Rebecca Colvin, Australian National University and Frank Jotzo, Australian National University
Poll after poll suggests a large majority of Australians cares about climate change. Yet in recent federal elections, this hasn’t translated into wins for parties with stronger policy platforms on climate change.
So what determines someone’s climate change attitude, and how does it translate into voting?
In research published today, we studied 2,033 Australian voters’ attitudes across the political spectrum in the context of the 2019 federal election. And we found over 80% said they think it’s important Australia reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This includes close to 70% of conservative voters (those voting for Coalition parties).
However, digging deeper reveals nuance to these attitudes. While most Australians support climate action, stark differences emerge along political party preferences in terms of how important voters think it is.
Our research suggests the question about social support for climate action in Australia is no longer: “does climate change matter to enough Australians?”. Instead, the critical question may well be: “does climate change matter enough to Australians to shift climate politics?”.
Why the ‘climate election’ didn’t pan out
We conducted our survey in July 2019, two months after the Coalition won the federal election. Its victory came as a surprise to many, as the election was sometimes billed the “climate election”, implying climate change was a bellwether issue.
The climate policies of the two major parties were night and day, with the Labor Party campaigning on ambitious mitigation targets and the incumbent Coalition maintaining the status quo of very limited climate policy.
So what were the voters thinking?
We found about half of Australian voters (52%) said climate change was important when deciding their vote in the 2019 Australian federal election. However, climate was the most important issue for only 14% of voters.
Even among those who said they felt it was extremely important for Australia to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, most (58%) said climate change was important, but not the most important issue, when deciding their vote.
Read more: Australia’s major parties’ climate policies side-by-side
Climate change was stated as the most important issue for 21% of Labor voters and 39% of Greens voters, but for less than 5% of Liberal Party, National Party, and Queensland LNP voters.
This pattern was reversed for those who didn’t take climate change policy into account in their vote: 26% of Liberal, 21% of National, and 31% of Queensland LNP voters did not consider climate change when deciding their vote. Under 15% of Labor and Greens voters did the same.
And when we looked at how much voters cared about climate action, the differences become more potent. Three quarters (73%) of progressive voters (those voting for the ALP or the Greens) see Australian action to reduce emissions as “extremely important”. Only one quarter (26%) of conservative voters say the same thing.
Who’s more willing to make sacrifices for the climate?
Our research also explored the extent voters were willing to accept a personal cost to support climate action. We asked about their willingness to accept a significant or small personal cost, but didn’t specify what we meant by small or significant, because a small cost to one person may be a significant cost to another.
Most voters (72%) said they’d be willing to incur some personal cost in return for emissions reductions. Across the political spectrum, the proportion of voters willing to accept a small personal cost is relatively similar: 60% of progressive voters, 55% of conservative voters.
Major differences emerge when it comes to “significant personal cost”.
While 26% of progressive voters are willing to incur a significant personal cost, only 5% of conservative voters feel similarly. At the other end of the spectrum, 40% of conservative voters are unwilling to incur any personal cost, but only 14% of progressive voters feel the same.
Support for strong climate policies may depend on whether the policies will, or are perceived to, personally impact voters. Given political leaders’ stances influence public support for climate policies (as 2018 research showed), our research highlights an opportunity for conservative political leaders to clarify their position on climate change.
Interestingly, age was a consistent predictor of responses. Younger people were more likely than older people to consider it important that Australia reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Younger people were more willing to incur a personal cost to support climate action, and to consider climate change when deciding their vote.
In fact, we found an Australian voter from the Baby Boomer generation is half as likely as a voter from Generation Z to consider it important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Divisive politics have a limited shelf life
If future young people cared just as much about climate change as today’s young people, and if existing cohorts don’t change their views as they age, then the percentage of Australian voters who consider greenhouse gas emissions to be “extremely important” is likely to increase from 52% in our 2019 data, to 56% by 2030. By 2050, this figure could rise to 65%.
These projections are purely on the basis of more climate-aware cohorts coming into voting age and replacing older voters. It doesn’t consider any future changes in attitudes within cohorts (which may also make a big difference).
The key implication is simple. If Australian political leaders pursued stronger climate action, they could rest assured most of the voting population will broadly support them, along with most of their own voter base — regardless of which party is in power.
This will become only more pronounced with gradual generational change, and likely changes in attitudes within age groups. In any case, it’s clear divisive politics that result in climate delay have a limited shelf life.
Read more: Nearly 80% of Australians affected in some way by the bushfires, new survey shows
Rebecca Colvin, Senior lecturer, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University and Frank Jotzo, Director, Centre for Climate and Energy Policy, Australian National University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
What does ‘significant cost’ mean? For many, $100 is a ‘significant cost’.
They should be shown the actual bill – US$200k+ for every man, woman and child around the world; and reduced employment and wages for a lifetime. If we’re lucky.
“reduced employment and wages for a lifetime”
Except of course for those in the “green industrial complex”, along with bureacrats, politicians and academics who will be taken care of regardless of the impact to the economy.
So…If 80% of Aussies “Believe” something needs to be done so fervently, how many have traded in their perfectly operable ICE vehicles for Battery EV’s and installed Rooftop solar with Powerwall battery back up
In politics it used to be called “the hip pocket nerve” reaction.
The problem is the topic of climate change is so toxic many just say one thing, it’s like asking someone if they have racist views. What happens in the confines of the ballot box is very different.
The left can spoin this sort of junk until the cows come home, the politicians know from there own unfiltered party feedback.
Absolutely!
Most Australians don’t own their roof tops so solar isn’t an option. Add to that the Govn’t is now proposing that rooftop solar “export” to the grid is to be “taxed” (Didn’t take long did it) BECAUSE is “destabilizes” the grid. Now, correct me if I am wrong, those who know have been calling this out for a while.
CC continually rates last or near last on surveys around the world for issues that people feel need to be addressed. I believe most people either don’t care, don’t understand it, don’t trust the media, and just virtue signal when questioned face to face.
Surely most people are turned off by daily news weather reporting using “hottest” whatever and revealing that in fact a normal summer day temperature range.
Correct no poll on Climate Change will ever be accurate because given the premise people don’t want to say “I am selfish and it’s not my problem and I can’t do much about it”.
Or “the climate change you’re trying to foist on me has never been shown to actually exist”.
Nothing about being selfish or “not my problem”
The REALITY is that THERE IS NO PROBLEM. !
Its a farcical FANTASY.
These people seem to think polls should bear some relationship to reality. That says a lot.
Yes, they do tend to think outside of a limited frame of reference, and when reality denies their sincerley held beliefs, they claim democratic leverage, anyway, make em-pathetic appeals, bray to the dark side of the moon, and progress with force.
Where do they get these diddy brains from?
It does not take a genius to work out that most people care about “climate change”, Father Christmas and little bunny rabbits.
But they change their mind when it comes to putting their hands in their pocket to prove it.
Meantime wallies like these earn thousand in taxpayer grants to state the obvious
Gee Paul I’ve just got to disagree with you.
These folks are so well educated that they can completely ignore the grindingly obvious.
That projection of voters willing to shell out for climate change reminded me of an old Mark Twain quote:
“In the space of one hundred and seventy-six years, the Lower Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year. Therefore, any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old Oölitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the Lower Mississippi River was upwards of one million three hundred thousand miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing rod. And by the same token, any person can see that seven hundred and forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and three-quarters long, and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together, and be plodding comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
Spetzer86, it’s a shame the Journal of Irreproduclble Results went out of business, you could get published with this analysis.
Belief in Climate Fairy Tales has a limited shelf life.
I used to think that Bruce but this madness proves that the majority are easily manipulated into a direction that none of them has given a thought to. I have been following this debate for nearly 30 years and all that’s happened is a slow but sure movement towards madness.
Australians believe climate change is important because that’s what they’ve been hammered with so it’s up to Gummint and Big Biz to fix it. No problems if Gummint is handing out free CF globes cum LED globes, shower heads, draught stoppers, pink batts, solar panel subsidies and FIT schemes, EV subsidies, etc, etc. Get on board with rooftop solar and save the planet and the power bills-
Proposed solar energy export charges leave owners feeling like they are being ‘penalised’ (msn.com)
Welcome to the fallacy of composition with unreliables and now the grid Regulator has to deal with the fast emerging problem and the political fallout because the spruikers didn’t tell the truth about the need for a level playing field. Power consumers don’t need dumped electrons at the whim of sunlight and weather but dispatchable ones along with the correct frequency and voltage.
There is a solution to the fallacy of composition problem now that so many have created a massive problem for the grid with rooftop solar and the midday duck curve. But that relies on political honesty by the watermelons and an explanation they got it wrong with their unreliables. However the rooftop solar needn’t be wasted-
Can Diverting Solar To Air Conditioning Help Reduce Overvoltage? (solarquotes.com.au)
Hot Water PV Diverter Comparison Table (solarquotes.com.au)
Time to fess up watermelons as your problem isn’t going away and you know damn well battery storage doesn’t cut it for homeowners.
I rather like this nuanced AU study. There are at least three reasons.
First, priorities. Or as an economist might say…ceterus paribus… but it never is. Economics is all about scarcity tradeoffs, other things never being equal, which the Greens refuse to recognize.
Second, it recognizes that present personal pain is a lot more important than future speculative gain. That is the same ‘law’ by which morbid obesity continually rises in economies of plenty.
Third, it unequivocally projects these present ‘discouraging’ survey results will change in favor of mitigating AGW in the future as younger folks experience more immediate rising AGW problems. A pure projection model ASSUMING future worsening consequences of AGW, based on faulty climate models. But what if the AGW ‘consequences’ do not worsen? We have no observational evidence yet that they have to now, not even a tiny bit, despite Mann’s AU pronouncements otherwise (the previous post and comment refutations).
The article is a distillation of ‘everything’ false about the future AGW alarm, and thus why the Paris Accord is doomed to failure despite Biden’s addled contrary opinion.
Agreed. Frankly I was struck (and heartened) by how relatively limited the support is for serious action on climate change. Despite years of the MSM relentlessly pushing a climate apocalypse as an inescapable doomsday event in our near future, there is a large group of Australians not prepared to sacrifice anything of significance to stop it.
You left out the 4th reason the rise of the realist group that says “I can not control the world”, that what happens with CO2 levels is up to the big emitters. It basically isn’t worth spending a single cent to do anything until they deal with the problem. Why waste money on a problem you can do nothing about.
LbD there is barely a word in the press about China and Indian emissions. I said to the greens candidate at the last election that I would take them seriously when they are demonstrating in their thousands outside the Chinese embassy!
Charles Rotter has done nothing to advance the truth; the lie goes essentially unchallenged on his watch. And if you’re not part of the solution….
… if you’re not part of the solution…
you are either insoluble, or you are part of the precipitate?
Linda, very curious about what you think the ‘truth’ is? And the unchallenged ‘lie’ (both your words)? Biased IPCC with failed climate models, failed predictions like SLR acceleration and polar bear predicaments, and failed renewable solutions are either truths or lies? What, exactly, did you mean?
Bagdad Betty? Has Charles landed at your airport?
Even if you believe the doomsday scenario Linda you’re faced with what to do about it. What’s happened is watermelons while spruiking the dooming have convinced the populace it’s just a matter of Big Gummint cracking down on nasty Big Biz and their evil ways while handing out the largesse. It’s nonsense that it won’t require huge sacrifice by the general populace and any time you do like CO2 taxing they naturally buck. Hey go see the nasty Big Pollooders! Duh!
As for running modern industrial economies on wind solar and batteries that’s utter fantasy and won’t happen which is already obvious with electricity grids as they try. Essentially the watermelons are trying to disprove a fundamental axiom of engineering and its handmaiden economics. Namely you can’t build a reliable system from unreliable componentry.
As for storage to make that happen you need to understand mankind’s ability to store energy is pitiful except in the form of calories and pumping water uphill. We’re expert at the former and we’ve already grabbed the low hanging fruit with the latter so what does that leave for the fantasists? Try nukes for electricity if plant food bothers you but lithium batteries are never going to cut it for transport.
Don’t you have a road nearby to glue yourself to?
Your post makes no sense Linda. What’s the solution? Are you another one among millions of calculator-dodgers?
.
Solution to WHAT ?
Charles is doing A LOT to help overcome the cult-like, anti-science, political propaganda that is the AGW scam.!!
The faithful believe that, if done properly, climate action should not cost anything. If it were to cost anything then it is missing economy of scale effect, so do it more and bigger. Leftists always get things backward.
It shouldn’t cost them anything
My straw poll with my friends and acquaintances (I suspect they are conservative voters, but cannot confirm this) has never revealed anyone who thinks that climate is affected by anthropogenic CO2. Who are these pollsters talking to?
City people. Soy latte sipping, squashed avocado munching, white people with rastafarian hair.
You know the type..
Go on over to the original Conversation site and they are all there, loopies everywhere
Poll wording and intent matters
2 points –
1) this study is consistent with the results of the worldwide 7-million person survey undertaken by a UN agency. It reported that out of 16 main concerns about life issues, climate ranked 16th. Last.
2) regarding these 2 ANU researchers’ hopes for millenials’ support for agw scarifices, I would remind them of this observation / truism –
If you’re not a socialist at 20, you haven’t got a heart.
If you’re still a socialist at 40, you haven’t got a brain.
If you have a heart at any age, why would you be a socialist – the most destructive political ideology in the history of mankind, with over 100 million dead due to it in the 20th century alone?
Great question.
I don’t have an answer.
Leftist bootcamp teachers and uni lecturers sell it to them as a great system.
Maybe the Generation Z youngsters are willing, in theory, to incur some personal cost to fight climate change, but as they get older, and see how much their incomes decrease and taxes increase, they will probably change their minds and vote like Baby Boomers when they get to be 50 years old. When people are over about 40 years old, realize that the climate hasn’t changed much in their lifetimes, and are footing most of the bills, they don’t worry as much about climate change.
I don’t remember who said this first, but “a 20-year-old who isn’t liberal has no heart, and a 40-year-old who is liberal has no brains”. Young people can be very idealistic, but they later back away when they calculate the cost of radical ideas..
Besides, Australia has a relatively small population for its land area, and any reduction in CO2 emissions in Australia will be dwarfed by the increases in nearby China. If what Australia does doesn’t make much difference, Australians might be happy to keep living their lives, and let China worry about CO2 emissions.
IIRC, Winston Churchill.
Churchill had many variations of that quote over the years:
Missing links? Dark matters? Perceptions are not prescriptions? Polling potholes?
Okay, here are some hard observations for these experts to ponder.
First however a little background for those playing overseas. In Australia it is compulsory to vote. Oddly it is not compulsory to register to vote which is a bit of a grey area. They other grey area is that in real terms you don’t have to actually VOTE, you just have to turn up and get your name crossed off. As long as you don’t then remove the ballot papers from the polling area (to give to someone else) then no one cares.
So out of the voting pool you tend to get about 95% turn out and out of that 5% vote informal (aka either accidentally or deliberately fail to submit a valid ballot paper). Everyone else submits a vote so an Australian election does give a pretty good overview for what the Australian voting public believe in.
And what do we see?
That the Green, the ultimate ‘green’ party, is the preferred ruling group in Australia by only 10% of the voters, or, to word it differently, 90% of Australia want someone else.
The other observation is that it is openly accepted that the ‘Youth Vote’ belongs to the Greens.
Young People (aka older teens) tend towards these sorts of ‘free money for all’ groups because most of them still live with Mummy and Daddy and haven’t taken out their first car loan. So with more and more young people voting Green you might expect that they will go on to continue to vote Green and as ‘old white conservative men’ die off at the top, the Greens will replace them at the bottom.
You might expect that, but you would be wrong.
The Green Vote has hovered around 10% since the dawn of Green and even at Peak ‘We should act of Climate Change(tm)’ they never significantly improved their vote. Youth stop being Green soon after they stop being youth.
(the extension here is to NEVER pander to the Youth Vote. They will grow out of it within a single election cycle.)
Green concepts are secondary consideration for voters. People only care about small furry animals AFTER their bills are paid and their children are fed. The election results clearly prove this and anyone who believes otherwise will continue to be confused as to why the polls lied to them.
There is a growing list of “conservative” politicians who were talked into pandering to the “green / progressive” demographic, who crashed & burned bigly at elections.
(eg – Turnbull, Bailleau, Kirkup)
They bask in the adulation & encouragements of leftist ABC, Guardian, Age journalists & audiences without accepting the basic truth that this “green / progressive” demographic, will NEVER actually vote for them.
I see conservative party leader in Canada Erin O’Toole is also now writing his own political obituary by sucking up to the climate religion.
If he really is this thick, he doesn’t deserve a any rational person’s vote anyway.
I had hopes but yes, he’s not very smart after all
Playing Trudeau’s game on Trudeau’s board is a guaranteed fail
I wish he’d step down
“Craig from Oz
In Australia it is compulsory to vote.”
Nope! It is compulsory to REGISTER to vote. You DO NOT have to VOTE.
The very few polls that ask how much people are prepared to actually pay out of their own pocket invariably say less than about $100 per year.
62% of Australians don’t want to pay even $10 a month for renewables (2017)
Americans are pretty much the same.
42% of US adults don’t want to pay even $12 a year to stop climate change (2016)
Which is why pollsters almost never ask specific questions about global warming – they just ask nebulous stuff like “do you believe climate change is happening?”
Now ask people if they would give up there mobile devices to stop climate change and save the planet … easy one to start with 🙂
I heard somewhere that the world communications network uses some 10-15% of all electrical energy.
Not sure if that’s true. Anyone got any info on that ?
Most people believe that the climate and weather are natural events, Earth Cycles.
And as marketing people would explain the longer advertising is repeated the less people take notice of it. Probably why the original greenhouse gases propaganda changed over time and now focuses on carbon dioxide?
And as for climate emergency, droughts, floods, cyclones people can see through the hyperbole and puffery of the climate hoaxers.
The article assumes that government must be the source of a climate change solution, doesn’t it? Most likely, Aussies don’t agree that any political party can actually produce any good. Voting for or against climate change policy only produces more tax burden, higher cost goods and services, and bigger government.
Don’t fall for the climate con games with polls.
But have these people thought of the plants ? The poor plants need co2, why should we starve them ? They have feeling too.
I submit that the proportion of the population who thinks cutting CO2 emissions is extremely important will decline in the future. Why? Not one doom and gloom prediction is going to come true. The world will continue just fine in 12 years (or is it now 9?).
10-15 years away, same as for the last 30 years.
“These projections are purely on the basis of more climate-aware cohorts coming into voting age and replacing older voters.” Maybe we should call this the “Greta Syndrome”? Young dreamers with no accumulation of experience, not even their thought patterns finished normalizing due to late gamma wave establishment, will push aside the “older voters”? Who has the money? Vote against your parents and find some place else to live. There, fixed it.
If Australians are like Canadians, they are willing to talk a good game about taking climate action as long as it impacts them in only the smallest ways. In Canada, electric vehicles have been on the market for at least 15 years; yet last year they accounted for less than 2% of new car sales. In addition, before the pandemic air travel was increasing steadily even though aircraft emissions are particularly damaging to the atmosphere. Nor has there been any dramatic increase, if any, in public transit users. So it’s easy for people to claim that they’re concerned about climate change but that doesn’t mean they going to do much about it beyond replacing a few light bulbs with high efficiency ones.