Andrew Stuttaford writes for National Review Online about misleading polling linked to a controversial energy policy.
One of the supposed mysteries in contemporary politics, especially in Europe, is the mismatch between what polls show about the “race” to net zero (enthusiasm, the planet must be saved and so on) and the dissatisfaction increasingly evident with its effects (and, yes, voters are beginning to connect the dots) at the ballot box.
In reality, the reason for the mismatch is that pollsters too rarely ask the all-important follow-up question. If you believe in [insert policy here: in this case, net zero], how much of your money are you prepared to pay (or forgo) in order to see it put in place? …
… [T]here have been warning signs that, when net zero begins to bite hard, voters will bite back. Polls show public backing for net zero but limited enthusiasm for paying for it. According to an Ipsos poll taken in 20 countries worldwide and published in April 2023, only about 30 percent of people (25 percent in the U.S.) would be prepared to pay “more” of their income in taxes “to help prevent climate change.” “More” is not the same as “a lot,” and the bill for net zero would be paid not only in steeper taxes but in a higher cost of living. However, 55 percent of respondents to a YouGov poll conducted last year in the U.K. would support policies to reduce carbon emissions only “if they do not result in additional costs for ordinary people,” an impossibility. At around the same time, fewer than half of Americans polled by the AP-NORC Center and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago said they would support a monthly carbon fee on their energy use, and, of those in favor, nearly a fifth said that the charge should not be more than a dollar.
