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Trust is the currency in which all communicators trade – and currently, its in short supply. Against this backdrop, do climate campaigns stand a chance?
We are living through a period of historically low levels of trust in some of our most important institutions: politicians and the media especially, but even people’s faith in the NHS is wavering.
Climate Barometer supported Climate Outreach in undertaking a deep-dive into what trust and influence means for communicating effectively on climate change. Because despite the central role of trust in climate campaigning, there’s not a lot of research on what ‘being trusted’ means.
Or rather, what we know, only gets us so far.
Beyond trusted messengers
The environment is a top five concern for many voters: people care about climate change and support the goal of reaching net zero by 2050. Alongside scientists, and iconic figures like David Attenborough, previous research has established that environmental groups such as WWF or Friends of the Earth are well trusted on climate change.
But trusted to say what?
The transition towards net zero requires more than an acceptance of the seriousness of climate change, an expression of concern and worry, or endorsing a relatively abstract target for reducing emissions in 25 years time.
We can be confident in which types of messengers are trusted on topics like these. But whilst important, this doesn’t paint a very complete picture.
How we heat our homes, how we travel, and the food we eat are now all key spaces in which climate engagement needs to operate. Campaigns in support of these consumer-driven changes will fall flat unless they are built on a foundation of trust.
But does it even make sense to ask which ‘messengers’ are best for this kind of campaigning and engagement work? Doesn’t it make more sense to flip the question on its head, and ask what qualities and characteristics well-trusted people have? Or which circumstances do or don’t facilitate a sense of trust?
Framing the questions in this way means going beyond a list of ‘trusted messengers’ and getting under the skin of what trust means to different audiences. And then moulding campaign and comms work around this understanding – taking trust more seriously, in order to build and maintain trust as the transition unfolds.
Here’s three things we took from the research (which involved a roundtable with campaigners and communications specialists, focus groups with all seven of the British segments, and a rapid review of previous research on trust):
Communicators can build trust by talking about their own motivations – why they’re communicating in the first place
Its a subtle change, but potentially a really important one: when communicators talk about their own motivations (experiences they’ve had; the journey they’ve been on, or a moment that changed their mind) this helps build trust. People see and hear a person – perhaps someone who doesn’t have all the answers but is doing their best – rather than an advert or a slogan. When it comes to contentious areas like meat-eating, establishing this kind of personal credibility can make the difference between being heard and being dismissed. As a (Civic Pragmatist) focus group participant put it:
“Well I think you buy into people’s conviction…You buy into that. (I)ndividuals (that) have that passion and that inner conviction that what they’re saying they truly believe…and you are more likely to believe someone if you think they believe it themselves.”
Building trust means very clearly being on people’s side
Something ‘populists’ on the political right do very effectively is claim to represent ordinary people, and to stand up for them (typically against some form of elite). The majority view on climate and net zero is with climate campaigners, not against them: many of the demands campaigners make of the government are strongly supported by the public. But it can sometimes seem as if there is a battle between campaigners and the wider public, when in fact everyone is (broadly) on the same side.
Voters across the political spectrum want more rather than less leadership on climate. But trust in government is at a 10-year low, and 80% of British people say they are dissatisfied with how the government is running the country, so trust in how climate policies are being rolled out reflects this.
Trust can be built by taking people’s concerns (for example around how the costs of policies can be reduced for people on lower incomes) seriously, and being clearly seen to represent these concerns (rather than being seen as ‘selling’ government policies that don’t yet represent truly fair transition). Currently, there is a trend towards people seeing climate campaigners as ‘out of touch’ with most of the country.
There are trusted characteristics, but trust is earned over time
The kinds of people that the focus groups participants in this research pointed to as trusted were often long-term friends, colleagues or acquaintances: people who had earned trust over time. There is a core of trusted characteristics – appearing sincere, down to earth, and passionate but with credibility were commonly heard themes. But there’s no shortcut to achieving the status of being trusted, and trust isn’t a switch that can be easily flipped on and off.
So although time is of the essence, investing time in listening to people (through community engagement around renewables at an early enough point; or careful conversations on climate) is a route to building the foundation of trust needed for specific campaigns to land.
Climate change didn’t cause the culture wars, but culture wars are making climate change harder to solve.
In new research from Kings College London (KCL), divisions over climate change are seen as worse than divisions over Brexit, with the public more likely to say there is tension between climate change sceptics and believers (64%) than between Leavers and Remainers (52%), or between younger and older generations (45%).
This is despite the broad-based consensus on the importance of the issue that Climate Barometer data evidences, and which is seen consistently in wider research (e.g. the recent Britain Talks Climate & Nature report, which highlights widespread care for nature, wildlife and the benefits that the transition to clean, renewable energy can bring).
More new research (from Hope Not Hate) diving into the differences between people who intend to vote Reform highlights climate change as one of the dividing lines among a disjointed coalition of factions. ‘Squeezed Stewards’ (in an echo of More in Common’s ‘Rooted Patriots’ segment, who have high levels of threat perception around environmental risks) care about nature and acknowledge the climate crisis. But the ‘Hardline Conservatives’ subgroup of Reform backers are much more likely to be in the minority of people who reject action on climate change entirely.
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.
Polling by Opinium for the Conservative Environment Network (CEN), conducted just before the 2024 General Election was announced, suggests that playing into Reform UK’s anti-net zero stance will not be a vote winner for the Conservative party.
One important finding is that although Reform UK is (uniquely among the other mainstream parties) campaigning on an anti-net zero ticket, climate change is not currently a salient issue for Reform voters. The CEN polling found that only 2% of Reform voters listed climate change/net zero/environment as their primary concern (the majority chose immigration as their primary concern).
This mirrors polling carried out across multiple European countries, ahead of the EU election which saw significant gains for far-right parties. In Europe, as in the UK, the rise in support for right wing parties does not appear to be driven by these parties’ policies on climate change (even if they tend to hold anti-net zero positions).