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  • Overview
  • Jul '24
    Post-election polling shows ‘backtracking’ on net zero targets cost the Conservatives votes
  • New Labour government announces planning reforms to increase onshore wind development
  • What do MPs need to know about voters’ views on climate?
  • Apr '24
    Scotland drops 2030 emissions target but retains 2045 net zero ambition
  • Comment: Reform voters and net zero
  • Feb '24
    Redfield & Wilton polling: Labour & Conservative voters think climate change not being taken seriously enough
  • Nov '23
    Understanding perceptions of political leadership on climate change
  • Sep '23
    Climate Citizens report: Sustaining the political mandate for climate action
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Political mandate

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    Opinion Insight 12th July 2024

    Post-election polling shows ‘backtracking’ on net zero targets cost the Conservatives votes

    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.

    Policy Insight 12th July 2024

    New Labour government announces planning reforms to increase onshore wind development

    In a widely anticipated move, the new Labour government announced reforms to the planning system which make the development of onshore wind farms easier (the previous Conservative government had a def-facto ‘ban’ in place).

    Onshore wind is a very popular form of energy, which people across the political spectrum support. Whilst reforms of the planning system remove an important barrier to the development of onshore wind farms, early (and inclusive) community engagement is also a critical piece of the puzzle.

    YouGov carried out polling just after the July 4th General Election, focused on the planning reforms Labour had announced. Whilst building houses on the ‘green belt’ provoked across-the-board opposition, building green infrastructure was widely popular:

    Six in ten (60%) Britons favour ending the current ban in England on building new onshore wind farms, with more strongly supporting such an overturn (30%) than opposing it to any degree (23%). Not only can this policy count on the support of at least half of all groups, it is the most popular of Labour’s proposed reforms among Conservative voters, with 54% in favour of scrapping the ban.

     

    • Source: GOV.UK
    • Date: 8th July 2024
    Policy Insight 30th April 2024

    Scotland drops 2030 emissions target but retains 2045 net zero ambition

    Following sharp criticism from the Climate Change Committee (which said the Scottish government was failing to deliver on its net zero goals and had no credible delivery strategy), a target to reduce the country’s emissions by 75% by 2030 was dropped.

    The Scottish Net Zero Cabinet Secretary Màiri McAllan said she “accepted” the target was no longer achievable.

    The Scottish National Party (SNP) seemed reluctant to concede the target they had set was now impossible to achieve. This stands in contrast to the rhetoric deployed by Rishi Sunak in September 2023 when he announced delays to some UK-level net zero goals, positioning them as a ‘burden’ that the government would protect voters from.

    The fallout from the SNP’s announcement was immediate and significant.

    The SNP’s power-sharing coalition with the Scottish Green Party was dissolved days later, with disagreement over the decision to scrap the 2030 target cited as one of the reasons for the breakdown of the agreement.  Humza Yousaf subsequently resigned as First Minister.

    Some commentary suggested that the disagreement over the climate targets reflected the divisiveness of net zero in Scotland, but a poll conducted whilst all of this was unfolding underscored the support among Scottish voters for the country’s net zero ambition.

    • Source: Net Zero Scotland
    Opinion Insight 21st February 2024

    Redfield & Wilton polling: Labour & Conservative voters think climate change not being taken seriously enough

    In the past 6 months, both the Conservatives and Labour have reduced their green policy ambitions. First, the Conservatives announced delays to some near-term net zero targets. more recently, Labour said it would no longer be investing £28 billion per year into green projects. Across this period, polls have indicated that voters expect leadership from politicians on climate change, and want more (rather than less) action on climate.

    New polling from Redfield & Wilton (in the wake of these announcements) asked voters for the two main parties to select between a number of competing statements, across a range of topics.

    Conservative voters are more likely to believe that the threat of climate change is not being taken seriously (66%) than they are to believe that the threat of climate change to the UK has been overstated (34%). For Labour voters, a full 77% believe climate change is not being taken seriously enough, with only 23% seeing the risk to the UK as overstated.

    • Author: Redfield & Wilton
    • Date: 13th February 2024
    Policy Insight 7th September 2023

    Climate Citizens report: Sustaining the political mandate for climate action

    Based on a set of interviews with 15 MPs, and a focus group with civil society representatives, new research – based on the findings of a collaboration between the Climate Citizens research group at Lancaster University, The Climate Coalition and the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations, and supported by Green Alliance – shows how the climate opinions of MPs have changed since 2018 when a previous round of research was carried out. The report states that:

    MPs are now much more concerned about climate; for them, it’s become a mainstream issue, but they have specific concerns that were not so evident before, particularly around how to manage the complex process of change.

    All the MPs interviewed stressed the importance of protecting people from potential negative impacts, such as higher costs or job losses in high carbon industries. They also fear a political backlash if climate action is seen as unfair.

    The report shows how the political agenda has shifted over five years, from the need to ‘do something’ to the pace of change.

    The mainstreaming of climate change in the political discourse over the past five years is important to recognise. But significant challenges remain in closing the gap between the political and the social mandate, with Climate Barometer tracker data showing that MPs continue to underestimate the salience of the environment among voters, to misjudge support for onshore wind, and to underestimate support for Net Zero (which outweighs opposition across society).

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