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Polling by YouGov on behalf of Global Witness shows a lack of support for fossil fuel production, and a clear age gap in perspectives on oil and gas extraction.
Depending on which party (Labour or the Conservatives) is in power after the 2024 election, demographic differences like this may become even more prominent: a Labour government that secured the support of younger voters might be in a position to move significantly faster in terms of the social license to phase out oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
In a survey of 20,000 people, and using the MRP method which allows conclusions to be drawn about specific political constituencies, Greenpeace found that of those who had an opinion, more than two thirds (70%) stated that climate and environment policies are important and will influence how they vote in the next election. For voters in Blue Wall seats, the study found:
more than four in five of constituents who had an opinion want the government to provide more financial support to insulate homes and 73% want more government funding for heat pumps. They also want to see more government investment for renewable power (88%) and subsidised rail travel to ensure it is always cheaper than driving (79%).
In research carried out just before Rishi Sunak’s speech announcing changes to the UK’s net zero targets in September 2023 (including a 4,000 sample, nationally-representative poll and eight focus groups of 2019 Conservative voters who are now undecided), Public First’s James Frayne argues that Sunak’s speech will have a maginally negative impact on overall support for the Conservatives. Read Frayne’s analysis here:
Sunak’s Net Zero speech may scarcely cut through to voters at all outside the bubble
Renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are among the most popular forms of energy generation among Britons. Among energy sources, solar and wind are regarded as producing the lowest emissions, and having the greatest impact when it comes to tackling climate change.
Ipsos polling shows that Britons feel split about the current quality of renewable energy infrastructure in the UK (solar/wind), with 48% rating it as very/fairly good, and 39% rating it as very/fairly poor.
The majority (70%) feel that infrastructure in Britain has not been adapted enough to cope with future changes in climate, and 65% of Britons feel that infrastructure isn’t being built quickly enough. Britons are also less resistant to increasing spending on infrastructure than citizens of other countries, even if it means higher taxes or more government borrowing. According to the public, solar energy infrastructure should be among the highest priorities for Britain’s investment (40%).
In fact, a separate poll by Ipsos shows that renewable energy features highly among the priorities for Britain, with wind and solar featuring as one of the top five “most in need of improvement” areas of Britain’s infrastructure, alongside roads, schools, hospitals, courthouses, as well as housing, and water supply/sewerage.
Underscoring the message that people are not opposed to net zero policies, but do not consider themselves in a position to foot the bill for them, Greenpeace polling of 20,000 voters found that in Blue Wall constituencies:
Taken together, these results suggest a strong appetite for a range of climate policies, so long as the right people (the wealthiest individuals and oil & gas companies) pick up the tab
Voters in all of More in Common’s Britain’s Choice segments (including the more socially conservative segments) are more likely to say the Government is doing too little, rather than not enough, according to polling by in August 2023.
Whilst delays to some near-term net zero policies are being considered by the government following the unexpected ‘hold’ by the Conservatives in the Uxbridge by-election in July (where opposition to the expansion of the ULEZ scheme was assumed to have played a role), this data from More in Common underscores the limited political capital to be made from rowing back on net zero.
In response to the government announcing changes to Net Zero policies (around the phasing out of petrol and diesel cars, and gas boilers), a survey asked people to select the words they would use to describe the government pushing back or scrapping key climate policies.
The most commonly selected word was “untrustworthy” (40%) – followed by “sensible” (29%) and chaotic (25%). Respondents said they’d describe Rishi Sunak as “reckless” (33%), “backwards” (31%), and “sensible (29%) if he were to push back these policies.
Whilst these findings suggest there’s no straightforward political capital in watering down Net Zero goals, the percentage of people selecting ‘sensible’ to both questions is also important. For some members of the public – concentrated among Conservative voters – there’s a sense of pragmatism in delaying Net Zero targets.
Wider research suggests, though, that the reason for this is important to take into account. Voters are not sceptical of green policies, but people don’t believe the government has a credible plan, that the infrastructure is ready, or that changes are currently being made affordable enough to undertake.
These are all issues that a bolder, fairer offer to voters on Net Zero could address.
Polling by Greenpeace found almost nine in ten people (87%) want to see a loophole-free windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies.
Separate polling by Green New Deal Rising found 60% support for this policy when given a list of options for funding overseas climate finance commitments (the second most popular was a wealth tax on the richest 1%).
Government climate opinion tracker data shows that concern about climate change remains very high in the UK in 2023:
There were also some important differences between segments of the population:
With the amount of airtime dedicated to the government’s plans to slow down some aspects of the UK’s net zero legislation, it can be easy to forget that for a large number of voters – across the Britain’s Choice audience segments – there is an expectation that the government should do more, not less, on climate change.
YouGov polling from Sept 2023 shows drivers and non-drivers split on who ‘gets the best deal’ from travel policies
Among those who drive on at least five days in a week, 41% say that government policy tends to favour non-drivers, compared to just 18% who say it favours drivers. Britons who don’t drive say that policy favours drivers over non-drivers by 35% to 13%.
In both cases, there’s a sense that other people are getting a better deal – but what surveys like this (and the rhetoric from the current Government around the idea of a ‘war on motorists’) obscure, is that many people drive, cycle/wheel and walk on streets and roads.
The idea that there are ‘motorists’ and a group defined in opposition to cars, doesn’t tally well with the reality of how people experience their neighbourhoods. And other polls looking for differences between drivers and non-drivers, don’t always find any: In 2021 YouGov found support for clean air zones, and increasing the amounts levied in congestion zones, was almost identical between people who drive, and those who don’t.
In polling carried out by Redfield & Wilton, people were asked ‘how expensive’ it will for the United Kingdom to commit to reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. They report that a majority of voters (61%) believe it will ‘expensive’ or ‘very expensive’ for the country to pursue net zero targets, with only 26% agreeing that the costs of the transition have been ‘fairly applied so far’.
In this poll, people were not asked how expensive they thought it would be for them or at a household level, so it is not clear on what basis the cost estimate is being made. Wider polling shows there is a general expectation that the fossil fuel industry and energy companies should foot the bill for climate change, rather than this coming through taxation.
That said, there is a clear flag here for campaigners: the public will need convincing that the costs of the transition can be fairly applied (and that in practice they actually are).
Policies like IPPR’s ‘Fairness Lock‘ are designed to articulate what ‘fairly applied’ means in practice – aiming to protect lower-income households from the costs of green policies. And Climate Barometer tracker data (below) offers another way to gauge what ‘fair’ could look like.
We asked people to imagine that the UK taking effective action to reduce climate change required some increases in tax to pay for these efforts. Who should pay these taxes?
As the figure shows, the most popular responses are split between ‘everyone’, those who earn over £50,000 (the higher tax rate) and ‘no one’, although the balance of these responses moves around according to voting intention, underscoring the different notions of fairness held by different voters.
A poll conducted by Opinium for the ethical bank Triodos found alarmingly high numbers of young people are seeking mental health support for environmental and climate anxiety. The survey of 2,000 UK adults, reported in The Times, found that 14 per cent of the population have sought help, however, this figure more than doubles to 29 per cent among 18 to 34-year-olds. In striking contrast, the figure falls to just 3 per cent amongst the 55+ age group.
Commenting on the findings in The Times, Dr Carloline Hickman at the University of Bath said:
We do not want to classify it as a mental illness. It is socially, collectively, politically caused. There is nothing wrong with people worried about climate change.
In a report covering a wide range of issues and working class voters’ views on them, support for climate policies was explored. The report found that support held up across the socio-political spectrum, aligning with similar findings from the Britain Talks Climate evidence base. But – with important implications for how politicians and campaigners present climate policies and how their costs will be distributed – most working class voters felt the costs of the transition should not be borne by ‘people like me’
More working-class voters said the government is not doing or spending enough to try and reduce carbon emissions (34%), compared to those saying they are doing too much (25%), or getting the balance about right (16%), showing the awareness of climate action across all social groups. That said, they have a clear view when it comes to who pays: 53% agreed that it is important to combat climate change but “people like me should not be paying the cost of policies to reduce global carbon emissions”, whilst 16% said they would be prepared to pay some costs and 19% said they do not believe climate action is necessary
In a poll of around 1000 people in early August, 2023, 51% said they’d like to do more to reduce climate change and help the environment, but that they couldn’t afford to.
The same survey found that people think that the economic costs of climate change itself will be greater than the cost of measures to reduce climate change (by 41% – 22%)
In the contrast between these two responses, a lot is revealed: whilst people want to do more, cost-of-living pressures put restrictions on this.
But there is an acknowledgement that tackling climate change is less expensive than not tackling it.
Policies that reduce the upfront costs of new technologies like heat pumps (through government subsidies or as uptake grows and prices fall) can help to square this circle, and are a crucial aspect of positioning climate policy as fair for voters.
Conservative Home polled its (Conservative Party) members on their views on Net Zero, in the wake of the Uxbridge by-election.
Famously unrepresentative of the wider population (or even of Conservative voters), this small sample were against Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, strongly opposed to the 2030 phase out of petrol and diesel vehicles, and unpersuaded by the idea of a climate ’emergency’. They were only as unpersuaded as they were when the same question was asked three years ago, though – suggesting that although opposition to specific nearer-term targets may have hardened among this group, there isn’t necessarily a sense of worsening ‘polarisation‘.
Conservative Home wrote:
A picture of the typical panel member looks roughly like this. He (and it will usually be he) believes that global warming is happening, but isn’t necessarily convinced that human activity is driving it. He supports the Net Zero 2050 target, but not its presence on the statute book, and doesn’t believe that it will be hit. He is strongly opposed to the 2030 ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars – and to low traffic neighbourhoods…the nearer the target, tax or measure, the bigger the opposition