According to the UNDP in 2024 84% of people in the UK wanted stronger commitments to climate change. Furthermore, in 2025, 70% of British people would have supported a new solar energy park in their local area, and 60% supported a new onshore windfarm. In isolation, these figures tell a story of supposed overwhelming support for green policies, however the story of these figures in the real world is a battle between public opinion, the power of corporate lobbying and the importance of knowledge reproduction.

Given the high levels of support for these policies, one would expect them to be uncontroversial, and widely accepted. However, the public opinion is underestimated by MPs and the public itself. Whilst 70% would support a new solar farm, only 27% of the public think that their neighbours would also support such a project. Furthermore, MPs believe that only 21% of their constituents support this project and actually think that 42% of their constituents would actually oppose this.

This underestimation of support leads to green policies appearing more controversial and disliked than is actually true. Furthermore, as this underestimation is apparent in both the public itself and MPs, it reduces the salience of the issue amongst those who can advocate for it, and reduces the perceived popularity among those who can address these issues. This proves problematic as public opinion is not sufficiently perceived, and the democratic principle of representation is distorted.

This is caused by a dynamic between a vocal minority and a silent majority. In the current situation, there is a quiet majority who support green policies who are led to believe they are actually a minority due to an incredibly vocal minority. This vocal minority who are distorting the perceived levels of support includes those with vested interests in industries that would be economically disadvantaged by green development, such as those in the fossil fuel sector. In the case of MPs underestimation, this is facilitated through intense corporate lobbying efforts funded by capital gained through fossil fuel extraction.

The fossil fuel lobby holds great levels of capital, resources and knowledge of how to most effectively engage in lobbying. With a recent report finding that the British government weakened key climate policies after the lobbying efforts directed at ministers used legal loopholes to avoid public scrutiny. This report highlights clearly the mechanisms by which lobbyists for the fossil fuel industries used their great amounts of capital and influence to weaken commitments and apparent overall support for green policies.

In the public domain, the vocal minority focus on a strategy of influencing the public via the media, culture and online spaces. Perhaps most notably, BP has maintained influence over the UK’s cultural capital through a continued sponsorship of the British Museum. Establishing influence over one of the UK’s most notable institutions allows BP to influence the process of knowledge reproduction, thereby leveraging the authority and popularity of the museum to distort the public’s perception of how popular green policies actually are.

As underestimation is present within the public and the legislators, the problem requires a dual approach, one strategy for the public and another strategy for the institutions and its members. Publicly, the goal is to communicate the current high levels of support for green policies as a social norm and not something that is seen as a fringe issue. And institutionally, the focus should be on providing MPs with balancing lobbying interests and providing a mandate for green changes.

In practice, the institutional strategy should establish statutory citizens assemblies. Whilst expensive, citizens assemblies have made and will continue to make great contributions to supporting the policy process. The use of these assemblies mainly impacts legislators, but also impacts the assemblies members. For the legislators, citizens assemblies provide politicians with the mandate and support needed to make significant changes without significant backlash from the vocal minority. It supports the political mandate and decision making rationale of the policymakers, and provides great balance and diversity of opinion.

Furthermore, those who take part see their confidence in the political system increased and an overall increase in political participation through the process. A large problem in the UK is that many feel change is not happening quick enough, these assemblies will combat that. In addition to these assemblies, polling should be conducted alongside environmental bills to provide policymakers with a reference for public opinion. Both of these processes aim to balance the intensity of corporate lobbying present within the environmental sector, and provide the MPs with clarity, as well as a stronger policymaking process when it comes to environmental bills. These benefits also spillover into the public, engaging them in politics, elucidating the process of change making and increasing confidence in the UK political system as a responsive and representative system.

The public approach takes shape as a communications and transparency campaign. Firstly, the government should focus on countering the doomy narratives that lead many people to become completely disengaged about environmental degradation. Whilst these narratives are an important reality, new environmental bills should be presented with a life-quality impact statement. For example, information for new bills should highlight the benefits it will provide, as well as the emissions reduced. A positivist communications campaign would highlight how much new bills will reduce energy costs, respiratory illnesses or increase biodiversity. This highlights the tangible impacts these bills will have, providing the public with some hope and optimism rather than doomy and disengaging stories of intense environmental degradation. In addition to this, the social norming campaign will target the public misunderstanding that wanting stronger commitments is a minority view. This will come through hyper-local polling, and advertising. For example, polling for a new bike lane in Manchester will be done and its results advertised around the city. If positive, then it will counter the minority narrative, and empower people to support these policies more vocally. If negative, then it will raise important questions as to why a policy is not supported, provoking stimulating debate and conversation around the topic and ultimately coming to a strong consensus solution.

Overall, these two strategies and their component methods will effectively challenge the vocal minority, by providing the state and its legislators with the mandate to make changes, balancing the intensity of corporate lobbying from the vocal minority. Additionally, the public facing strategy focused on social norming and communication will attempt to dispel the narrative that support for green policies is low, and instead empower the majority who support these policies to engage in politics and the process of policymaking. Whilst these strategies would be costing in the millions, they would effectively increase political representation, participation, transparency and would also work towards forming stronger commitments towards net zero that the public support.

Authors note

Thank you to everyone who attended the RIIP policy day conference, whose presentations greatly informed this piece.

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