmental orientation (a citizen’s perspective) was the strongest factor for acceptability. It also had a stronger influence on state- and action-orientated coping than people’s evaluations of their own carbon emissions and the options for reducing them. Furthermore, the state-oriented consumer focus seemed to be a stronger predictor of the acceptance of carbon pricing than the action-oriented consumer focus. Implications of the results for promoting climate policies such as carbon pricing and for addressing the aspects that correspond to the consumer’s perspective are discussed.