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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:
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.
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.
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:
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).
Policies to cut carbon can bring a range of ‘co-benefits’. From cleaner air, to warmer homes, to the prospect of green jobs, these co-benefits have often been advocated as a way to build support for net zero among people who may be more interested in these side-effects of climate policies than net zero itself.
In a new survey led by Neil Jennings at the Grantham Institute (Imperial College London), just over 1000 people were asked to assess nine different potential co-benefits of action on climate change.
The top response was ‘homes that are more affordable to heat’. This was chosen as the most important benefit for individuals, for communities, and for the country as a whole. It was also supported by voters of all parties. In the context of the eyewatering cost of energy over the past two years, cheaper heating bills were a universally popular co-benefit of action on climate change.
Another popular response was ‘improved energy security’. This makes a lot of sense, given that the rise in energy prices over the past two years was driven by a spike in the price of imported gas in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And there’s growing evidence that renewables as a route to a more secure, homegrown energy system is a popular proposition across the political spectrum.
Interestingly, there was much less support for the idea that climate policies could be drivers of job creation. The prospect of green jobs has routinely been used by campaigners and politicians alike to build support for net zero. But this survey – backed by wider research – suggests that claims about green jobs may not land as well as is assumed.
But the survey makes it clear there’s work to do to persuade the public that even the most popular co-benefits are feasible in practice, with fewer people agreeing they’re practically achievable than identifying them as desirable in the first place.
The problem here isn’t a lack of positivity towards job creation, its the level of trust in the government to deliver them. Whether its warmer homes, energy security, or new green jobs, practical and tangible examples of climate policies actually delivering the benefits people want to see play a crucial role.
Climate policies really can deliver a whole host of positives. But when it comes to persuading the public of net zero co-benefits, seeing is believing.
Research by Climate Outreach, CAST and Hubbub tested whether different narratives around food, delivered by trusted messengers in a Facebook group, could encourage people to try vegetarian diets and eat less meat and dairy.
The research focused on a segment of the population identified as ‘Loyal Nationals’ – people who are proud to be British, lean to the political right on social issues and are likely to describe themselves as working class. They are distrustful of elites and worried about changes to their way of life.
Using climate change as the main message to encourage dietary changes wasn’t always effective with this group. Loyal Nationals related more to messages around improving health and wellbeing, reducing food waste and community food growing.
Messages that worked best had a positive ‘can do’ tone (rather than creating feelings of shame) and made links to local life. Authenticity and trusted messengers also mattered a lot – people were more likely to listen to other participants who were ‘like them’ than celebrities, politicians or ‘experts’.
Words such as ‘sustainable’ and ‘plant-based’ didn’t land well with this segment. They found this language to be ‘middle class’, marketing-heavy and ignorant of food cultures that already rely on vegetables. Using more straightforward language (e.g., ‘eat more vegetables’) was more acceptable
This research highlights that different factors motivate different groups to change their food habits, while personal values and cultural heritage are strongly linked with people’s decisions to eat meat and dairy.
In a survey of 2000 people carried out by Opinium, on behalf of Positive Money, 75% of UK adults were concerned about the impact of climate change on the cost of heating or cooling their home, while 69% were worried about the impact of grocery prices, 54% on the price of housing or rent, 74% on electricity costs, 68% on the cost of water and 59% on transport costs.
These concerns about ‘climateflation’ show that the perceived impacts of climate change are not confined to changes in the weather (although these are becoming more noticeable to people too).
Climate Barometer data backs this up – concern about the impact of climate change on household bills was the third most common choice behind ‘harm to nature and wildlife’ and ‘suffering and hardship for the world’s poorest’.
Separate analysis investigating the cost of ‘not zero‘ (i.e. not pursuing net zero goals fast enough) by the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) supports people’s concerns: households really are facing higher bills because of a lack of action on climate change. Their calculations reveal that cumulative savings of £70bn on the UK’s energy bill could have been made had investments happened over past decade.
The Positive Money report emphasises that these climate-linked costs are disproportionately felt by lower income households.
In the past 6 months, both the Conservatives and Labour have reduced their green policy ambitions. First, the Conservatives announced delays to some near-term net zero targets. more recently, Labour said it would no longer be investing £28 billion per year into green projects. Across this period, polls have indicated that voters expect leadership from politicians on climate change, and want more (rather than less) action on climate.
New polling from Redfield & Wilton (in the wake of these announcements) asked voters for the two main parties to select between a number of competing statements, across a range of topics.
Conservative voters are more likely to believe that the threat of climate change is not being taken seriously (66%) than they are to believe that the threat of climate change to the UK has been overstated (34%). For Labour voters, a full 77% believe climate change is not being taken seriously enough, with only 23% seeing the risk to the UK as overstated.
In the wake of Labour’s announcement that their green investment pledge would be scaled back, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) commissioned snap polling from Opinium.
Only 14% of people reported being ‘very aware’ of Labour’s (previously) proposed £28 billion a year investment plans. This is worth noting, as a significant amount of debate within green policy circles has focused on this specific number (but most of the public wasn’t aware of it in the first place).
Roughly double the number of people (26%) said they were ‘very aware’ of the decision to reduce the £28 billion pledge, though, suggesting that for a significant number of people, the intense media debate around whether or not Labour would ‘U-turn’ would have been the first time they had encountered the policy.
Read our analysis taking stock of what the policy shift from Labour is likely to have meant to voters here.
A new survey of nearly 130,000 people across 125 countries has found that there is widespread support for climate action around the world. But, people often don’t realise how much support there is.
The open access article, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, presents new, large-scale evidence of a global mandate for climate action, while shining a light on the pervasiveness of climate ‘perception gaps’. The headline findings across the global dataset show that:
However, this ‘actual’ support for climate action was at a mismatch with what people ‘perceived’ the levels of support to be. Around the world, people “systematically underestimate the willingness of their fellow citizens to act”.
And these discrepancies matter. If we don’t believe there’s a mandate for green policies, inertia slows the pace of the green transition. ‘Perception gaps’ like these have consequences.
YouGov tracker polling from February 2024 shows the British public have a mixed response to governments announcing policy U-turns, with roughly even numbers overall saying it’s ‘a good sign – showing they are willing to listen and change their minds when people complain or situations change’ (36%), and saying it’s ‘a bad sign – showing they are incompetent, weak, or have not thought their policies through properly in advance’ (34%).
There are differences between voters though: Conservatives are more likely to look favourably upon government U-turns, with 51% seeing U-turns as a good thing. Those intending to vote Labour tend to lean the other way, with 41% opposing them.
In the context of the Labour Party’s announcement it will drop its prior commitment to spending £28 billion a year on green investment, Labour voters are unlikely to support it if they view it as a U-turn.
In a survey of 2000 people, researchers at Cardiff and Bath universities explored public support for low carbon heating technologies (including heat pumps), and the factors that influence this support.
The survey found the majority of the respondents had at least a small amount of knowledge about low carbon heating options, and when provided with further information, held favourable views. Heat pumps (likely due to their prominence in policy discussions) were identified as the low carbon heating technology with the highest level of support.
Concerns about energy security, and pro-environmental attitudes were two factors which led to higher support for heat pumps. But the research also uncovered another important driver: knowing someone who has already had one installed.
Dubbed the ‘social circle effect’, people’s willingness to adopt low carbon heating options increased if they knew even one person who already had a heat pump.
A survey of 2000 people (in Novembers and December 2023) as part of the DeepDCarb project, has found mixed views on oil and gas expansion, and differences which track political divides.
30% were opposed to ‘Issue licences to permit new oil and gas expansion’, 30% neither supported or opposed new licenses (or didn’t have an opinion), and a slightly higher number (41%) were in support.
But bigger differences were apparent when the survey sample was split according to voting intention. Expansion was supported by two-thirds of both Conservative and Reform voters (and only opposed by one in ten), while Labour voters opposed expansion (41%) more often than they favoured it (34%). The majority of Green and SNP voters were opposed.
The findings mirror Climate Barometer data showing clear divides between left and right-leaning voters on oil and gas. But they also reflect patterns in wider research on the transition away from oil and gas, which indicate strong support for moving away from fossil fuels, alongside a willingness to accept the near-term need for domestic oil and gas.
In an open access research paper in the journal Nature Climate Change, Charlotte Kukowski and Emma Garnett argue that reducing inequality is not simply a positive ‘co-benefit’ of well-designed climate policies (although in a cost of living crisis, the affordability of green policies is a major consideration for voter support).
Instead the authors argue that many of the behavioural changes necessary to reduce emissions from travel or food consumption are simply not possible where income inequalities remain high. The paper uses an example of rural/urban travel costs and rent prices to illustrate how it may be easier for wealthier citizens to make low carbon travel choices:
While London boasts the cheapest bus fares and the most comprehensive public transport network in the UK, it also ranks highest for house prices and rents. Although rent and property prices can be lower in rural areas than in cities, the deregulation and subsequent privatization of the UK bus network in the 1980s have led to fare increases, a marked decrease in ridership, service fragmentation, increased car ownership and dependence, and transport-associated social exclusion, which disproportionately affect poorer citizens in rural communities
The analysis and recommendations for addressing ‘carbon inequality’ offer a different way of thinking about the challenge of population-scale behaviour changes: many policies are not currently viewed as fair by the public in large part because they aren’t currently equally accessible to people across the income spectrum.
The paper concludes that addressing general inequality, in turn makes behaviour change for net zero more feasible.