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Polling by Ipsos shows that slightly more people support (42%) than oppose (38%) having ‘higher taxes on red meat and dairy products’ to encourage the adoption of sustainable diets. When people were asked to consider the possible benefit of paying less for plant-based foods like fruits, vegetables, and bread, the support rose to more than half (55%).
However, highlighting the personal costs – that it could mean paying more personally for meat and dairy products – weakened support (37%) and increased opposition (45%).
While support for higher taxes on meat and dairy tax remains substantial overall, the data shows that support for meat has dropped slightly since 2022, when the polling was last carried out.
Overall, the polling highlights the importance of costs and fairness in the framing and messaging of diet changes.
A number of recent polls have suggested that younger generations – including teenagers – are showing some signs of climate fatigue.
New data collected across 33 countries by Ipsos and published on Earth Day found evidence of what they describe as rising apathy and fatalism among the young (especially men):
Millennial and Generation Z men feel more apathetic and fatalistic about climate change compared with older generations and with women. Three in ten say it’s already “too late” to tackle climate change. Similar proportions of young males agree there’s no point changing their own behaviour to tackle climate
change because it won’t make any difference anyway (Gen Z men, 32%; Millennial men 31%) .
Ipsos report considerable variation across different countries – a full 67% of Indian respondents felt it was already too late to do anything about climate change, whereas most in most other countries the level of agreement with this sentiment was between 20-30%.
But the age-based differences are clear across the large, international sample as a whole, and in the UK
And they underscore the importance of communication and engagement strategies that (whilst not shying away from the stark realities of climate change) do not stoke a sense of fatalism and erode any sense of agency among the public.
Following sharp criticism from the Climate Change Committee (which said the Scottish government was failing to deliver on its net zero goals and had no credible delivery strategy), a target to reduce the country’s emissions by 75% by 2030 was dropped.
The Scottish Net Zero Cabinet Secretary Màiri McAllan said she “accepted” the target was no longer achievable.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) seemed reluctant to concede the target they had set was now impossible to achieve. This stands in contrast to the rhetoric deployed by Rishi Sunak in September 2023 when he announced delays to some UK-level net zero goals, positioning them as a ‘burden’ that the government would protect voters from.
The fallout from the SNP’s announcement was immediate and significant.
The SNP’s power-sharing coalition with the Scottish Green Party was dissolved days later, with disagreement over the decision to scrap the 2030 target cited as one of the reasons for the breakdown of the agreement. Humza Yousaf subsequently resigned as First Minister.
Some commentary suggested that the disagreement over the climate targets reflected the divisiveness of net zero in Scotland, but a poll conducted whilst all of this was unfolding underscored the support among Scottish voters for the country’s net zero ambition.
Climate Outreach worked with researchers from the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST) and the environmental charity Hubbub to test food and diet-related messages, with residents in Manchester who were ‘climate concerned’ but are not typically involved or represented in climate conversations (broadly representative of ‘Loyal Nationals’), testing ideas and messages about reducing meat and dairy over a 6 month period.
In surveys, only 27% of people say they have no plans to/don’t want to reduce the amount of meat they eat. But while there is potential to reduce the amount of meat and dairy in people’s diets, the research found that:
Drawing on polling by More in Common of more than 12,000 people and focus groups in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands, Europe Talks Flying digs into attitudes towards aviation and climate change, often considered one of the trickiest topics in terms of bringing about behaviour change.
Overall, the picture is one of risk and opportunity.
The risk comes from badly designed campaigns (most people like flying and the idea of ‘flight shame’, prominent as it may be in climate circles, is something that only a minority of the wider population feels or agrees with).
The opportunity lies in the broad-based support for heavily taxing or even banning private jets, and investing in faster, more affordable train journeys. This would build a platform for introducing policies like a ‘frequent flyer levy‘, which is generally popular and seen as fair (although some of the groups least likely to be impacted by this are the most wary of it).
Crucially (as with carbon footprints in general), it is disposable income rather than concern about climate change that determines the amount people fly.
Focusing on the findings relating to the UK specifically:
The Green Alliance Net Zero policy tracker has monitored government policies since 2020. The March 2024 update compares progress against the emissions pathways set out in the Net Zero Strategy, last updated in 2023. The report concludes that across the whole economy, and for many individual sectors, there is a continued lack of progress on decarbonisation, and adds that ‘strong leadership is missing across the political spectrum’.
Beyond the material threat to decarbonisation this lack of leadership poses, Climate Barometer tracker data is clear that voters want and expect leadership on climate change.
Its absence therefore also undermines policies which require buy-in and acquiescence from the public, including the transition from gas boilers to electrified heat pumps.
In an open access paper published in the journal Nature Communications, a large sample of the German public (more than 24,000 people) was surveyed before and just after major climate protests/civil disobedience took place.
Following what the authors describe as ‘confrontational’ protest acts, levels of reported concern about climate change rose by just over 1% (not a huge number, but a meaningful uptick nonetheless with a sample of this size and given the high level of pre-existing concern in Germany).
Interestingly, there was no sign of political polarisation either. And although the political context in Germany differs in a range of ways to the UK, the study offers direct evidence that significant protests do ‘cut through’ in terms of national public opinion. This is not always easy to demonstrate without his form of ‘before and after’ study design.
In another new open access paper on a similar topic, researchers asked US participants in an online experiment to give their views on a range of civil disobedience tactics. They concluded:
Most Americans view climate-related NVCD as appropriate if it is non-violent and targeted towards those companies or entities which are responsible for taking actions to the detriment of the climate. This could be in the form of promoting fossil fuel use, or even accepting fossil fuel financing. Conversely, actions that are violent, or targeted at entities not seen as being responsible for exacerbating climate change are seen as inappropriate targets.
Gradually, the evidence base on how contemporary protest tactics are actually landing with members of the public is building. Studies like these are important for checking assumptions about the way in which people react to protests involving civil disobedience.
Concern levels are likely to temporarily tick upwards when protests capture the media spotlight, even if the elite commentary that gets the most bandwidth is high critical of demonstrations. But the more that protests can do to focus in on ‘valid’ or ‘legitimate’ targets, the higher the chance of bringing the wider public along.
While Climate Barometer tracker data shows that overall public awareness about heat pumps is low, it seems that misinformation runs through what the public do claim to know about heat pumps.
An article from Carbon Brief summarises the top myths about heat pumps circulating among the British public and media discourse, including that 24% think running a heat pump costs more than a gas boiler, and 20% think heat pumps only work in new homes (Good Energy poll).
Comment: Reform voters and net zero
Without winning a single seat, Reform UK could seriously disrupt the dominant discourse on net zero.