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The public primarily blame the Russia-Ukraine war, the UK government, and energy companies for high energy bills, with slight changes since Autumn 2022. More of the public blame energy companies in 2023 compared to 2022, and a steady decline in blame attributed to the Russia-Ukraine war.
The latest wave of Climate Barometer tracker data shows that across political divides, both the public and MPs continue to underestimate public support for the UK’s net zero targets.
Conservative MPs and Labour MPs both tend to underestimate public support overall (which is at 69% for the public in general), as well as the support for net zero among voters of their own parties.
Underestimations like this matter, because they feed back in to the discourse on net zero: if people (falsely) believe others don’t support net zero, then this is likely to stoke a sense of fatalism and over time could undermine actual support.
And for MPs, a misreading of public opinion means the right signal is not being heard from voters, which can underpin faulty calculations about the political gains to be had from opposing net zero.
The latest Climate Barometer tracker data (October 2023) shows public support for new pylons and power lines being built locally. Although opposition is slightly higher among Conservative voters, there’s still a clear majority in favour, echoing the findings of an in-depth Public First study of voters’ perceptions of green energy developments in 19 Conservative-held rural constituencies.
Data from our Climate Barometer tracker shows that more than half of people in the UK support a tax on frequent flyers (52%), while just 18% say they oppose this outright. A substantial number neither support nor oppose this (21%), while a further don’t know (9%), suggesting support could be increased further, if the frequent flyer levy was given more prominence.
Read our Barometer Analysis of how support for the frequent flyer levy changes across different types of audiences: whilst the basic concept is likely to be seen as fair, people who would not be affected by the levy may nonetheless believe they will be, without clarity on how the policy would operate.
Climate Barometer tracker data shows MPs see ‘Red Wall’ and ‘Blue Wall’ seats quite differently. For ‘Blue wall’ seats (historically safe Conservative seats that have become swing seats), Conservative and Labour MPs correctly judge that net zero is a vote winner.
For ‘Red wall’ seats (historically safe Labour seats that have become swing seats), Conservative and Labour MPs have very different opinions. Labour MPs are much more likely to say that net zero is a vote winner (37% in April 2023) compared to only 7% of Conservative MPs. But both groups of MPs have become more convinced during 2023 that net zero is a vote-loser in Red Wall seats.
In fact, there are no voter groups (or age groups, genders or regions) where there is not comfortably more support than opposition for net zero.
Support for oil and gas is low among the UK public. But in common with several other key areas of climate policy (especially onshore wind) Conservative MPs have a different view. Compared to the public – including Conservative voters – Conservative MPs are more likely to:
What explains this difference in perspective? One answer may simply be the formal position of the Conservative Party, which is to continue awarding new oil and gas licenses (whilst maintaining a commitment to net zero by 2050). Working backwards from the fact the party is committed to approving new oil and gas extraction, Conservative MPs may feel a tension in opposing oil and gas on a personal level (given that they have to represent this policy to their constituents).
And although Conservative MPs overestimate how favourable their voters are towards oil and gas, they are aligned in a different way: Climate Barometer tracker data shows Conservative voters are more likely to oppose (48%) than support (16%) the ending of drilling in the North Sea for oil and gas altogether.
Worries about the cost of living have loomed so large – for voters and in terms of their dominance in the political discourse – that MPs may assume public concern about climate change has dropped.
One way to read the Conservative Party’s recent rhetorical turn against net zero policies (positioning them as unduly costly) is a calculation that voters don’t care about the environment as much as they actually do, and that anything that can be presented as reducing costs will be popular.
As Ipsos polling from August indicates, people do worry that currently cannot afford to ‘do more’ to protect the environment – but the importance of climate change hasn’t diminished.
The most popular new policy in Rishi Sunak’s announcement of net zero changes (for Conservative and Labour voters) was an increased government grant for heat pumps – i.e. a policy change that made making a positive environmental choice cheaper.
And polling by the think tank Onward found that green policies were ranked last in a list of potential causes of the cost-of-living crisis.
When asked, only 17% of MPs think that the environment is a top issue for the public, but this is not mirrored in public opinion data, which consistently shows the environment polling higher. In our most recent round of polling, ‘the environment’ was selected as a top 3 issue by 26% of the public.
Our polling of MP and public data across two waves (October 2022 and April 2023) asked respondents to indicate what they felt was the best way to eliminate UK dependence on Russian oil and gas.
While there has been a slight dip between waves, the majority of MPs and members of the public still say that the best way to reduce UK dependence is to reduce our use of fossil fuels all together and instead expand our use of renewable energy (such as wind and solar.
Approximately a third of MPs believe the best way is to increase the UK’s domestic supply of oil and gas through expanded drilling and fracking, but this is less popular with the public.
Climate Barometer tracker data shows that the majority of the public agree that there are actions they can take that can make a difference to climate change. However, a notable segment of the public disagrees, and even more are unsure. Feelings of resignation, helplessness or even fatalism are features of the public discourse on climate change, and are realities that any campaign efforts must content with. Building a sense of agency (‘I can do this’) and ‘efficacy’ (‘what I do matters’) is a prerequisite for campaigns to be successful.
Climate Barometer polling shows that the majority of the public believe the government should be doing more to address climate change. MPs are more divided, with similar proportions saying the government should do more, and are doing the right amount to address climate change. Very few MPs or members of the public feel the government should do less.
Climate Barometer Tracker data across three waves shows consistent public support for local renewable projects. The public are positive towards the prospect of new solar parks and onshore wind farms being built in their area, with greater than 70% support for both.
However, people – and their MPs – underestimate the actual public support for both initiatives, and overestimate opposition to them. This shows that MPs continue to misperceive public opinion in relation to renewable energy projects, and illustrates the stickiness of ‘not in my backyard‘ assumptions despite evidence to the contrary.
(Please note: the charts below have now been updated to include further waves of data, which show continued perception gaps after October 2023)
Climate Barometer tracker data from April and October 2023 shows that the British public are much more likely to have bought local produce and cut down on food waste (31-37%), or consciously reduce meat and dairy (19-25%) to help stop climate change than adopt a vegetarian (5-7%) or vegan diet (2-3%).
The majority of MPs and the public agree that “It will cost too much not to tackle climate change now and we should be prioritising it while we can still avoid the worst impacts”. A minority feel that “it will cost too much to tackle climate change now and we should be prioritising other things at a time when consumers can least afford it”.
Our Climate Barometer Twin Tracker data suggests a gender divide in MP’s opinions about the costs of climate impacts.
When asked about the cost of tackling climate change, the majority of female MPs agreed “It will cost too much not to tackle climate change now and we should be prioritising it while we can still avoid the worst impacts”.
Less than half of male MPs chose this option in both years they were asked, with notably more male than female MPs saying “It will cost too much to tackle climate change now and we should be prioritising other things at a time when consumers can least afford it”.
These results mirror wider trends in public surveys, which tend to show women hold heightened risk perceptions on a range of issues relative to men’s reduced concerns about different threats.
Climate Barometer Tracker findings from April 2023 shows that there is some public willingness to pay an extra tax for climate action. While a large proportion of the public are unwilling to pay an extra tax, overall, equal or greater numbers are willing to pay some amount of extra tax.
This holds true across the lowest and the highest income brackets, with members of higher income brackets slightly more willing to pay larger amounts. For instance, around 25-30% of those earning £70,000 or more per year say they’re willing to pay more than £300-1500 per year for effective climate action, and 9% of those earning £100,000 or more per year are willing to pay more than £1500 per year in extra tax for climate action.