My conclusions from the charts are:

1. Level of concern

Climate change and the environment in general isn’t a major issue on most people’s radars.  It doesn’t come high in the list when people are thinking about the issues that affects their day-to-day lives. However, it does become more significant when it’s prominent for external reasons: severe weather attributed to climate change; positive media attention (e.g. around the Stern report).  Equally, it can be less of a concern for the opposite reasons. Indeed, the dates for the fieldwork for a number of the charts – early 2010 – have, I believe, reduced some of the scores for action on tackling climate change. So comparisons with 2005 and 2008 look worse than I suspect they would have been if the fieldwork had been a couple of months later.

I think this suggests that people generally don’t reject the idea of climate change as an important issue. When they’re reminded about it, it reappears as something important. But most of the time, most people aren’t affected by it at an emotional level, any more than most people in rich countries are affected emotionally by food security in the global South apart from when starvation makes the TV screens.

2. Level of engagement

MORI’s conclusion on the data about whether climate change is exaggerated is that two in five agree with this. That’s true, but what I think is most interesting is that 71% are in the middle three options: tend to agree / neither agree nor disagree / tend to disagree. Another 3% don’t know.  So only 26% have a strong opinion.  Similarly, on the question about whether people are uncertain what the effects of climate change will be, 79% are in those three options.

We see this often in questions about climate change that give middle-ground options. More people seem to be put off by the heat of the ‘debate’ between climate campaigners and those who reject humans as the cause of climate change. Both sides are seen to be overstating their case; the compromise is assumed to be the correct position.

3. Basis for action

I’ve used the data on slide 18 on a couple of occasions (here, for instance). I think it’s one of the most important findings I’ve seen about the communication of climate change.  While most people think that climate change is caused by humans, that it’s serious, that it requires action, and that that action should be led by governments…  they don’t trust politicians to lead that action.

Either politicians have to get much better at how they talk about climate change, and be much more transparent about how climate taxes are structured.  Or they need help from other people, who can push for action on climate change with much more credibility.

This is post was originally published on ClimateSock​.com.

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This struck me then as a problem, and data from January’s Mori poll adds weight to this thought, suggesting that there is a real risk in politicians being the main group that’s heard to talk about climate change. But the results also give us some of the most striking results I’ve seen to suggest that the British public are in fact pretty concerned about climate change.

At the end of their questionnaire, Mori asked the respondents their level of agreement with a series of statements, covering perceptions of climate change, personal responsibility, and the role of government. What the responses suggest is that people are worried about climate change, but are highly suspicious of politicians’ motives when they hear them talking about it.

The statements around the importance and impact of climate change indicate that levels of strong scepticism among the public remain relatively low. More than twice as many strongly disagree that climate change is “scaremongering”, and very few accept the argument that climate change is not necessarily bad for the planet.

(That said, the results of the “scaremongering” question do remind us that while the climate sceptics’ arguments are believed by only a minority, they are accepted to some degree by 3 in 10. There remain many who are still unconvinced by the climate science)

Nevertheless, climate change is widely seen to be an extremely bad thing. When asked about the impact of climate change in the UK and globally, comfortable majorities see it as really very unpleasant.

Climate change is believed to be likely both to endanger the whole of like on earth, and not to give the UK better weather and more sunshine. The sometimes-used sceptic argument, that it will actually make the world more liveable (or have no impact), appears to have been roundly rejected.

But when we look at the political results, there’s something far less reassuring for those trying to build public support around tackling climate change. As we’ve seen, governments are felt to have the most responsibility for the issue. But the Mori poll is clear in showing that politicians are also hugely distrusted when they talk about climate change.

So great is this distrust of politicians, that even while there is widespread acceptance that climate change is happening, the government is still believed to be using it as a ruse to raise taxes and distract people from other issues. It’s clear that allowing politicians to be the only voice that is heard promoting action on climate change would be (maybe already is) very counter-productive.

We don’t have an answer here for which sources are more trusted – particularly post-Climategate. But whichever sources are more trusted to make a case for tackling climate change, it’s clear that there’s still a strong level of individual willingness to take action. So one final statement, to end on a positive about support for tackling climate change:

This is a guest post, originally published on ClimateSock​.com

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Testing the impact of the UEA story is tricky, because there are currently no public polling firms that have regular polls with consistently phrased questions about climate change. But data from two polls, one taken in early November, the other in early December, do suggest that the UEA story has had no measurable impact on belief in man-made global warming.

Satisfyingly, both polls were commissioned by newspapers that tried to use them as evidence of growing public doubt in man-made global warming. We’ve already seen the Times/Populus poll from early November – good poll, twisted beyond recognition in its reporting. The other is a Sunday Telegraph/ICM poll, conducted Dec 2^nd-3^rd (when the UEA stories were still at a peak) which was similarly reported as showing that large numbers now don’t believe in man-made global warming.

These two polls are pretty good tools for comparison as they both ask one quite similar question to measure belief in man-made global warming. The options presented to the respondents in the two polls were:

1. “It is now an established scientific fact that climate change is largely man-made” (Populus) / “Climate change is happening and is established as being largely man-made” (ICM);
2. “There is a widespread theory that climate change is largely man-made but this has not yet been conclusively proved” (Populus) / “Climate change is happening but is not yet proven to be man-made” (ICM);
3. “Man-made climate change is environmentalist propaganda for which there is little or no real evidence” (Populus) / “Climate change is not happening” (ICM);
4. “Don’t know” (both polls).

So while the wordings of the answer choices were slightly different, the sentiments were essentially the same, and we can be comfortable comparing the results.

The scores turn out to be startlingly similar:

In fact, there are no statistical differences between opinions towards man-made global warming before and after the UEA story broke.

That said, there are two health warnings that should come with this.

Firstly, we’re only looking at two polls here. Since the post-story poll was taken only a week after the story first broke, it may be that the impact hadn’t yet filtered through. The next poll to ask this question will help us be more confident in what we’ve seen here.

Finally, even if the UEA story has had no impact on belief in man-made global warming, it almost certainly has harmed the credibility of climate scientists. A Sunday Times/YouGov poll on 3^rd-4^th December primed respondents with the UEA story and then asked them whether they trust climate scientists to tell the truth. Not surprisingly, only 41% said yes. Since scientists/independent experts are usually the group trusted the most in such questions, this is a very low score.

This is a Guest Post, originally published on ClimateSock.com.

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