Do voters care about the climate?
Late autumn 2019. The nights are drawing in, the rain pelting down, and soggy canvassers are traipsing around marginal constituencies to drum up votes.
In somewhat cosier surroundings, the finishing touches are being added to the Conservative Party’s manifesto. It includes, of course, Boris Johnson’s clarion call to “Get Brexit done”. But the authors want it to set out a positive agenda for the next Parliament as well. On page one, they write six headline pledges. The fifth is “Reaching net zero by 2050”.
Net zero won prominence, partly because it was a personal passion of the Prime Minister. He liked to rail against the fact that the UK was “lagging on lagging” and to enthuse about the UK becoming the “Saudi Arabia of wind”. But also - crucially - net zero made the cut because it was popular. And it helped to shore up support in traditional Tory seats, where many voters were unsure about the wisdom of Johnson’s Brexit project.
What voters think really matters. Beliefs about public opinion drive an awful lot of party campaign strategy and policy decisions. The popularity of climate action, as well as the then-PM’s support, meant that net zero policies now amount to a large part of the Conservatives’ domestic legacy since 2019. It’s not enough, from an environmental perspective - but at least it wasn’t only Brexit that got done.
So it’s frustrating that Brits’ strong concern about the climate often seems to be one of the best-kept secrets in Westminster.
Everyone cares, including swing voters
In episode one of the Political Heat podcast, I talk with Rachel Wolf, an expert in policy and public opinion. Rachel also happened to co-author the above-mentioned manifesto. She spends a lot of time in focus groups and poring over polling data, and she describes climate as a “tier two” issue. It’s not at the level of the economy and health, but it’s a consistent concern, above issues like education and crime. The climate also becomes more salient when impacts become obvious: that’s why its rating rose by ten percentage points during the 2022 heatwave.
The degree of support for climate action isn’t fully captured by issue trackers, as they show low-resolution snapshots. For example, more detailed research indicates how the British public now sees renewable energy as a way to avoid future energy price spikes and improve security. The data, gathered by Rachel Wolf’s agency, Public First, show that renewables are preferred far more than coal, oil or gas. As for fracking, Rachel dismissed it as woefully unpopular and “not deliverable with any kind of public consent”.
It’s important to note, as we’re in a general election year, that support for net zero holds up among swing voters. This includes the Red Wall demographic - voters largely in the North and the Midlands, and in the C1/C2 socioeconomic group (think plumbers, says Rachel) - who were largely responsible for the Conservatives’ landslide victory in 2019.
If that comes as a surprise, you might be guilty of importing your assumptions from the US. Across the Atlantic, political identities have become “stacked”. There, the hyper-competitive two-party system is intensifying polarisation. It means that if you know someone’s stance on a key issue such as abortion or immigration, you can largely predict what they will think about a range of other issues. It seems logical, but it’s just not true in the UK. Climate cuts across party lines.
Another Public First report found that the inclusion of net zero policies (like investment in renewables) actually increased support for any hypothetical party platform. Conversely, voters were inclined to reduce their support for a party if it proposed to delay achieving net zero, or if it wanted to increase oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
Weakening climate ambition is an electoral mistake
All this helps to explain why recent high-profile u-turns on net zero policies, announced to great fanfare by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and then Leader of the Opposition Kier Starmer, have had net zero impact on the parties’ polling performance. In fact, Sunak’s personal favourability rating fell to its lowest level after he weakened the targets for switching to electric vehicles and phasing out gas boilers.
For the Conservative Party, it partly comes down to a question of competency. It has been in power for well over a decade. When you give up on targets that you’d trumpeted in the past, it looks like an admission that you’re failing to deliver. When think tank Onward surveyed people about how they would react if the government were to drop the net zero target, the second most common response was that it would mean the government was untrustworthy. (The top response was concern for future generations.)
When Starmer drastically reduced Labour’s flagship £28 billion climate investment pledge, voters didn’t question his party’s competency but its purpose. It reinforced the idea, which had been niggling for a while, that Labour doesn’t stand for anything. Labour’s huge lead in the polls has a lot more to do with the public’s dislike of the Tories than it does with positive feelings towards Labour. On climate, while 39% told YouGov they thought Labour would do a better job than the Conservatives, only half that number thought Labour would do a good job in absolute terms.
Fighting the proxy war
In the face of all this evidence of climate policies’ popularity, why, then, would any serious party back away from them? Rachel Wolf’s persuasive analysis is that the climate debate is becoming subsumed in the debate about the economy. You’ll recall that the economy is a tier one issue in the hierarchy of public concern. It’s the main arena where both Labour and the Conservatives are fighting to establish their credentials.
In his net zero speech in September 2023, Sunak claimed to be switching to a “more pragmatic, proportionate, and realistic approach that eases the burdens on families”. This was despite independent fact-checking (neatly summarised by Carbon Brief) revealing that the changes would add to household costs. Regardless, it became a common theme for Sunak at the despatch box, arguing that Labour’s climate plans would raise taxes and bills.
Sustained attack from the Conservatives eventually led Starmer to cave under the pressure and drop the £28 billion pledge, because his overriding concern was to appear fiscally credible. This was despite having strong messages available, which held up well against attack lines. In robust analysis by Steve Akehurst, arguments about boosting growth and energy independence didn’t just maintain support for Labour's position - they brought more Conservative voters into the Labour camp.
How can climate advocates win this proxy war? Well, as Rachel Wolf put it, the truth is on your side. The most salient arguments in the conversation about energy are to do with cost and security. Net zero policies fit with both of those agendas, and the public knows it. The challenge is to help the major political parties see it too.
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Listen to the full interview with Rachel Wolf wherever you get your podcasts. Find it here.