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The UK has legally binding commitments to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
From the phase out of new petrol and diesel cars (and phase in of electric vehicles), to the installation of heat pumps and retrofitting of insulation, reaching net-zero emissions by 2050 requires ongoing public support and a broad political mandate.
But in recent years the broad political consensus on net zero has broken down, as volatile energy markets linked to global conflicts have placed a new emphasis on energy security.
In this context, the public’s support for renewable energy has remained strong over recent years, while support for net zero by 2050 has plateaued, not plummeted. And at the local level, communities tend to support renewable infrastructure being built nearby ‘in principle’ – but are clear that criteria like participation, consent, environmental protection and community benefits are necessary precursors.
With all this in mind, how is opinion on energy and net zero changing in the UK?
Polling by Greenpeace found almost nine in ten people (87%) want to see a loophole-free windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies.
Separate polling by Green New Deal Rising found 60% support for this policy when given a list of options for funding overseas climate finance commitments (the second most popular was a wealth tax on the richest 1%).
With the amount of airtime dedicated to the government’s plans to slow down some aspects of the UK’s net zero legislation, it can be easy to forget that for a large number of voters – across the Britain’s Choice audience segments – there is an expectation that the government should do more, not less, on climate change.
In an unusual televised speech, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a set of changes to current net zero legislation. Most notably, Sunak confirmed delays to the dates on which the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles, and separately new gas-fired boilers, would be phased out.
The delays are to net zero targets that the Conservative Party itself set.
Sunak also announced that he would be ‘scrapping’ a number of policies, which in fact had not been implemented in the first place. This included ruling out any ‘new taxes’ on flights.
The changes were positioned as protecting households – already stretched by a prolonged cost-of-living crisis – from unreasonable burdens in the pursuit of net zero.
For a long time, an argument made in favour of fossil fuels (and against supposedly ‘intermittent’ renewables) was that oil and gas could provide a secure, reliable source of energy.
But as familiarity with renewables (and confidence in them) has increased, so have perceptions of the reliability of solar and wind power. At the same time, in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the instability that subsequently rippled through the global energy system, doubts are growing among the public that oil and gas are in fact secure, reliable sources of energy.
This is a significant shift – and could be what ultimately underpins a faster transition away from oil and gas. At a time of global insecurity, energy sources that can provide reliable (and ‘hoegrown’) energy become even more attractive. As Luke Tryl, UK Director at More in Common writes, message testing is showing renewables, not oil and gas, winning out in terms of being a secure and reliable source of energy:
There has been a shift in how we view energy security towards renewables – message testing on anti-oil and gas arguments finds strong support for the idea they’re getting more expensive – & particularly for Loyal Nationals (Red Wall voters) the dependence on Putin worries people.
In polling carried out by Redfield & Wilton, people were asked ‘how expensive’ it will for the United Kingdom to commit to reducing carbon emissions to net zero by 2050. They report that a majority of voters (61%) believe it will ‘expensive’ or ‘very expensive’ for the country to pursue net zero targets, with only 26% agreeing that the costs of the transition have been ‘fairly applied so far’.
In this poll, people were not asked how expensive they thought it would be for them or at a household level, so it is not clear on what basis the cost estimate is being made. Wider polling shows there is a general expectation that the fossil fuel industry and energy companies should foot the bill for climate change, rather than this coming through taxation.
That said, there is a clear flag here for campaigners: the public will need convincing that the costs of the transition can be fairly applied (and that in practice they actually are).
Policies like IPPR’s ‘Fairness Lock‘ are designed to articulate what ‘fairly applied’ means in practice – aiming to protect lower-income households from the costs of green policies. And Climate Barometer tracker data (below) offers another way to gauge what ‘fair’ could look like.
We asked people to imagine that the UK taking effective action to reduce climate change required some increases in tax to pay for these efforts. Who should pay these taxes?
As the figure shows, the most popular responses are split between ‘everyone’, those who earn over £50,000 (the higher tax rate) and ‘no one’, although the balance of these responses moves around according to voting intention, underscoring the different notions of fairness held by different voters.
Financial Times journalist John Burn-Murdoch writing on X (formerly Twitter) reported that:
The British public is much more supportive and united on Net Zero policies than the public in peer countries, with Conservative voters frequently as green as the centre-left elsewhere
A new report from the think tank Onward Power to the People argues that proposals for local renewable energy projects are much more likely to receive support if they provide community benefits to the local area.
Of the rural voters surveyed for the report, 43% of rural voters would already support local renewable energy projects without any community benefit. But an additional 37% would support development if they came with community benefits.
Polling of SNP voters by the campaign group Stop Cambo found that 70% agree that the UK should ‘get off oil and gas as quickly as possible’ by ramping up efforts to improve energy efficiency and developing lots more renewable energy.
In an example of the ambiguity that phrases like ‘as quickly as possible’ can sometimes mask, though, whilst 45% supported a ban on new exploration for oil and gas, almost the same number (39%) did not. Overwhelming support for greater investment in renewables among the public does not directly correlate with increasing opposition to oil and gas extraction.
There is, though, widespread support for ensuring communities are ready and able to benefit from the transition away from oil and gas (62%) and that workers are given more assistance in the transition to green jobs (86%).
This YouGov tracker shows that support for government spending to develop solar power is consistently high (around 70-80%), and opposition is low (between 8-11%).
The image of Britain “split down the middle” on issues of local renewable development projects is not, according to research by More in Common, an accurate depiction of public opinion.
In focus groups with communities in two regions where green energy developments have been presented as contentious and controversial in local media, they report that:
“Most Brits are balancers, tired of the loudest voices dominating debates, and eager for us just to get on with it quietly, less talk, less fuss and more action.”
While renewable energy projects are often positioned as controversial, and do attract some loud minority opposition, these conversations suggested people were often not aware of planned developments, and were typically broadly supportive when offered the chance to reflect on them.
OFFSHORE is an independent documentary that explores what the coming energy transition means for workers and communities around the UK North Sea.
The film looks at how communities and regions have been impacted by past industrial decline, the risks workers face in an increasingly precarious industry and how they can organise for the future.
Platform and Friends of the Earth Scotland have come together with a small group of offshore workers to build demands for a just energy transition. These workers developed 10 demands covering training and skills, pay, job creation, investment and public ownership.
They then surveyed over 1000 offshore workers, and over 90% agreed with these demands. Trade unions and other climate groups have also backed this vision.
This report details that work, the demands and how they can be put into practice.
In a poll of 34 countries, Britons are the most supportive of government subsidies for renewables, with 65% in favour. However, higher taxes on gas and oil were nowhere near as popular, likely reflecting ongoing concerns about the cost of living, and an illustration of the nuanced views that the public holds on phasing out oil and gas.
YouGov’s biannual tracker of support for various forms of energy generation shows that wind and solar have had the highest support since 2019, with nuclear overtaking solar in recent years. Coal and gas receive consistently low support over time.
Methodology Note: These percentages are lower than other surveys that measure support for different forms of energy generation individually. This survey requires that people choose one out of all options, rather than asking people outright whether they support any particular energy generation source.
Comment: Polling makes misleading claims about support for clean air zones and net zero
Author of the research Matthew Goodwin describes net zero as “a pet project among an out-of-touch, morally righteous and self-serving elite.”