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Public support for climate policies – from heat pumps, to home insulation, to electric vehicles – has always been about a lot more than just having access to the right facts.
Someone might like the sound of an EV, but not (yet) be able to afford it. Plenty of people have heard scare stories about heat pumps (although the views of people who actually know someone who has had one installed, tend to be more positive).
But a number of recent polls – from ECIU and Climate Barometer’s tracker – shine a light on the importance of building familiarity with EVs, because misconceptions abound.
For example, ECIU polling found that more than 5 in 10 (54%) petrol car drivers think EV drivers run out of charge at least once a year but, in reality, more than 8 in 10 (82%) of EV drivers report never running out of charge.
This is a significant misperception sitting behind the ‘range anxiety’ sometimes cited as a reason not to switch to an EV.
Climate Barometer polling tested a range of ‘anti-net zero’ narratives and soundbites, and found very few of them currently have any cut through with the public. But there was one exception: 40% of people say they don’t think EVs are more environmentally friendly than cars (when in fact they are).
And this wasn’t the only misconception about EVs.
When people were reminded that only new vehicles (not second hand ones) will be phased out after 2030, there was a 9% increase in people saying that the phase out would not affect them at all.
Support for the phasing out of petrol and diesel cars was higher (+5%), and opposition is lower (-6%) when people were reminded that it is only new vehicle sales which must be zero emissions by 2030 (39% support, 38% oppose), compared to support without the prompt about second-hand vehicles (34% support, 44% oppose).
This is a statistically significant difference.
Researchers at the centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST) have found widespread public support for low-carbon lifestyles. In workshops, people explored visions of an ideal 1.5°C future:
However, common ‘narratives of delay’ also punctuated these positive visions, stemming from what the authors identified as three emotional defense mechanisms:
1) Overconfidence in current actions (thinking that small changes have more impact than they actually do)
2) Defensiveness over radical change (despite many lifestyle changes requiring only moderate adjustments for many)
3) Dejection at the scale of the challenge (with fatalism acting as a demotivator for making lifestyle changes)
The paper concludes that:
“Rethinking strategies for public engagement with climate action will be an essential step towards creating a positive, ambitious, fair, sustainable vision of the future that is desperately needed as part of a people-centred approach to tackling 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.
A More in Common focus group for the Guardian newspaper, carried out just after the Uxbridge by-election, concluded that
“The heated rows over green policy that have dominated Westminster over the past week, had passed voters we spoke to in Don Valley and Chipping Barnet by.”
Although our Climate Barometer tracker data shows that there are some (Conservative) voters who are opposed to clean air zones, this perspective from far outside of the ‘bubble’ of Westminster commentary is useful to keep in mind: even opposition is unlikely to be strongly held or ‘top of mind’ for most voters.
