Published in The Mail on Sunday on 25 October 2026.
Are you a tree hugger or a climate criminal? A Net Zero evangelist or a denier? As with so much else, the public debate on climate change and what to do about it seems polarised between two extremes.
Yet as my polling often finds, the voters are a good deal smarter and more thoughtful than this. And with the issue set to become a major election battleground, they need a good deal of convincing that sensible answers are at hand.
My research finds that the public divides into five “tribes” on this question. Impatient Idealists want faster action and think net zero is worth paying for; Committed Contributors are the most likely to have changed their own behaviour; Squeezed Sympathisers believe the climate is changing but say they can’t afford to pay more; Cautious Pragmatists are not hostile to the environmental agenda but prioritise other things; and Staunch Sceptics think the threat is exaggerated and resist bigger bills.
Even within these groups, opinion is nuanced. Many of the most climate-conscious also worry about their energy costs and wonder how far we can rely on wind and solar power; those at the sceptical end doubt the wisdom of dashing to net zero ahead of other countries, but few of them deny that climate change is real or that human activity is a factor. The debate is over what action is needed, how fast it should go, and who should pay for it all.
Clear answers are hard to come by because there are few trusted sources to provide them. Voters have not forgotten a previous government encouraging people to buy diesel cars (to help combat climate change, indeed) only for its successors to clobber them. To many, green schemes always seem like an excuse to raise tax. Businesses are suspected of using climate change as cover for higher prices. Environmental groups will naturally want to present the worst-case scenario. Even climate scientists, who must be funded from somewhere and whose findings must surely be open to interpretation, are not considered unimpeachable.
Overall, I found the balance of opinion (by no means unanimous) was that achieving net zero would probably mean higher costs for their households, and that tackling climate change was outranked by affordability and independence from foreign suppliers when we asked what mattered most when it came to energy policy. They were also more likely than not to favour new oil and gas exploration. Despite the government giving the go-ahead this week to the long-planned Jackdaw gasfield, Labour’s ban on new exploration still stands – a position I found was backed by only one in three voters. Manythought it absurd to forbid ourselves from drilling while cheerfully importing North Sea oil from Norway.
At the same time, many saw net zero as an opportunity rather than a burden, holding out the prospect of new industries, new jobs and, ultimately, cheaper energy. The policies for achieving it were another question. Testing hypothetical ideas, majorities favoured new wind and solar farms, more nuclear power stations, and taxes on frequent flyers and high-carbon goods provided the revenues made their way back to them in some form. But not surprisingly, the closer to home the ideas got, the more resistance they encountered. Traffic charges, banning petrol and diesel cars, phasing out gas boilers and charging more for meat and dairy products to reflect their emissions went down considerably less well.
Two things were clear: many have had enough of politicians “policing your household,” as one of my focus group participants put it: “I’m fed up with the government going ‘you’ve got to do this’, ‘you’ve got to do that’.” Another was that people’s patience with ever rising costs and taxes is at an end. “It’s any excuse to put a tax on something,” said another contributor. “Be environmentally friendly but don’t charge us extra for the privilege of it”. Just under half said they didn’t know how much net zero policies added to their energy bills, and almost as many said they were unwilling to pay more.
Who, then should pay for the transition to greener energy? Big businesses, energy companies and high-polluting individuals were the most popular targets, predictably enough. Some argued that this would soon amount to the same thing: higher business costs would ultimately be extracted from customers, just as government largesse is ultimately paid for by taxpayers.
Looming over this is a question that bothers even some of the most environmentally minded: what is the point of Britain making expensive efforts to cut its small share of global emissions if bigger countries are not doing the same? Voters overall agree by an 18-point margin that the UK achieving net zero will make little or no difference to climate change. They are more likely to accept that we should do all we can regardless of other countries – but even then, some wonder who we are leading if no-one is following.
As far as the electorate is concerned, climate change is not a scientific controversy but a political one. What is the plan? What will it achieve? What will it cost, is it worth it, and who is going to join in? Voters are waiting for answers that sound sensible and fair.
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