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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.
The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s 2023 autumn statement was presented as a plan for growing the UK economy, and addressing cost of living pressures through tax cuts and other measures.
Analysis carried out by Carbon Brief found that Hunt used climate-related keywords less in his latest speech than in his first autumn statement in 2022, or in the spring statement earlier this year, and that he did not specifically mention “climate” at all.
The graph tells a story of the prominence and salience of climate change set against economic considerations at different moments in the past decade-and-a-half.
Polling by Public First and analysed by Onward, paints an important picture of how the public thinks about green policies in the context of the cost of living crisis.
As the Figure below shows, out of 11 reasons offered to people as to why the cost of living has become higher, the “UK trying to be more environmentally friendly” comes last, a long way behind increased global demand and price of energy, the conflict in Ukraine, Brexit and Covid-19.
Elsewhere in the report the authors write:
Voters thought that greener forms of energy were cheaper. Over half of the public (56%) and Conservative voters (53%) thought that investing in wind and solar would bring their energy bills down (vs a quarter who felt that investing less) in renewables would reduce living costs.
The message across these findings is clear: concerns about the cost of living are widely held, but green policies are not seen as the cause of the country’s current economic problems.
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.
Making sense of public opinion on clean air zones
Public opinion on clean air zones and liveable neighbourhoods can sometimes appear to be contradictory. If clean air zones acquire the reputation of being unpopular, this is likely to prevent the ‘quiet majority’ who support them from making their own voices heard.