COP Live - One Year On

During COP26, More in Common convened six focus groups with participants from across the British Seven segments to find out what the public thought about the big climate issues as world leaders were meeting to discuss.  

As the COP27 took place last week, we caught up with seven of last year’s participants to find out how their views on climate change and our path to net-zero had changed since the UK hosted the summit in Glasgow.  

Little progress and undelivered promises 

More than anything else this group, who were drawn from across the country, with different political beliefs and backgrounds were frustrated that it seemed like nothing had changed since COP 26. This summer’s hot weather and our balmy November had brought home to the group how our climate was changing, and they were frustrated that politicians weren’t acting with more urgency.

While some recognised that the Russian invasion of Ukraine had made delivering on our climate commitments more difficult, others felt that should have been a renewed impetus to put the promises at COP26 into action.

Few were paying attention to COP27 

As the host country, most participants were at least vaguely aware of what was happening at COP26, particularly during the start of the conference. While most participants knew that COP27 was happening again this year, few knew any details beyond its location. Very little had cut through about what was on the agenda. Most had heard about the Prime Minister’s COP attendance U-Turn, and most thought it was right for him to go to show the importance of the issue to his government. 

Scepticism about loss and damage 

As with our discussions about loss and damage last year, there remained concerns across the segments about how effective ‘climate aid’ would be and the reparations framing landed particularly badly. Some, especially Loyal Nationals and Disengaged Traditionalists, voiced concerns about corrupt Governments receiving the money, and raised questions about how well it would be spent. Others (across the segments) thought we would do a better service to countries around the world if we got a handle on our emissions here in the UK. Several participants remarked that ‘prevention was better and cheaper than cure’ suggesting that the irreversible nature of some climate damage has not yet cut through. However there was more support for direct support, for instance with flood defences as opposed to cash payments - suggesting a more tangible as opposed to moral framing will command greater public support.

Delivering climate progress during a cost of living crisis 

The top issue for these participants, consistent with More in Common’s wider research, was the cost of living. However, the resilience of concern about climate and support for robust action remains strong despite the economic context. Most don’t see a binary choice between taking action to tackling climate change or taking action to help with the cost of living crisis. 

Rocketing energy bills led many participants to consider greener heating technology in their own homes for the first time. However the cost of green technology remained out of reach for this group - and they wanted the government to make it easier for people with grants and subsidies to install solar panels in their houses, and purchase electric vehicles - as a key part of the Government’s climate commitments

Greater focus needed on the ‘everyday implementation’ of COP agreements 

COP27 was framed as the ‘implementation COP’ and while diplomats, activists and officials will pore over the details of commitments in COP negotiating rooms, it is clear that the public will judge progress on how it affects their lives and makes transition easier. More strategic communications investment needs to be made at this ‘everyday implementation’ level, rather than the implementation of international agreements which feel remote for most people. 

Public want a clean, cheap and long-term energy plan that doesn’t leave Britain reliant on others 

Despite the immediate energy bills pressures caused by the war in Ukraine, most of these participants wanted a long-term approach to energy with renewables front and centre (even if other fuel sources remained part of the mix).  Ultimately this group felt the war had shown that energy security and independence was a necessity. 

However, as we’ve found in other research, there are two challenges in convincing the public that renewables are cheaper and quicker to install than fossil fuel alternatives. 

• On cost, many think about the costs of renewables in terms of installing green technology in their own homes (where the upfront costs are significant) rather than the lower cost of producing renewable energy than fossil fuel energy for the country as a whole. 
• On speed, two themes tend to arise in focus group.First most think the technology and infrastructure changes needed for renewable energy to work will take a long time (whereas they think that fossil fuel infrastructure is already there). Some also say that we’ve been talking about renewable energy for decades without making much progress. This leads the public to think that renewables are an inherently slow business. Campaigning and communications on renewables need to do better to overcome these concerns in part by adopting a more positive frame. That means balancing calls for more green energy with demonstrating quite how much green energy is now powering people’s homes. 

This group was more open than other groups to fracking - as part of a general package to boost Britain’s energy security, some questioned why opposition was so intense against fracking and questioned why we wouldn’t use an energy resource if it was there. 

Tactics of climate activists continue to alienate the public 

There was consensus across the group that the actions of climate activists were alienating the public and undermining support for climate action. The participants were sceptical about the motives of climate protestors and felt they would soon move on to the ‘next cause’ and weren’t authentically committed to climate progress.