Archive for March, 2013

UK public blames energy companies for higher bills; is split over paying more for climate change and energy security

Posted in Climate Sock on March 28th, 2013 by Leo – Comments Off on UK public blames energy companies for higher bills; is split over paying more for climate change and energy security

This is the second in the series of posts presenting results from Carbon Brief’s energy and climate change polling. It was written by Christian Hunt and Ros Donald of Carbon Brief and was originally posted here.

Energy bills are going up, and new government analysis which examines why has reignited media attention over the price consumers pay for environmental and social policies. But despite media coverage of ‘green taxes’ on energy bills over the past two years, new polling indicates people place the blame for rising costs at the door of energy companies.

Polling conducted for Carbon Brief by Opinium indicates 48 per cent of around 2,000 respondents believe the main reason energy bills have gone up over the past few years is that energy companies have raised prices to make bigger profits.

What’s pushing energy bills up? 

We’ve written a lot about energy costs – and especially how much government policies aimed at cutting carbon emissions are adding to them – over the past two years. The last two years have seen a determined campaign by the right wing press to link rising energy bills to the government’s green policies.

This has sometimes led to exaggerated claims about the effect of environmental policies on energy bills, and the size of the claimed contribution – as well as the method for calculating it – has varied considerably. More recently the government has tried to pre-empt criticism by breaking down the cost of financing green measures like renewables, presenting them alongside other costs such as wholesale gas prices – which remain the biggest reason for recent price hikes.

We wanted to know if  media coverage of ‘green taxes’ has affected people’s opinions, so we surveyed a sample of 2,000 people to find out what they thought was contributing most to rising household energy bills – and to ask what policies consumers are willing (or otherwise) to pay for.

Asked what they think is the main reason for the increases in consumer gas and electricity prices over the last 12 months, just under half – 48 per cent –  put the blame at the door of energy companies. This result is consistent with a recent poll commissioned  – but not published – by the Sunday Times last October. In that poll, 58 per cent said energy company profits were the biggest contributor to higher energy bills.

Why -have -bills -risen

Question: What do you think is the main reason for the increases in consumer gas and electricity prices over the last 12 months? 

The second most common reason people cited was a rise in wholesale gas prices – 16 per cent said this was the most important reason why bills are going up. Wholesale gas costs contributed £390 to the average gas bill of £830 according to Ofgem’s figures for this month.

Meanwhile, seven per cent of respondents put the hike down to rising inflation, and another seven per cent blamed increased government taxes to help fund investment in renewable energy such as wind turbines.

What would you pay for green policies?

We also wanted to examine the extent to which people felt the government should prioritise spending on policies focused on cutting carbon emissions, and initiatives aimed at increasing the UK’s energy security.

The polling found a fairly even split between people who would pay more for climate change policies and those who would prefer not to.

40 per cent of respondents said the government should continue to invest in new energy sources for the foreseeable future, to help slow down climate change, even if this means energy prices rising. Meanwhile, 45 per cent said that in difficult economic times, we should be using the cheapest energy sources we can, even if they are less likely to prevent climate change.

Cheap -energy -vs -climate -action

Question: Which of the following statements regarding energy sources do you agree with most? 

Conservative voters appeared to be the most likely to support using the cheapest source of fuel: 52 per cent said they supported the cheapest fuels even if they are less likely to prevent climate change – versus 38 per cent of Conservative voters who said they would be willing to pay more for fuels that would help slow down climate change.

40 per cent of Labour voters said they’d pay more, in contrast to 49 per cent who said we should stick to the cheapest fuel source. Lib Dems were most likely to support investment in low carbon energy, even if it led to higher costs; 32 per cent said the government should choose the cheapest fuel source.

Energy security

If the question was about maintaining energy security rather than addressing climate change slightly more people appeared to be willing to pay more. 47 per cent of respondents agreed that the government should invest in new energy sources for the foreseeable future, to help reduce reliance on importing foreign fuel, even if this means energy prices rising.

In contrast, 39 per cent said the UK should use the cheapest sources of fuel, even if it means the country is more reliant on fuel imports.

Cheap -energy -vs -energy -imports

Question: Which of the following statements regarding energy sources do you agree with most? 

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Climate policy or economic recovery? Polling shows people want both, and favour investment in green industries

Posted in Climate Sock on March 28th, 2013 by Leo – Comments Off on Climate policy or economic recovery? Polling shows people want both, and favour investment in green industries

This is the first blog on the results of Carbon Brief’s energy and climate change poll. The article was written by Ros Donald and Christian Hunt of Carbon Brief, and the original is posted here.

When asked whether the government should invest money in climate change or economic growth, the largest group of respondents said they would prefer that it treated both as a priority, according to new polling.

Polling by Opinium for Carbon Brief suggests that the majority of people believe it is possible for the government to promote economic growth and tackle climate change at the same time. 41 per cent of those asked believed there was no contradiction between the two.

That’s compared to 19 per cent who believe the government should invest money into preventing climate change, even if this means a slower economic recovery. However 31 per cent said the government should be doing everything it can to promote economic growth, even if it means tackling climate change is a lower priority.

Economic -growth -vs -climate -action

Question: Which of the following statements regarding climate change do you agree with most?

Green growth

The polling also asked people where the government should be investing to promote economic growth, to test how they felt about so-called green industries – like building wind turbines and installing energy efficiency measures.

57 per cent said the government should invest more in green industries. This compares with 30 per cent who said these industries aren’t sufficiently developed to warrant government investment, and the government should focus on non-green industries.

Green -industry -vs -nongreen

Question: Thinking about ‘green’ industries, (such as the building of wind turbines or the installation of loft insulation), and the current level of investment the UK government is committing, which of the following statements do you agree with most?

It’s clear that political outlook makes a difference to how people answer this question. 45 per cent of Conservative voters said they want to see more investment in green industries, compared to 63 per cent of Labour and 68 per cent of Lib Dem voters.

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The best energy and climate change poll ever

Posted in Climate Sock on March 28th, 2013 by Leo – Comments Off on The best energy and climate change poll ever

The great thing about reporting other people’s polls is there’s always something to complain about.  The question order is biasing the responses, the weighting’s gone wrong, the answer choices don’t make sense.

So I was a bit nervous when Carbon Brief asked me to help them design a poll on energy and climate change. Who would I make snide remarks about when I saw the results?

But there was too much still to find out about what the country makes of climate change: I was never going to say no.

The results are fascinating. To go along with them, this is a brief explanation of why we set up the poll as we did and what we were hoping to find out. The full questionnaire is here.

The question order

A good poll questionnaire takes the shape of a funnel: you start from the general and get more specific.  The aim is to avoid asking anything that influences the result of later questions. For example if you want to find out how much people really care about the UK’s EU membership,  you should ask about which issues, out of any, they consider most important before you say anything about Brussels.

But sometimes you hit a problem, when you have two questions that both need to come before the ‘reveal’.

In this poll, we wanted to ask about aviation and about energy. Do people think about airport expansion in the context of climate change? Do they think about energy prices in the context of wind farms? Since both are climate change-related, neither could be fairly asked once we’d got people thinking about the environment.

Our solution: put aviation first and the energy questions in a separate poll.

Do you believe in climate change? Again?

It’s the most predictable question on the planet. But there are three reasons why it made sense to include it.

Firstly, the question has been asked in dozens of different ways. A simple three-way split (caused by humans / natural / not changing) is my favourite as it doesn’t over-complicate matters for respondents or for people understanding the results. It also allowed us to compare with previous results.

Secondly, a poll in the ‘90s found much greater concern about ‘global warming’ than about ‘climate change’. Is that still true? So we split the sample in half and showed different questions to each half. The results are surprising.

Finally, I’ve spotted before that there are lots of people who say they don’t believe in climate change but still say they want action to stop it. Can we replicate that here?  Again, an interesting result.

We also asked about how people thought the British climate is likely to change and who is trusted to give information about climate change.

Climate change or economic recovery?

The political battle about climate change is no longer whether it exists and whether we should take action to stop it. It’s now about whether taking action will require economic sacrifices, and if so, whether those sacrifices are worth making.

Campaigners, like Friends of the Earth, have been arguing that green industries are already creating jobs, and should get more support from the government.

We tested whether people believe tackling climate change should take a lower priority than promoting growth, and whether they take seriously the idea of a green recovery.

Over the next few days, Carbon Brief is publishing the full results, along with several blogs on different aspects of it (which I’ll cross-post here). I’ll be publishing a second blog next week, comparing Carbon Brief’s results to other polls on climate change. In the meantime, I’ll go back to worrying about whether we got the question order right.