Photo: Luke La Hausse

It’s easy to get caught up in the infectious enthusiasm of a good march, but now the energy from yesterdays’ London climate march has subsided, now might be a good time to examine their effectiveness as a measure of public opinion.

The purpose of a march is two fold. One is to demonstrate to policy makers the level of public opinion on an issue, and the other is to and try increase awareness. Lets deal with both in tern. To identify protests of significant impact five protests were identified with the aid of google trends where the volume of search traffic in the UK for the word “protest” exceed twice the background rate since 2005.

These five protests were in turn, the fuel price protest of September 05, G8/ Make poverty History march June/July 2005, climate change protest December 2005, Petrol price protest December 2007 and the stop the Heathrow expansion protest in May/ June 2008.

So, how well do the numbers on the marches represent public opinion?

July 2005 saw one of the largest protests in recent history, with make poverty history with 225 000 people marching, yet on the fuel protests of 2007, only 10 000 people were involved. In July 2005, 7% of respondents said global poverty and inequality was a major issue (Ipsos-MORI 2005) compared with a background average for 2005 of 6.4% showing a very negligible increase. Likewise the fuel protests of December 2007 lead coincided an increase in public concern to 6% from a background of the 12 months either side of 5.4% (Ipsos-MORI 2007) although cause and effect are rather harder to untangle in that example.

When comparing these statistics with background rates and with the numbers involved in the protests, it is clear that the numbers attending do not influence or reflect public opinion.

How well do the numbers on these marches affect public interest?

In July 2005, 225 000 people marched in Edinburgh, yet 2000 people joined the Heathrow Expansion protests and the public interest as not significantly different. On the face of it this suggests that attendance numbers are not the most important factor in generating public interest. However it is important to control for number of media hours given to each.

As can be seen by the comparison of the two graphs above, the annual climate change march does coincide peaks in the numbers of people googling climate change. However, there are much greater peaks than this.

So what events cause the greatest interest in climate change?

The largest three peaks (where volume of searching for “climate change” exceeds twice background levels) were in October 2006, March 2007 and July 2007. These coincided with the publication of the Stern Review, the draft Climate Change Bill, and the summer flooding in the UK.

For those of us that marched on London yesterday, this is mixed news indeed. Collectively we will have had minimal impact on public opinion of climate change.  None the less, it is foolish to separate protest marches from other drivers of public opinion.  Public opinion is driven by perceived social norms and in a small way marches play their part in creating those.  Besides, the impacts on policy are much harder to measure, and who know what they might be

One of the difficulties with governing on the scale of the E.U. is how to accurately assess public opinion. In light of these concerns, the E.U. has been remarkably proactive with pan-Europe opinion polls. In the next few posts I’ll try to give a digest of the recent results to see how public opinion in the E.U. may influence policy.

In this first E.U. post, I want to deal with some of the basics. Across the E.U. 50% of people say that climate change is “very much a concern” for them (Gallup 2008) and 62% think that climate change is the most serious issue facing the world as a whole (E.U. TNS 2008). This last figure is particularly significant when compared to the 24% that thought the most major issue facing the world was a “major global economic downturn in May this year.

Attitudes to E.U. policy also reveal interesting results as shown in the figure below.

Fig. 1 Data Eurobarometer 2008

Interestingly, although the chart above shows 58% of citizens feel the E.U. is not doing enough to tackle climate change, this figure is much lower than that of national governments, corporations and citizens themselves (64%, 76% and 67% respectively).

The data shows quite a degree of variability between member states (see fig. 2) . It appears that the greatest levels of concern occur in Mediterranean regions (Spain, Cyprus, Malta, Greece, Portugal) and Slovenia, where as the lowest levels of concern are in the Baltic regions (Estonia, Lithuania, Poland) as well as Italy.

Fig.2 percentage respondants who list climate change as the most serious issue facing the world as a whole (EU TNS 2008)

In the next few posts I will analyse attitudes to different green policies and personal efforts to tackle climate change.

It’s not often that business executives are the focus of opinion polls, but a survey this year by Yougov highlights some truly surprising results. Yes, the sample size is small but the respondents are powerful. 200 business executives from FTSE 300 companies were polled on their attitudes to climate change in a business context, and the results make for interesting reading, especially in the context of public perception.  66% of people think that climate change will not be an important issue for businesses over the next three to four years (Ipsos MORI March 2008) but the results of this poll suggest otherwise.

The number of business executives who think that climate change is a significant issue lies at 85%, a higher proportion than the population at large (77% Ipsos MORI 2008). In fact, 66% of executives said that climate change had reached the board agenda, though 21% said it was not likely to be discussed in the near future. In total, 31% of businesses are reviewing their current business model to account for climate change and 22% are working towards carbon neutral status.

It’s mixed news in terms of office energy efficiency. The proportions of businesses employing energy saving methods in the office are high, but lagging behind the general public by a couple of years. The number of businesses recycling or using recycled products, at 77% is almost exactly the same as the population in general two years ago (76% Populus 2006), as is the use of energy efficient appliances at 67%.

Perhaps the most illuminating part of the study is the feelings of executives on what is stopping them becoming greener. 58% of executives felt that the government was not doing enough to educate businesses on how to tackle climate change, surprisingly, 25% of executives thought there was not sufficient support from employees to adopt carbon management strategies and 24% thought that the biggest obstacle was convincing partners and suppliers.

All in all it’s a mixed and confusing set of results, but it certainly highlights an area to look out for. Watch this space.

Voters think that Climate Change is a top priority, but it won’t affect who they vote for.

Part one of this post showed how, while voters were heavily concerned about climate change, it was not a voting issue in national elections. This post will attempt to analyse some possible reasons for this paradox.

Important but not the most important issue?

The most obvious explanation of the disparity is that, while people are concerned about climate change, it is not the single most important issue for them, i.e. the one that would change who they voted for. This is backed up by a survey conducted by ICM Research before Gordon Brown became prime minister, which showed that only 7% of the population thought that climate change should be the top priority for Brown when he succeeded (However, this survey was also conducted before the flooding in 2007, which is likely to have caused more responses in favour of climate change issues.)

International Problem?

Another alternative explanation is that climate change does not rank high on the domestic agenda because people believe that it is beyond the power of the government to tackle climate change without international co-operation. A 2007 Yougov poll states that 54% of voters believe that there is no point in the U.K. acting alone on climate change and that 20% more voters would support policies that forced people to change their lifestyles if other countries did it. Over 66% think that Russia, India and China would not stick to an emissions control deal and 64% think that the U.S.A would not (N.B. U.S. data is likely to have changed significantly since the recent elections).

It’s already too late?

The number of climate fatalists in the U.K. may also help explain some of the disparity. 59% of people (Yougov 2008) strongly agree or tend to agree that it is too late to stop climate change. This would explain the high level of concern yet the apparent unwillingness to make climate change the central issue in domestic politics.

Lack of trust in government

Polls such as Yougov 2007 which put 54% of people thinking that Britain should do more to tackle climate change do not specify government or popular / corporate action. 57% are not very or not at all confident that the government will “deal with climate change in the next few years”(Yougov 2006). A ComRes poll puts 40% of the population agreeing that the government exaggerates the threat of climate change and that 69% think green taxes are part of a tax-rising agenda. The combination of the lack of belief and lack of trust in the government’s climate change policy may contribute heavily to the fact that climate change is not a significant voting issue.

Voters think that Climate Change is a top priority, but it won’t affect who they vote for.

* Spontaneous responses grouped under Environment / Pollution

It’s frankly bizarre. In line with other polls, a recent Ipsos MORI poll puts fairly concerned and very concerned citizens combined making up 77% of the UK population, yet it clearly doesn’t figure as a singular voting issue.

As the chart below shows, over the last two and a half years, climate change has not even registered in the top 5 voting issues. In fact, between Aug 2007 and Aug 2008, the number of voters who said that the Environment/ Pollution was their top issue averaged at 7.8% of the population.

Ipsos-MORI 2008

There are a couple of possible reasons for this disparity, some just technical artefacts of polling methods which may account for a small amount of the difference but also some more significant possible factors.

One possible explanation is that while people are concerned it is not their central reason that decides their vote. Others perhaps think that action by the U.K is futile without international co-operation in which they have little faith. Another possibility is that people believe that climate change will not be solved by government but by individuals and businesses. It is also possible that voters think it is too late to act on climate change and have become resigned to a global catastrophe. Over the next few days I will post more on these subjects and identify trends in the polling data that can elucidate the cause of this paradox.