We use cookies where necessary to allow us to understand how people interact with our website and content, so that we can continue to improve our service.
We only ever receive anonymous information, and cannot track you across other websites.
View our privacy policy
Author of the research Matthew Goodwin describes net zero as “a pet project among an out-of-touch, morally righteous and self-serving elite.”
Polling that appears designed to exaggerate the amount of disagreement around net zero has been published by the academic Matthew Goodwin. In a blog on the research he writes:
When told Transport for London charges £12.50 every day to people who drive small cars, motorcycles, vans, and other vehicles that do not meet certain emissions standards for driving within the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ), and then asked to what extent if at all they support the measures, only 32 per cent of all voters voice their support while 42 per cent say they are opposed
What the “certain emissions standards” are is not disclosed in the blog, and presumably not to participants either, although they are encouraged to think about the wide range of vehicles affected (‘people who drive small cars’) and a ‘daily charge’ is implied (which would only be true for vehicles driving through the zone on a daily basis).
The loaded wording of the question is designed to skew the results. Elsewhere in the survey, participants are asked to choose between two statements:
‘The Government should prioritise helping the UK reach Net Zero carbon emissions even if this increases the cost of living for ordinary people’;
or
‘The Government should prioritise keeping the cost of living as low as possible, even if this means it has to do less to help the UK reach Net Zero carbon emissions’.
Anything framed in this way – as inevitably increasing the cost of living for ‘ordinary people’ (which most respondents would self-identify as) – will be likely to be rejected in the current economic climate. Unsurprisingly, the survey finds strong opposition to raising the cost of living, especially among those least able to accommodate further rises.
Equally unsurprisingly – in a statistic that headlines an accompanying commentary in The Sun – only 16% of people chose the first statement (increasing the cost of living for ordinary people). In the Sun commentary, Goodwin describes net zero as “a pet project among an out-of-touch, morally righteous and self-serving elite.”
The Conservative Party suffered their ‘worst ever’ result at the 2024 General Election. As well as general dissatisfaction with the Conservative government, polls consistently showed that worries about the cost of living, the condition of the NHS (and for some, immigration) were the biggest influences on how people voted.
Climate change – and more broadly environmental problems like air pollution and sewage in rivers – were also cited by voters when asked to select their top three most important issues going into the election. But was climate change a ‘vote winner’ at the election?
Echoing previous research showing an appetite for greater leadership on climate change, a large (20,000 people) survey by Focal Data on behalf of Persuasion and ECIU found that 53% of voters who had switched their vote from Conservatives to Labour (or the Liberal Democrats) believed that Government policy on climate change should be going further and faster that it has been (27% thought it should be going more slowly).
And polling by More in Common on behalf of E3G went even further, showing that Rishi Sunak’s decision (in September 2023) to slow down some of the country’s net zero policy timelines had a negative impact on voters. People were twice as likely to say that delaying net zero targets was one of Sunak’s biggest mistakes, than his biggest achievements.
Whilst the General Election was not fought on climate and net zero grounds (compared with the last General Election in 2019, there were roughly 50% fewer mentions of ‘climate’ in the British media election coverage), these findings suggest that there is currently no political capital to be found in opposing green policies.
The only party standing on an anti-net zero ticket were Reform UK – but the same More in Common polling found that immigration was overwhelmingly the reason that people voted for this party. Only 4% selected Reform’s environmental policies as a reason for voting for them.
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).
Trust & influence: Beyond ‘trusted messengers’
Trust is the currency in which all communicators trade – and currently, its in short supply. Against this backdrop, do climate campaigns stand a chance?