Pollwatch: global public less concerned with climate change than other environmental issues

The Guardian’s Damian Carrington has commented on a new Nielson survey, showing that across the world, more than two in three online consumers are concerned about climate change. That figure has hardly changed in the last four years. But people in the biggest polluting nations, the United States and China, are becoming less concerned.

The Nielson survey rams home a hard political truth: the extent to which concern about climate change is driven by consumers’ perceptions of their own interests, especially the “hip pocket nerve”. As Carrington says:

At the highly concerned end are Thailand, Mexico and Indonesia, all places with relatively limited capacity to cope with climate change and in regions expected to be hard hit [by extreme weather].

And:

At the opposite end, the least concerned, we have wealthy Norway, Australia and the UK, all places that are not yet really feeling the bite of climate change and anxious that their rich lifestyles might be affected by climate action.

Since the global economic crisis of 2008, the UK media and the public have lost interest in climate change, and focused on more immediate concerns like jobs, money and crime. The Nielsen report confirms that global “climate change” apathy has increased and goes on to provide this explanation:

The global economic recession (and its lingering effects on the job market and inflation) appears to have misplaced climate change as a big worry for many. But while half (48%) of unconcerned global online consumers cite “more urgent and serious matters in the world today” as the main reason for climate change apathy, 37 percent believe that climate change is not the result of human behavior and 23 percent believe future technologies will solve the problem.

The Nielsen survey also suggests that people are more likely to be concerned with environmental issues whose impacts they can more easily see, experience or hear about, a trend that the current climate trance has magnified.

Three out of four global consumers rated air pollution (77%) and water pollution (75%) as top concerns, both increasing six percentage points compared to 2009. The issues of pesticides, packaging waste and water shortages were all top concerns for 73 per cent of global consumers. As a result, climate change / global warming (69%) took what Nielsen calls a “back seat” to other environmental issues.

But we shouldn’t get drawn into an over-simplified politics of false environmental choices - “climate change vs. the rest”. Global consumer concern about climate change has increased, albeit marginally, since 2009. In Europe, consumer concern about climate change has jumped by 10 percentage points over that time. The interesting finding from the Nielson research is that concern with other environmental issues has grown dramatically since 2009 – pesticides (up 16 percentage points), preventing waste (up 14) and water shortages (up 13).

The contours of public opinion of environmental issues may be more subtle than they sometimes appear. The Nielsen report provides no detailed breakdown by region or country, though it notes that water pollution was the main concern for Europeans. In April-May this year, a Eurobarometer survey found that European citizens’ five top environmental concerns were, in order: man made disasters (oil spills etc); water pollution; air pollution; impact on health of chemicals -- and climate change.

For UK citizens, the top environmental concerns were (in order): climate change (1^st=); growing waste (1^st=); man made disasters; water pollution; and depletion of natural resources.

And climate change is not easily separated out from the other environmental issues described above. For instance, climate change is set to put new pressures on water availability in England; reduced water supplies increase the risk of water pollution. Better waste management should help to reduce C02 emissions.

So, what we have now is a global public concern about “the environment”, that is made of a number of issues, elements and frames, of which climate change is one of the most significant, despite the media trance of recent years.

Abbott vs Blanchett: Australia's battle of climate frames

There’s a new front in Australia’s climate wars – the battle of the frames.

Actress Cate Blanchett has appeared in a TV advert to urge her fellow Australians to back the Gillard government’s proposed carbon tax.

But Tony Abbott, leader of the Liberal Party (that’s conservative in Australia) weighed in with this comment:

"People who are worth $53m have a right to be heard – but their voice should not be heard ahead of the ordinary working people of this country."

And this:

"You do not give special weight to celebrities . . .

''You do not give special weight to people who live half the year in Hollywood where there is no carbon tax.”

Abbott was using the “people vs. the elites” frame that has worked powerfully in the US. He set out to cast Cate Blanchett as a symbol of wealthy left-liberal elites who say they want action on climate change but are out of touch with the day-to-day concerns of “ordinary people”. It all comes down, once again, to “who pays?”.

Cate Blanchett has come back with a double-frame of her own – “fighting pollution” and “protecting children”.

'Everyone will benefit if we protect the environment. There is a societal cost of increased pollution and that's what I'm passionate about as a mother. That's where it gets me in the gut,'' she said. ''I can't look my children in the face if I'm not trying to do something in my small way and to urge other people.''

The fact that Cate Blanchett is a mother of three adds an authenticity to her statements. In speaking out, she embodies her narrative.

But the real impact of the row may be to shift attention away from the advert’s message and on to personalities. So Cate Blanchett has tried to frame the argument around protecting the environment.

And she made an interesting aside:

''I understand that if you use the word tax, people are rightly and understandably concerned about their standards of living.”

The UK’s coalition government is bringing in a carbon tax too. They and climate hawks in this country should be relieved that the tax is officially called a “floor price for carbon” and will work within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The frame may blunt some of the attacks that are surely coming.

Footnote: Check out this new article from The Australian’s editor-at-large Paul Kelly about the updated 2011 Garnaut report on climate change. Kelly says:

Garnaut repudiates every basis on which Tony Abbott relies for his campaign against the expected multi-party compromise to put Australia on the historic path to a carbon price.

And:

Garnaut's conclusion is unmistakable – [Prime Minister Julia] Gillard is advancing the national interest while Abbott is reviving a regressive past of sectional interests.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

Is climate change yesterday's media story?

The latest news on human-made climate change is grim, very grim. 2010 tied with 2005 as the planet’s warmest year on record. And the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 390 parts per million, a figure almost 40% higher than it was before we started burning fossil fuels for industrialisation.

Except that it’s not news. Or, at least, we don’t seem to hear so much about it anymore. Almost all the UK media virtually ignored the above reports.

Since 2004, Max Boykoff of the University of Colorado and Maria Mansfield of Oxford University have tracked global trends in media coverage of climate change. Their research shows a noticeable upsurge in media interest in 2006-07, followed by a gentle decline. There was a spike in coverage at the end of 2009, followed by a sharp drop for most of last year.

The trendline for Europe, which is more pronounced than most other regions, takes in coverage by The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Mirror and The Express and all their Sunday titles.

The trends matter because media coverage influences what people are most concerned about. Ipsos MORI showed in January 2007 that 19% of the public rated the environment (unprompted) as “one of the biggest issues facing Britain today”. (That was up from a tiny figure a few years previously.) In January 2011, just 7% said that environment was one of the biggest issues.

I agree with Bob Ward of the LSE’s Grantham Institute, who suggested that “climategate” – the controversy over the hacked e-mails from the UEA’s climate change unit - may have made climate scientists’ assertions too hot for some news editors to handle.

Yet the shock and trance cycle has other, more straightforward explanations. Lord Stern’s review of the economics of climate change appeared in late 2006 and the following year saw the release of Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth and the publication of the IPCC’s four assessment reports on climate change. The latter took place in four stages, thereby maximising the amount of coverage that the report received. The 2009 news spike can be put down to Copenhagen and, perhaps, the attempts in the US to pass cap and trade legislation.

At the end of 2008, however, the global financial crisis, the recession and the ensuing worries about jobs shot to the top of media agendas everywhere and chloroformed their coverage of climate change. After the disappointing outcome at Copenhagen, “climate change” looked, more than ever, like a problem that was both huge and intractable. It also seemed old hat and, perhaps, a bit of a bore. Dr Boykoff’s chart shows that the media started to wake up to climate change around the end of 2010, when the Cancun conference was going on, but quickly dozed off again.

The snooze factor is really important. Matt Nisbet of American University argues that for the US media and public, climate change has lost much of its perceived dramatic qualities. He says that:

. . . journalists' coverage of climate change is driven by the need for dramatic storytelling and novel narratives. Much of the drama in news reporting generally -- and in science reporting as well -- derives from visible political conflict, personality clashes, and contested claims over risks that allow journalists to construct a “news saga” that they can cover for more than a day or week.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that climate activists and some politicians have looked for ways to inject a sense of drama back into the issue. The most noteworthy is 10:10’s “exploding schoolchildren” video last October. But that ended in disaster. Big drama = high risk.

So, where next? Nisbet suggests that the media will only look at climate change anew if they have:

a new novel storyline . . . for the issue that does not define the problem in terms of environmental impacts but rather in terms of something more proximate, localized, and relevant to the public such as human health risks.

That’s right, we’re back to reframing climate change – except that the media, rather than politicians, companies and NGOs are making the shapes. I agree that the public health frame has the potential to pick up traction with the media and the public. [click here]. Yet stories about threats to the economy, jobs and lifestyles are, surely, more likely to grab their attention, for a longer period of time. As for localised stories, floods and droughts in the UK may work in the way he suggests, with one caveat: there may still be too much uncertainty as to whether global warming is the reason for personal catastrophes.

But some interesting new frames and storylines may be emerging. Recently, Kate Galbraith of the New York Times suggested that coverage of climate change and environmental issues has evolved and become more specialised. She instanced the way reporters are subjecting politicians’ and companies’ green initiatives, as well as the challenges and quirks of new energy technologies, to more scrutiny.

In January, Andrew Revkin of Dot Earth showed how his colleagues at the New York Times have illustrated the impacts of climate change on communities and tried to show how clean energy solutions have transformed peoples’ lives in developing countries. He went on to say:

Good reporters, those always eager to get to the root causes of a problem . . . will still track climate science. But they will devote more time and effort to diving deeper on energy policy, habits and innovations — whether unraveling counterproductive subsidies, pointing out the lack of money for path-breaking research, or revealing examples of social and financial innovations percolating around the world — any one of which could make a big difference if the information gets out and around.

My views are impressionistic rather than being based on a Boykoff-type study, but I perceive that the British media’s coverage of climate change and environmental issues has evolved and matured, possibly faster than its American counterparts'. Fiona Harvey of The Guardian (and before that, the FT) has covered the “green growth” debate and the economic arguments around EU emissions reduction targets. She has also placed claims about “green jobs” and companies’ various claims to environmental virtue under scrutiny.

Last year, The Observer’s Juliet Jowitt focused on risks to the world’s biodiversity and brought out the threats they pose to future economic prosperity. She has also been known to question how low carbon energy policies will impact on consumers power bills.

The Guardian’s Leo Hickman has looked into the pro’s and con’s of electric cars, organic milk, green TVs and all kinds of “go green” consumer behaviours.

James Murray’s Business Green website is indispensable for its coverage of “green growth” and the “green economy” debate and of new UK business initiatives and innovations that will reduce our carbon footprint. The Sunday Times’ energy and environment page is largely devoted to new green technologies and their potential impacts.

John Vidal of The Guardian measures up to Andrew Revkin’s global standard. So does the BBC’s Richard Black. Black has framed the climate change in terms of national and international security risks. The Financial Times has developed the security theme for a few years now.

None of the journalists mentioned above has stopped writing about climate science or climate risks.

So, the British media has not turned off climate change. They are covering the issues in different ways. But the question remains as to whether the media’s stories will help build the political space that is needed for effective policies to tackle climate change. Perhaps that’s a job for the politicians – if the media will allow them to be heard and the politicians tell interesting stories.

Reframing climate change: a new overview

Most successful communicators are adept at framing, whether using frames intentionally or intuitively.

So says Matthew Nisbet, associate professor in the School of Communication at American University and blogger for Age of Engagement.

His primer on framing, what it is and how issues are framed, is essential reading for anyone involved in communications, especially about climate change.

Nisbet includes links to his earlier work, including this interesting article describing the frames that are frequently used in the climate change debate.

But he expresses concern that the framing of climate change is considered in terms of marketing and persuasion rather than as a resource for encouraging “bottom up” public involvement. Nisbet goes on:

The unintended consequence of a marketing, political campaign approach is that these strategies tend to seed further polarization and alienation while risking trust in experts and their organizations.

Nisbet, of course, writes about the US, where debate on climate change divides on party political lines much more than it does here. Across the Atlantic, there is much more dispute as to whether or not human-made climate change is real.

Yet the “marketing, political campaign approach” is also dominant in Britain’s discourse about climate change. There may not have been American-style polarisation and alienation, but the public have become less concerned about climate change over the last couple of years, as economic worries – jobs and mortgages – have moved to centre stage. (These trends can be too easily be over-stated, as Climate Sock has pointed out). And the media have lost interest , especially after the Copenhagen summit.

If we are to meet our emissions targets, governments and supporters of climate action will need to encourage people to adopt more-environmentally friendly behaviours. The policies needed are sure to be costly and controversial, meaning that public buy in will be essential. So, what sort of frames should be used?

The most familiar is what Nisbet calls the “Frankenstein’s monster” frame. You tell horror stories to grab the public’s attention, convince them that climate change is an important issue and warn about what will happen unless we all take action to emit less carbon. Many of the horror stories are, of course, well founded and well-researched. But there is growing evidence that “climate pornography” pushes people away and makes them feel that their personal efforts to tackle climate change are hopeless.

Last October, 10:1o tried to push climate change back into the headlines in a scary but humorous way, with disastrous consequences. [click here] Still, NEF’s “hundred months” campaign regularly warns us how little time we supposedly have left to save the planet. (It’s now 71 months, I think).

More positive strategies have been put forward. Last year, Tom Crompton of WWF argued that the government must promote a whole new set of values by which people should live, to promote a shift to a more sustainable society. [Click here, and here.] This sounds like a “moral” or “ethical” version of Nisbet’s “social progress” frame.

But other supporters of climate action acknowledge that most people want to enjoy ever more prosperous and comfortable lives and such materialist drives will prevail over any concerns that they may have about “climate change”. Consequently, most people will not readily make sacrifices to solve a problem that seems too academic, too big, too far away, too out of their control – or too scary.

The logical conclusion is that stories and frames should move on from “climate change”. and on to other arguments for taking action. For instance, this interesting New York Times article, from last October, about energy efficiency in Kansas, suggests that with ‘climate sceptic’ audiences, behaviour change is best framed in terms of other issues, such as energy security, jobs, and faith, rather than in terms of saving the environment.

One branch of this school of thought focuses on personal considerations, such as the promise of a better quality of life. Futerra’s Solitaire Townsend contends that politicians should tell the public a positive but down-to-earth story about what a low carbon way of life would look and feel like - “building a new narrative in people’s heads . . . a self-fulfilling low-carbon prophecy”. She has argued for “[low carbon] substitution, not sacrifice”. [Click here, and here.] Even if the narrative sounds a bit vague, it opens the way to a “consumerist” or “aspirational” edge to the “social progress” frame.

But neither Crompton or Townsend (or, at least, their material that I have seen) contains much analysis of current public perceptions and attitudes – where people are now, how much prepared they are to change, and why. Even Solitaire Townsend has tended to skirt around the issue of economic incentives or, to put it bluntly: why should people start living in more environmentally friendly ways? Where is the financial pay off for them?

The consumerist, “pocketbook” agenda is at the heart of the Political Climate blog, written for a year now by Matthew Lockwood and Andrew Pendleton. They want public policy to focus more on cutting on emissions than on changing behaviours. The Political Climate duo challenge the way politicians have framed climate change as an economic issue, with policies to price carbon (emissions trading, carbon taxes) and attempts to build an international framework as the solution. Instead, they want government to fund policies that bring down the price of low-carbon energy technologies, thereby helping to reframe the debate in more exciting ways, so as to bring more people and interest groups on board.

Political Climate’s argument is a version of the economic development frame, which positions climate change as an opportunity to grow the economy and create jobs, as well as to save the environment: a “win-win” solution.

I follow their work with considerable interest, but I’m still not convinced that the “innovation” answer could stabilise emissions quickly enough to meet the UK’s -- or other countries’ -- emissions targets. It may take years or even decades for cheap new technologies to reach the level of deployment needed to make a major impact on emissions. The alternative path is not as clear as it might be. In these fiscally straitened times, it’s very hard to see how the UK government could write the massive cheque needed to decarbonise our energy system by 2030. A key test of economic development frames like the promise of “green jobs” is whether they are plausible and credible.

Meanwhile, the coalition government has taken economic development as their central frame (but not the only one) for communicating climate policy. Two notable speeches by the energy and climate change secretary, Chris Huhne, on the theme of “green growth” can be seen here and here. Huhne argues that “green growth” will be delivered by more energy saving, carbon capture and storage, renewables and “new nuclear plant as long as there is no public subsidy”.

Crucially, the government wants to reform the electricity markets in order to promote investment in low-carbon energy technologies. It also believes that the EU emissions trading scheme can be reformed, to deliver a strong carbon price. The government’s policies and frames are, therefore, fundamentally different from those of Political Climate.

Chris Huhne is also invoking a “consumer benefits” frame with his promotion of the government’s Green Deal scheme for energy efficiency. His speech to last year’s Liberal Democrat conference is a good example. “Under the Green Deal consumers will save energy and save money.”

Now for the hard questions.

Will “green growth” happen? Will the government – the whole government – present a consistent, credible narrative on climate change or “green growth”? Will the public believe any of it?

How will the Green Deal be marketed to UK households? Will it work? (These questions address both policy and personal behaviours)

For that matter, can "green growth” frames persuade people to make the major economic changes that are needed, or is Tom Crompton correct when he warns that that appeals to materialism cannot, in the end, build strong public support for the radical changes that are needed in the way we live and may even undermine the massive paradigm shift required? Maybe some of Solitaire Townsend’s more “vision-based” narratives could help?

Or do we need to take some other American advice, from Joe Romm for instance, and try to make sure that discussion of policies that aim to tackle global warming should be located firmly in the context of global warming?

Over the coming months, this blog will address these questions in more detail, as well as the other issues raised above about different climate change and environmental frames. Then there’s the small matter of whether the media really wants to talk about it. More on that soon.

On 10:10 and "No Pressure"

The 10:10 campaign, set up to persuade people and organisations to commit to cutting their carbon emissions by 10% by the end of 2010, has shot itself in both feet.

No Pressure, their latest mini-film, tried to push climate change back into the headlines in a way that made people laugh. Produced by Richard Curtis (Blackadder, Four Weddings and a Funeral), the mini-film contains four scenarios in which people who do not make pledges to reduce emissions are blown up by committed carbon campaigners, scattering their blood and bits across the faces and clothing of classmates, workmates and friends.

Bill McKibben, the American environmental campaigner writer and founder of 350.org, has called the film disgusting, distasteful and depressing. I think that Curtis was trying to be ironic and amusing, but the film failed miserably on both counts. The end result was ghastly and boring.

10:10 have pulled the film and said sorry. But they’ve seriously damaged their credibility and handed their (/our) opponents some powerful ammunition. Sure enough, The Daily Telegraph’s James Delingpole has denounced this latest example of “eco-fascism” and slammed what he perceives as the dark heart and intolerance of “the environmental movement”.

I appreciate that this opportunity was too good for a provocative columnist like James Delingpole to pass up. But let’s stop and ask: just what is “the environmental movement” in 2010? “The environmental movement” encompasses NGOs like Greenpeace Friends of the Earth and WWF-UK and campaigns like 350.org . . . and 10:10. It also covers think tanks like Forum for the Future, Green Alliance and E3G and commentators and campaigners like George Monbiot, Mark Lynas and Jonathon Porritt.

But then the “environmental movement” might be business organisations like the Climate Group, the UK Business Council for Sustainable Energy, or the Prince of Wales’s Business and Sustainability Programme. Or the OECD Environment Directorate. Or merchant banks like Climate Change Capital.

This list, by no means exhaustive, captures a wide variety of drivers, agendas, ideologies, policies, strategies and tactics, from “deep greens” to “environmental citizneship”, “environmental justice”, “eco-feminism”, and “ecological modernisation” and much else. An inept film from one campaign proves nothing about all the strands and streams of modern “environmentalism”. It tells us rather a lot, however, about the judgment of those running 10:10.

So, should 10:10 pack up and go home? I think not. Individuals should be encouraged to “make a difference”. In his 2009 book A Blueprint for a Safer Planet, Nicholas Stern discusses “the power of the example” and shows that the annual emissions of greenhouse gases for a typical European lifestyle are, per person, around 10-12 tonnes, the most significant contributors to which come from heating homes, using electrical appliances and travel by car and air. He says that in the UK, the average household can save around 1.5 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually by making their home more energy efficient.

Campaigns like 10:10 can engage people in tackling what is surely the greatest challenge that humankind has ever faced. Over time, they can also help to build a public consensus behind some of the difficult and potentially costly (in the short term) measures that are going to be needed (such as consumer levies for renewable energies or even higher power prices to pay for new investment). Campaigns like 10:10 can put pressure on their governments to take the decisive action that is needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

But where personal targets are used, they should be clear and long term in nature, with incentives and enablers available (which is what the Green Deal is supposed to be about). And if people set themselves targets, they need to be able to verify the savings. For me, this has been where 10:10 has always come up short.

More urgently, 10:10 needs to re-think its communications strategies. In recent years, some of us have tried to work out more effective ways to inspire public support for shifting to a low carbon economy. New perspectives – and not a small number of debates - have been opened up, on having a positive and compelling vision, communicated with emotionally resonant stories and frames, by credible messengers. [Click here, here, here and here].

The real tragedy of “No Pressure” is that, for all its attempts at irony, the film preached to us, with a negative message and a ‘doomsday’ frame, all sure-fire ways to push people away. This debacle could so easily have been avoided.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley's posterous

Coalition's key test for the Liberal Democrats

I often wonder whether, in all the shock and awe of the last couple of months, Liberal Democrats have grasped fully one of the biggest potential “wins” from the coalition government.

Surely, we should be pinning our hopes on the environmental agenda. The Liberal Democrats can now drive faster progress towards a zero carbon Britain.

The point is well made in an article for The Guardian by Matthew Spencer, the new head of Green Alliance. He says that the delivery of environmental policies is a major test - and a major opportunity - for the coalition government. He points out there was little difference on green issues between the Conservative and Lib Dem manifestos and argues that the need to bring down the public deficit will force the coalition to use regulation to achieve its environmental goals.

Spencer picks up on some the implications for the Liberal Democrats.

Along with civil liberties and electoral reform, the environment is central to the Liberal Democrats' sense of political identity. As one Lib Dem insider recently told me: "If we can't make progress on green issues it wouldn't have been worth joining the coalition." It's an agenda that Nick Clegg will hope to use to bind the Lib Dem base into the coalition over coming months.

And:

Being the greenest government ever may not seem like a big achievement given the patchy performance of previous administrations, but for the coalition it will be a major test. If they can't achieve rapid progress on green issues their legitimacy will fade in the eyes of Liberal Democrats supporters and those who voted Conservative in the belief that it was a reformed, modern party. If they do manage to deliver on their commitments it will be a badge of honour for the new politics of Cameron and Clegg.

There is another, important reason that the Lib Dems can and should deliver for the environment. The party has cornered many of the relevant jobs in government.

Let's start with the obvious one: the Lib Dem secretary for energy and climate change, Chris Huhne, has his capable hands on the levers for regulating the electricity generation sector, which accounts for 37% of the UK’s CO2 emissions. He is also responsible for energy efficiency policies and for this country’s efforts to shape EU energy and climate change policy.

The Lib Dem BIS secretary, Vince Cable, leads the department that is best placed to provide this country’s businesses with the certainty they need to invest in low carbon, sustainable prosperity and enable them to make the best of the opportunities offered by the £3 trillion global market for environmental goods and services. Vince alluded to this in his first major policy speech, on 3 June.

The debate about industrial policy always raises the spectre of ‘picking winners’. But in a globalised economy its time to move this debate on a bit – be clear about what this means. Because in some ways we have to be picking winners . . .

. . . What we shouldn’t be doing is trying to micromanage the economy at the level of individual companies or so-called national champions: trying to supercede the judgement of markets.

The green technology revolution is a good example, and a potential source of huge opportunity for Britain. The Government is, and should, support development in a variety of renewable energy technologies and a variety of environmentally friendly vehicles – it does not have to be prescriptive.

Liberal Democrats in other departments can also make a difference. Norman Baker, a transport minister, is responsible for regional and local transport, buses, walking and cycling and alternatives to travel. The Committee on Climate Change has found that "smarter choices" - influencing people's travel behaviour towards more sustainable options - offer significant low-cost potential for reducing transport emissions.

Andrew Stunell, a communities minister, has building regulations as part of his remit. That may sound a little dry, but 40% of the UK’s carbon emissions come from energy consumed in buildings. The Carbon Trust has shown that tighter Building Regulations can be part of a strategy to reduce the carbon footprint of non-domestic buildings by more than one third by 2020.

No, these ministers will not be able to stop climate change on their own. Important as they are, their roles cannot provide the cross-departmental, multi-faceted approach that is needed to drive the transition to a zero-carbon economy.

But Liberal Democrat ministers now have an historic opportunity to join forces, link together the policies that they control or influence and ensure more rapid progress towards the party’s goal of a zero carbon Britain.

That’s a very good reason for the party to be in the coalition. It’s also one of the best ways that I can see of judging the Liberal Democrats’ effectiveness in government.

Posted via email from Neil Stockley

Climate change not our problem, say UK voters

Today’s Times leads with a new Populus poll that shows a high level of public scepticism about human-made climate change. Only 41 per cent of respondents believe that climate change is happening and that human causation is an established fact. A third of the public believes in the fact of climate change but remains unpersuaded that it is caused by humans. Nearly one in ten people believes that climate change is a purely natural phenomenon and blaming humans is propaganda put about by environmentalists. Fifteen per cent of the country simply do not accept that climate change is happening at all.

The figures underline the difficulties this government (and its successors) will have in persuading the public to accept tough policy measures – especially higher green taxes - to help in meeting Britain’s legally binding emissions targets.

OK, what’s new? Public opinion polls over the last three years have shown that a growing number of people in the UK are becoming increasingly sceptical of the impact of human activities on climate change or that they question the impacts of global warming on the climate. [Click here, here and here]. The British public’s suspicion of green taxes is also well documented [click here]. Yet today’s poll shows an increase in support compared with three years ago for new taxes on air travel intended to reduce the number of flights people take, and for raising the cost of motoring to encourage people to drive less.

Perhaps I protest too much. Politicos and ideologues of all stripes have become very tetchy over the past 25-plus years when I have tried to point out that opinion surveys show that most people don’t agree with them (or, to be more precise, that their pet issue won’t necessarily deliver scores of seats to the NZ Labour Party / Liberal Democrats). So I should tread carefully today and take the stark new evidence of public scepticism at face value. Today’s poll figures should concern all climate realists, especially after as the science has become steadily more pessimistic over recent years and received considerable media coverage.

Actually, I believe the gloomy science and media shock explain much of the public pushback. In today’s Times, Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, is quoted as saying that growing awareness of the scale of the problem appeared to be resulting in people taking refuge in denial.

“Being confronted with the possibility of higher energy bills, wind farms down the road and new nuclear power stations encourages people to question everything about climate change,” she said. “There is a resistance to change and some people see the problem being used as an excuse to charge them more taxes.”

I agree with Vicky Pope but the denial syndrome goes even deeper than she suggests. This is a question of basic values and psychology as much as power bills and green taxes. The rhetoric used to discuss climate change usually revolves around threats and dangers, with “looming environmental disaster” the dominant frame. But we live in an aspirational, consumerist society and it’s hardly surprising that so many people feel defensive when they hear talk of apocalypse and demands on them to make personal sacrifices. Some of their core values, their ways of looking at themselves and their lives are being directly challenged. People are being asked to take personal responsibility for something that is not yet evident in their daily lives. Talk of climate catastrophe does not always fit with their worldview - their personal narratives - and so it’s easier to play for time, expect others to take the blame, or block it out altogether.

Either way, it surely doesn’t help that politicians, scientists (intellectuals) and green groups – hardly the most liked or trusted groups - are doing a lot of the ‘challenging’. [click here]

I take three lessons for climate realists from The Times poll. First, we should start to use more frames, storylines and rhetoric that resonate with the way most people see the world. No, not dodging the truth about the science but talking more about about green growth, green jobs and the need to preserve our national and economic security. [click here]

Second, we need a wider range of advocates –for instance, more young women and more people from community groups – explaining the issues and making the case for change.

Third, it’s time to engage more with strategies for social change, learning more about the psychology of climate change and finding out how and why people change their minds and act on issues. Some progress has been made on the research side [click here and here] but we quickly need to turn this an action plan. Time is running out.

A step change for climate action

We need action at Copenhagen on the climate crisis and the UK needs to do its bit – both as a moral issue, and in order to have credibility. The question is, what sort of action and who will the UK government do it.

Two major reports that have come out over the past week offer some valuable suggestions.

On Monday, Lord Adair Turner’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC) published Meeting Carbon Budgets – the Need for a Step Change. This reported that between 2003 and 2007 (the five years before the first carbon budget period), the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions fell by 0.6 per cent per year on average. But the CCC also said that cuts of 2.6 per cent per year on average will be needed to meet the UK carbon budgets. The budgets effectively call for greenhouse gas emissions cuts of 34 per cent by 2020.

The committee looked at current and planned government policies and concluded:

“Going forward a step change will be required to achieve deep emissions cuts required through the first three carbon budget periods and beyond.”

The committee’s suggestions included building around 8,000 more wind turbines, up to four carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstrations and getting 1.7 million electric electric cars on the road by 2020.

Now for the really hard part. Such a “step change” would come on top of an already ambitious series of official targets and aims. For instance, the UK has a target for 15 per cent of the UK’s energy to come from renewables by 2020, compared with about 2 per cent now. The government’s existing renewable energy and energy efficiency plans will need investment in, for example: renewables generation; robust energy efficiency solutions; offshore wind power grids; electricity transmission and gas distribution grid reinforcement and interconnectors; and smart meters.

How much would the “step change” cost? Who’s going to pay? And where will companies get the incentives to invest in low carbon power plant?

That brings me to the second key report of recent days – Ofgem’s Project Discovery Energy Market Scenarios. Of the four scenarios discussed, the one that is most like the government’s policy mix is the “green transition”, based on a big expansion in investment in environmental measures (with a fast economic recovery). The scenario assumes that £200bn of investment could take place before 2020, with big progress on efficiency and renewable heat. That would mean more than double the rate of investment spending over the last 10 years. But, as Ofgem notes, the length of the current global financial crisis raises questions over the financing of that investment. There’s another snag: under “green transition”, domestic power bills would increase by 23 per cent by 2020. That’s a smaller rise than under other scenarios but a big job awaits the next energy and climate change secretary. Will s/he know what to do it and how to do it?

The main way that the government tries to secure such investment is through the carbon price, the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. It also uses regulatory measures (especially on energy efficiency) and tax policies. But the Turner committee was none too optimistic about future carbon price levels. It also said:

“Our analysis suggests that in a risky, uncertain world, even with very high carbon prices, the market may not deliver necessary low-carbon [generation] investment, resulting in high emissions intensity (and high costs for consumers).”

The committee argued that without a clear policy lead, Britain risks increasing reliance on gas and given falling gas production across Europe (apart from Norway), reliance on gas means reliance on Russia. More gas consumption will make sustained cuts in carbon emissions harder to achieve.

We hear a lot of calls these days for a more active, “interventionist” approach from government. But they leave open a lot of hard questions. Ofgem also put up a scenario called “green stimulus”, in which economic recovery is slow, meaning that governments around the world spend a lot of money to boost their economies and cut emissions at the same time. That could mean that the UK government invests directly in large generation projects and infrastructure projects, such as smart grids, electric vehicle charging and CO2 transportation and storage.

Ofgem found that under this scenario emissions would fall by more with prices going up less than under the “green transition”. But there is no guarantee that the government would always make the correct decisions. The “green stimulus” scenario shows how vulnerable UK energy policy is to external economic conditions. Ofgem notes that with low fuel prices, the additional costs of the low carbon technologies would be very significant in the “stimulus” scenario. Moreover, customers (and Government) may be less able to afford these costs if the economy was not growing strongly.

The sensible thing is to keep relying on a carbon price and other policy measures, at least some of which will need government investment in future. But they may need to change. I am becoming more convinced that a carbon tax or similar measure could be needed to underpin the carbon price. This is one option put up by the Turner committee.

On another of their suggestions: I have long supported action via the planning system to ensure timely approval of large wind projects. The Infrastructure Planning Commission should not be scrapped and its remit may need be extended to cover smaller wind projects.

The Turner committee’s focus on energy efficiency was especially interesting. This has been a Cinderella policy for far too long, despite the fact that improved energy efficiency is the most effective way to cut emissions and market failures mean than consumers don’t invest quickly enough. The committee concluded that “a major shift in ambition is needed”, with at least 10 million lofts and 7.5 million wall cavities insulated by 2015 and around 12 million boilers to be upgraded by 2022.

Rather than hoping that individual households will ask for specific insulation measures, the report called for three pillar approach: “whole house” with a one stop shop covering all effective measures; “neighbourhood” – led by the UK government and delivered area by area with local authorities and energy companies playing key roles; and .“pay as you save” finance – with some grants / subsidies to encourage uptake of insulation measures. That sounds very much like the nationwide housing retrofit programme advocated by the Green Standard – and the Liberal Democrats.

There’s another important issue, not discussed by the Turner committee, where government action is needed. Because of market failures, private sector involvement alone will not generate enough investment to bring some new green technologies to market quickly enough. [click here] That strengthens the case for green bonds and a green investment bank, a cause which has now been taken up, I am pleased to say, by Green Alliance and the Aldersgate Group.

Now, let’s see some political action.

[for Blog Action Day 2009 – www.blogactionday.org]

The people's party, honest and with a shade of green - how voters see the Liberal Democrats (Part 1)

How’s the Liberal Democrat narrative going, Neil? I get asked that from time to time, for some reason.

On the basis that the Lib Dems have a narrative, but it belongs to the voters, not to the party, here’s a round up of what the pre-conference research by Populus, Ipsos-MORI and Orb Research (quantitative and focus groups for Newsnight) said about the Lib Dems.

Let’s start with the party’s strengths. According to Populus, the Lib Dems scored highest, once again, for being the party “for ordinary people, not the best off”. There was 40% net agreement that this statement applied to the Lib Dems, as opposed to 0% for Labour (equal numbers agreed and disagreed) and minus 7% for the Conservatives.

The Lib Dems’ second best rating was for being “a united party”, with a net agreement of plus 27%. For the Tories, the figure was plus 16%. For Labour, it was minus 50%.

The Lib Dems were also seen as the most “honest and principled” party. The net agreement that this statement applied to the Lib Dems was plus 24%. That figure compared to minus 11% for the Conservatives and minus 40% for Labour.

On all three measures, the Lib Dem showings were better than in 2008.

So we can see the sorts of attributes that the Lib Dems should be trying to reinforce in the issues and policies that we push; the stories we tell about the party. For instance, Nick Clegg was correct to stress in his keynote the party’s “fair taxes” plan as the “one policy to take away” from Bournemouth. And the party needs to keep embodying the “honest and principled” image.

There’s an important caveat, however. At the end of September, Ipsos MORI found that the Conservatives were the preferred party for “being best at looking after the interests of people like you”, with the Lib Dems third.(1)

Now for the areas where the Lib Dems are not so strong. There were some indications that the party is still not seen as a serious contender for government. The party did less well for having “a good team of leaders” (+3% net agreement) and “competent and capable” (+1%). On both scores, the Conservatives were again the preferred party – though the Lib Dems have made up some ground since last year.

The number agreeing that the Lib Dems “share my values” was equal to the number disagreeing. That may be food for thought for those who say we should campaign on our “values”. Note that the public didn’t really see any party as “sharing its values”, though Labour did the worst by far. And when it came to “having clear ideas for dealing with Britain’s problems”, voters didn’t rate any of the parties. (Tories - plus 3%, Lib Dems - minus 9%, Labour - minus 30%).(2)

Even if no party was seen as having “the answers”, they are all stronger on some issues than on others. Populus showed the Lib Dems top on only one – “tackling the problem of climate change” – where the Lib Dems were 6% ahead of the Tories and 7% ahead of Labour.

On all the issues that matter most to voters – the NHS, education, crime – the Lib Dems lagged well behind both the other parties. Ipsos MORI came up with very similar findings (3). Nothing new there. But many Lib Dems will be disappointed that the party scored only 11% as the best party in the Populus poll for “managing Britain’s economy in good times as well as bad”, especially in light of Vince Cable’s public standing.

Some of the party’s favourite communications themes have not taken off. The Lib Dems were 12% behind the Tories as the best party for “reforming Britain’s political system”. The two opposition parties were rated about equally for “responding to the public anger over MPs’ expenses”. As I have suggested before, “fixing up politics” may not be quite the winner for the Lib Dems that some have thought.

The Newsnight poll found that the Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems were 16% behind Cameron and the Conservatives as “the party that represents change in politics”.

There’s an obvious explanation for all this: the public does not see or hear much about the Lib Dems and see the party as a “wasted vote” in many parts of the country. The well-worn counter-stories about the Lib Dems emerged very clearly from the Newsnight focus groups that were conducted in the second week of September.(4) As one participant put it: “a vote for them is almost like a wasted vote . . . they’ve got no hope of actually taking over.” A few attributed the party’s lack of profile to the voting system and a lack of media coverage.

The American pollster who ran the groups, Cornell Belcher, concluded that the public’s dislike of Labour and lack of enthusiasm for the Tories provide the Lib Dems with a great opportunity:

“ . . . but they’re not coming up the middle because voters don’t know who they are.”

The arguments that “we need more coverage” have been well-rehearsed for years. So has the sense of optimism about the Representation of the People Act, which requires the Lib Dems to have the same amount of broadcast coverage as Labour and the Tories. during general election campaigns. Well, OK. But I think that there’s also a risk that these figures, if turned into the Lib Dems’ preferred storylines, could all too easily crash into each other.

Look at what happened at Bournemouth conference. Yes, the Lib Dems’ “fair taxes” are “for the ordinary people not the best off”. But talk of “savage cuts” – which are more likely to hit low and middle income people hardest - can surely be defended as “honest and principled”. These are hard to reconcile and I doubt that the phrase “progressive austerity” quite does it. (Where’s the story?). But retreating into fanciful and dishonest lists of unaffordable policies would not match the narrative either.

The Newsnight research underlined that the Lib Dems can get across only one or two mutually reinforcing stories about ourselves. These are much more likely to be successful if they are based on being for “ordinary people”, supported by honest and rigorous information about how all major Lib Dem policies will be paid for and sensible environmental policies.


(1) Populus did not ask whether each party “cares about the problems that ordinary people have to deal with” or “understands the way people live their lives in today's Britain” as they did in 2008.
(2) This question was not asked in 2008
(3) Ipsos MORI did not ask which party was best on the environment, presumably because it did not rank high enough as an issue for voters
(4) NB – these were carried out in Pudsey and Brighton, neither of which has any target seats for the Lib Dems.

Tackling climate change and building a green economy with clean energy. How would the Lib Dems do it?

Liberal Democrats talk about tackling climate change, investing in clean renewable energy and investing in green economic growth and green infrastructure. But how would we do it?

The scientific consensus is clear - the world must keep the rise in global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius above pre industrial levels, or we will face an apocalyptic situation where climate change is out of our control.

The science is becoming more pessimistic. Last year, for instance, climate scientists from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research found that cumulative CO2 emissions, along with carbon cycle feedbacks and the omission of emissions from international transport, mean that action to reduce emissions is needed much more urgently that previously thought. Global greenhouse gas emissions need to start falling by 2015. Their analysis also suggests that the UK needs to aim at the upper end of the IPCC’s recommendations, for industrialised countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions between 25 and 40 per cent from a 1990 baseline; in part to encourage other countries to aim for a stronger deal at Copenhagen. [click here].

The independent Committee on Climate Change favours strong domestic action, with little or no dependence on offsets purchased from abroad to achieve its suggested emissions reduction targets.

So the Liberal Democrats are correct to commit to cutting UK emissions by 40 percent by 2020; and to supporting an international agreement to do the same.(1)

We have also adopted targets for 40% clean electricity -- wind, hydroelectric, tidal, biomass, wave and tidal, solar power -- by 2020; and for making a major improvement in our energy efficiency -- the most cost-effective way of cutting carbon emissions. This is the key to reducing our carbon emissions. Research by the Carbon Trust and Imperial College proves it.

Liberal Democrats want to take carbon out of the electricity we use, the heat we need, the vehicles we use to get around by 2050. We want to create a new, green economy.

Let’s be clear. This is a transformation the like of which has never seen before. It will need the fastest acceleration of technological development and innovation in our history. And 40% clean electricity is eight times the UK’s current level.

The transformation to a zero carbon Britain will need investment in, for example: renewables generation; robust energy efficiency solutions; offshore wind power grids; electricity transmission and gas distribution grid reinforcement and interconnectors; and smart meters.

Last year, the Renewables Advisory Board estimated that to reach the government’s existing energy targets the private sector will need to invest £100bn by 2020.

In July 2009, new work by Ernst and Young, covering investment needs for all the government’s energy policy goals, put the figure at £90 billion by 2015 (though that includes new nuclear generation).

But market failures mean that private sector involvement alone will not generate enough investment to fully commercialise some new green technologies quickly enough.

In some cases, the lead times are too long. Some supply chains are too weak – in onshore wind, for example, we have to compete in a global supply chain with Spain, Denmark. And in offshore wind there are very few turbine manufacturers.

The Liberal Democrats’ general election manifesto should set out a green industrial strategy, to make sure that the technologies where this country has an advantage can come to market. This includes:

• providing capital grants for clean energy sources;
• creating a Green Infrastructure Bank to act as the catalyst for private sector investment; with public finance acting in partnership to carry forward low carbon infrastructure investment; and
• using green bonds to raise new finance for green infrastructure and energy efficiency solutions; boosting confidence in low carbon markets without making the public debt worse.

Liberal Democrats talk about “using guaranteed prices to drive investment in renewable energy sources such as wind, wave and solar.” But so do Labour (now) and the Conservatives. We need to be committed to guaranteed prices that do the job – by being structured simply enough and set sufficiently high to promote investment in as many viable clean energy solutions as possible.

(1) Note that earlier this year, new research from the Tyndall Centre supported a 42 per cent UK emissions reduction target by 2020 (without using carbon offsets purchased from abroad.

[This is an edited version of the speech I would have given in the energy and climate change debate at the Liberal Democrat conference, had I been called.]