Martha Kirby The article highlights how the proportion in Britain that mentions the environment as a major problem has fluctuated over recent decades. It also links protest activity to the recent dramatic rise.
In recent years, the climate crisis has been a high-profile topic on both the political and public agendas. Shortly after the last general vote and before the pandemic 25%The highest recall of the environment by the public since 1990 was at the top of the list for the country. In the month since COP26 negotiations took places, this stood at 40%.These high levels of concern have important implications on future political discourse. Given that any substantive policy move requires widespread societal change and a better understanding of public attitudes about environmental issues, it is crucial to better understand the public’s support for mitigation measures and improve our knowledge of how they are perceived. Despite this, our knowledge about how and, even more importantly, why is still lacking. Why?The extent to which environmental public opinion has changed in Britain over time is still relatively small.
In reality, climate change has been in the public eye in recent years. However, prior to that, the public’s perception of the environment has fluctuated greatly over time and was declining before 2012. This is despite climate change’s objective danger and seriousness (e.g. Despite the fact that global temperatures have risen year-on-year, CO2 levels and scientific consensus have also increased. What is the explanation for these changes? And, since the evidence for climate change has not changed significantly, where did this public attention come from.
My Recent articleWe examined the reasons for these changes by looking at monthly trends in the importance and perception of the environment to the British public from 2006 to 2019. We also considered a variety of factors that may have an impact on public attention to the issue. Recent changes were co-occurred alongside global environmental movements like Extinction Rebellion or School Strikes for Climate. Did these factors play a role? Is public attention influenced by media coverage or the prominence of the issue in political debate? Are these events successful in drawing and maintaining attention to the issue, as peaks in attention can be correlated with occurrences of a variety of political, cultural, and environmental events? These are some of the questions that the Article considered.
Although the study’s results have important implications for public environmental perceptions and attitudes, very few variables can predict change over time. Changes in CO2 levels, natural catastrophes, and political events like the United Nations Climate Change Conferences can influence media coverage on climate change. However, they are not able predict public attention levels to the issue, even though there have been spikes in some instances (see Figure 1). These factors do not have a lasting impact on public attention, or they are not consistent over time.
Protest activity can be linked to a rise in public attention to environmental issues in recent years, which is one of the key findings. While protest can be predicted based on previous levels of public attention to environmental issues, a rise in protest activity also leads to greater public attention in the months that follow. Recent protest is the main driver of this effect, which indicates that it played an important role in recent public concern. A second finding is that civil disobedience and disruption are not effective, contrary to what they claim. Extinction Rebellion aim forFindings suggest that public opinion has been shaped by the scale of protests in recent years, rather than their disruptiveness (measured as the number of arrests).
The article also suggests that politicians can act on climate change, which may lead to adjusted levels of public concern. Increased parliamentary debate on climate is associated with fewer people prioritising the environment. This response is largely driven by the changes that took place following the introduction of environmental legislation in June 2019. The legislation aims to reduce carbon emissions by net zero by 2050. This raises the question of whether net-zero legislation is constructive. It may not only distract from the need to take action now, but it may also make the public less concerned about the environment.
Although media coverage of climate crisis has been heightenedWhen looking at the whole period in recent years, it has been found that media is not playing an important role in driving increased attention towards the environment at the month level. The changes in public demand and the occurrence of protests in the preceding months can predict the number of media articles about climate change.
This has important implications on our understanding of the dynamics and public opinion. It is common to discuss the importance of protest, but it is difficult, if it is not impossible, to point out other studies that support this. This research shows that protest is becoming more widespread and important in shaping public attention as well as the political process over the coming years.
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Note: the above draws on the author’s Published workInThe British Journal of Politics and International Relations.
Martha KirbyResearcher at Nuffield College, University of Oxford
Photo by Ronan FurutaOn Unsplash.
