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Surveys are clear that the British public supports the country’s net zero targets.

When surveys focus on specific policies (like low traffic neighbourhoods, for example), then a range of wider considerations come into play, and unsurprisingly, support for individual policies like this tends to be lower than support for net zero overall. Although, as Climate Barometer tracker data underscores, even this policy (presented as divisive in media commentary) has more support than opposition.

And this trend – of most net zero policies having greater support than opposition –  is reflected in a new Ipsos survey.

In nationally representative polling from April 2024, just before the General Election was called, Ipsos reported that:

Support is highest for giving people more assistance to increase the energy efficiency of their homes (76%); frequent flyer levies (62%); and changing product pricing to reflect how environmentally friendly products are (56%).

The least popular policy tested (an exception to the rule of support outweighing opposition) was electric vehicle subsidies (39% support, 41% oppose).

However, while most net zero policies continue to enjoy majority support among Britons, Ipsos report that this support has fallen over the past two years:

Support for ensuring access to sustainable pension funds and increasing vegetarian/vegan options in food provisioning have both fallen by 8 points since 2022, support for creating low traffic neighbourhoods is down 7 points, and support for higher taxes on red meat and dairy products and electric vehicle subsidies are both down 6 ppts.

Labour and Lib Dem 2019 voters support all policies, while past Conservative voters only support a few: frequent flyer levies, changing product pricing, ensuring access to sustainable pensions, and enabling people to make energy efficiency improvements to their home.

The polling also suggested a softening of the intensity with which people report feeling worried about climate change (likely a reflection of the difficulty of maintaining a strong sense of worry about an issue that can’t be resolved in the short term), although Ipsos reported that overall levels of concern remained very high,

A new study has illustrated a clear demand from citizens around the world for governments to strengthen their climate commitments ahead of COP29. The UN-funded ‘People’s Climate Vote’ – reportedly the world’s largest standalone public opinion survey on climate change, covering 77 countries – has found that four in five people (80%) globally are calling for their country to strengthen its commitments to climate action.

A clear desire was also expressed for greater climate collaboration between countries, alongside help for poorer nations. A very large majority (86%) believed that countries should put their disagreements aside and work together on addressing climate change (In the UK this was even higher at 90%), while over three-quarters globally (79%) called for richer countries to give more help to poorer countries to address climate change.

The evidence strengthens calls for international agreements to make urgent progress on climate change. However, it should be noted that given the large number of countries surveyed, questions in this survey are high-level and general, rather than tailored to each country. This means they may not capture the complexities of climate debates within nations, and further context is needed to interpret the findings at the country-level.

Polling in the weeks leading up the 2024 General Election by the consultancy True North was reported as showing 75% of people supporting North Sea oil & gas – this is a much higher number than would be expected from wider polling.  But the wording of the questions asked people to choose between imported oil and domestic oil (not oil vs renewable energy, which is consistently preferred as the best way to reduce the country’s reliance on importing foreign oil and gas).

Polling by Uplift, carried out at a similar time, found that North Sea oil and gas companies are widely considered by most respondents (70%) to benefit more from extraction in the basin than Scotland itself does currently.

Uplift found that SNP voters were the most concerned about climate change, and that 45% of SNP voters thought the UK Government should stop issuing new oil and gas drilling licences in the North Sea, compared with 31% in favour of new licensing.

Previous research with SNP voters also found higher support than opposition for ending licenses to drill in the North sea, and at a British level there’s much more support for renewables than oil and gas. But there isn’t yet a clear majority in favour of ending oil and gas exploration altogether – in Scotland or in Britain.

Polling by Opinium for the Conservative Environment Network (CEN), conducted just before the 2024 General Election was announced, suggests that playing into Reform UK’s anti-net zero stance will not be a vote winner for the Conservative party.

One important finding is that although Reform UK is (uniquely among the other mainstream parties) campaigning on an anti-net zero ticket, climate change is not currently a salient issue for Reform voters. The CEN polling found that only 2% of Reform voters listed climate change/net zero/environment as their primary concern (the majority chose immigration as their primary concern).

This mirrors polling carried out across multiple European countries, ahead of the EU election which saw significant gains for far-right parties. In Europe, as in the UK, the rise in support for right wing parties does not appear to be driven by these parties’ policies on climate change (even if they tend to hold anti-net zero positions).

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) commissioned survey data in support of a linked call for the UK to ‘reimagine’ its net zero targets. The survey (of 15,000 people) was conducted across seven European member states, as well as the UK.

Many of the findings support well-established patterns of climate change/net zero perceptions among the UK public, including:

• Climate change as a ‘top five’ issue
• Firm support for the goal of achieving net zero by 2050
• Limited faith in the ability of (current) elected politicians to achieve this
• A majority agreeing that the UK should lead on climate change even if China isn’t seen to be taking proportionate action (although with this support concentrated among those who ‘prioritise climate change’)
• The importance of visible leadership and fairness/affordability for consumer-facing climate policies

Focusing on the lack of belief in the feasibility of net zero goals based on current government programmes (what they call the ‘delivery deficit’), the TBI argues that the UK’s net zero targets should be relaxed, on the grounds that they are out of step with public opinion, and have been made without paying sufficient attention to public concerns on cost and affordability.

The latter point is important: net zero policies will indeed be difficult to achieve without broad based public support.

But wider research is clear that across the political spectrum, people want to see more leadership on climate, not less. The ‘delivery deficit’ that the TBI identifies could just as easily be used as an argument to bring the public in, and go faster on net zero.