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When the price of energy, food, fuel, building materials and much more besides began rising sharply in 2021 (in the wake of Covid 19, supply chain disruptions from Brexit, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), it triggered widespread worries about the costs of everyday living.
With millions of people facing serious struggles with household finances, these costs have unsurprisingly been the dominant issue in opinion polls since then, with a knock-on effect on the relative importance and salience of other issues including climate change.
One of the most significant rises in household costs has come through energy bills. In the government’s Public Attitudes Tracker (PAT), two-thirds of people surveyed in 2023 expressed worry about paying their energy bills, with energy bills the cost that most people were most worried about over and above food and fuel.
With rising costs and acute financial struggles the dominant concern in opinion polls, how has this impacted the discourse on climate change and net zero?
In a new report from the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), the costs to UK households of not reducing emissions to net zero are calculated: this is intended to challenge criticisms of the costs of net zero policies by making clear that not taking action has greater economic consequences.
The report argues that climate impacts are costly to the UK economy, and delays to the rollout of renewable energy and insulation schemes also mean households incur costs they needn’t be incurring: these are the costs of not zero
If the UK had not delayed in deploying renewables, insulation, rooftop solar panels, heat pumps and electric vehicles, some households could have saved around £1,750 on bills in 2022. Plus, homes are facing more than £400 extra in food bills this year because of the impact of climate change and oil and gas prices on the farming and food system. This amounts to a potential £2,150 added to household bills.
In a collaboration between Reset Narratives, On Road Media & Rubber Republic, a wide range of climate/cost of living messages were tested in a three-stage process involving more than 10,000 members of the UK public, gauging how compelling people found the different messages, and whether they shifted respondents’ perspectives and policy preferences.
The report contains three recommended stories for linking the climate and cost-of-living crises, rather than pitting them against each other:
The UK’s potential
Now is the time for our islands, with their huge potential for wind, wave and solar power, to show the world how to tackle the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis at the same time. Both of them have the same root cause: expensive oil and gas. And both have the same solution – affordable, clean energy that’s become more and more effective and popular over the last few years.
Our children’s future
We all want our children to be secure and comfortable this winter, and in the future. But reliance on oil and gas is driving up our bills, making it harder to provide for our children today, while worsening climate change and threatening their future. The only way to be free of unpredictable energy prices permanently is to move away from expensive gas and oil and towards cheaper and cleaner renewables.
Stability and freedom
We need to be set free from unstable energy prices for good by turning to affordable, clean power and the certainty it can give us. The only way to be free of unpredictable energy prices permanently is to move away from expensive gas and oil and towards cheaper and cleaner renewables.