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In early 2024, Labour announced a reduction in its green investment commitments if it were to win power. Voters want consistency on climate change, whichever party is in power.
Following repeated political attacks, worsening economic conditions, reports of internal disagreements, and endless lobby briefings, Labour announced during the first week of February, 2024, that their pledge to spend £28 billion a year on green investment had been reduced to just under £24 billion (across the entire parliamentary term). It’s important to take stock of the public mood, and what voters will make of the shift in policy.
How much do the numbers matter?
There’s good reason to think the public was never wedded – or opposed – to the £28 billion figure: big, abstract numbers like this are not how voters think about the green transition. But reducing the financial commitment has meant lowering the ambition of universally popular policies like home insulation. In that very real sense (damper, colder homes), it matters – and so do the ‘optics’. Flip-flopping on climate leadership is unlikely to win Labour any votes, just as Rishi Sunak’s announcements of delays to some net zero policies last year didn’t increase support for the Conservatives.
Voters want consistency on climate change, whichever party is in power.
Leadership and U-turns
Beyond the question of how many billions will be invested, the public and businesses want and expect political leadership on climate change. The government is viewed by the public as being ‘out of touch’ when delaying and rolling back on net zero policies, and the word most commonly selected by the public to describe politicians (of any party) watering down net zero commitments is ‘untrustworthy’.
YouGov polling, conducted just after the Labour announcement, shows that 44% of the public thinks the Labour party is not taking climate change seriously, compared to 29% who do. Separate YouGov polling from this week shows that 41% of Labour voters see government U-turns as ‘a bad sign’.
Why do voters support green policies?
Polling data shows clearly and consistently that people are worried about climate change, and voters and MPs across the political spectrum support the principle and the ambition of cutting the UK’s carbon emissions by 2050.
The wide range of climate impacts people expect the country to experience in the next ten years include rising bills and costs – so a programme of investment that stimulates growth and reduces spiralling energy costs from insecure gas imports is likely to be a vote winner. And message testing shows that voters are not easily persuaded to drop their support for green spending by the argument that net zero will ‘cost the government billions we could be spending on other more pressing areas’.
Green policies have to be (and feel) fair
When it comes to the UK’s net zero targets and specific green policies like ramping up home insulation (one of the immediate victims of the downgraded investment figure), there is wide support across political divides. But the path to net zero has to be (and feel) fair. Green measures (like insulation) can save households money – but also have an upfront cost unless they’re subsidised in a fair way. Many people are willing to make changes in their own lives to help tackle climate change – from cutting down household energy to making dietary changes. Strikingly, even some of those on the lowest incomes say they would take on extra costs to tackle climate change.
But the top 1% of earners in the UK are responsible for the same amount of carbon dioxide emissions in a single year as the bottom 10%, so household changes made by those with the highest carbon footprints have a dramatically bigger impact – and this group is much more able to bear the costs of the transition.
Climate Barometer data shows that the public feel the fossil fuel industry and energy companies should pay the majority of the costs when it comes to reaching net zero. And in research with working class voters, more than half agreed that it is important to combat climate change but “people like me should not be paying the cost of policies to reduce global carbon emissions”.
So perhaps the missing piece of the puzzle for voters on the financing of green policies is the question of ‘who pays’ and how this kind of investment will create the conditions for a truly fair, green transition – something a focus on the headline investment figure could too easily obscure.
China’s carbon emissions are a notorious talking point for opponents of climate action, who argue that the efforts of countries like the UK are insignificant in the context of much larger nations like China.
But in some important ways, China is a world leader: the country’s emissions appear to be plateauing, and are paired with an investment in renewables (and the components required for the clean energy supply chain) that is unparalleled.
This is not a zero sum game—British voters expect more ambition at home, but also more ambition abroad: As Climate Barometer data shows, the public is still much more likely than not to say the UK should be one of the most ambitious countries in the world when it comes to addressing climate change, regardless of what other countries are doing.
So, despite the USA’s absence from this year’s global climate talks and executive orders to leave the Paris Agreement for the second time, 3 in 5 Britons (60%) think that the UK government should work together more closely with other countries to address climate change.
In the run up to this year’s party conference, Reform party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, urged investors to halt new offshore wind projects, despite news of a record high in green energy approvals. Labour condemned the move as “outrageous and unpatriotic,” warning it undermines investor confidence. But does Reform’s stance align with wider opinion?
Support for offshore wind remains very high in the UK – around three quarters of the public consistently have supported this form of renewable energy over recent years. Even Reform’s support is strong, with the majority of the party’s backers expressing a favourable view of offshore wind (60%). This support extends to other renewables infrastructure too – such as solar power (68%).
A majority of Reform backers also say they would support such new renewables in their own areas as well – 55% would support onshore wind farms, 58% solar energy parks, and 51% would support new pylons and power lines for carrying renewable energy. Part of the issue here is the ‘perception gap’ around renewables – while 3 in 5 Brits support local renewable energy infrastructure projects, neither MPs nor the public realise how strong that support is.
Kemi Badenoch doubled down on her party’s net zero rollbacks – pledging to get all oil and gas out of the North Sea, and remove net zero requirements on oil and gas companies drilling in the region – if elected. But is the Conservative leader’s stance at odds with wider public opinion?
Climate Barometer data shows that just 8% of Britons see oil and gas as one of the biggest growth sectors over the next five years – compared to 35% who say this about renewable energy and clean technology. This is consistent across UK regions, with only 10% of those in Scotland thinking of oil and gas as one of the top growth sectors in the near future, compared to 39% who say this about renewables.
But the Conservative leader’s position appears to not just be at odds with the wider public – Conservative voters themselves don’t show much faith in fossil fuels as a growing industry either. While there have been some recent shifts, only 14% of those who voted Conservative in 2024 think of the oil and gas sector as showing the biggest growth opportunity for the UK in the next five years. This is roughly half the amount of Conservative voters who say renewables and clean tech are the biggest growing sector (27%), and much less than the amount who think artificial intelligence will grow at pace (43%).
The majority of Britons (55%) think that the best way to ensure the UK’s energy security is to reduce the use of fossil fuels and expand use of renewable energy (such as wind and solar). In comparison, only 24% of the UK public think that increasing the supply of oil and gas by allowing new oil and gas exploration licences, as proposed by Kemi Badenoch on Monday, would be the best way to ensure the UK’s energy security.