MPs and public overestimate time left for climate action, study finds

(Press-News.org) A new study has found that UK Members of Parliament (MPs) and the public overestimated the time left to meet a critical deadline for limiting global warming. 

Researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) surveyed a representative sample of the previous House of Commons, and the public in Britain, Canada, Chile and Germany, on their knowledge of a well-publicised statement from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).  

It related to when global greenhouse emissions need to peak to have a realistic chance of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5˚C above pre-industrial levels - the IPCC’s 6th assessment report said this needed to happen by 2025. Participants in the study were asked to choose from options ranging, in five yearly intervals, from 2025 to 2050.

The statement was a key communication of the report when published in 2022, and so the researchers say MPs – and members of the public who pay attention to current affairs – should have been exposed to the finding even if they had not read the report.  

However the study, published today in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, found less than 15% of the 100 MPs surveyed knew the correct answer, while over 30% said 2040 or later. Labour MPs were more likely than Conservative MPs to answer correctly, when asked anonymously in autumn 2023.

A similar result was found in surveys of more than 7200 members of the public across Britain, Canada, Chile and Germany, although being younger, worried about climate change, and having lower levels of conspiracy belief mentality was associated with increased accuracy. 

Co-author Dr John Kenny, from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and School of Environmental Sciences at UEA, said: “Our study has important implications for communicating about the climate crisis, not just through IPCC progress reports, but the many other reports policymakers are expected to digest and act upon.

“Institutions such as the IPCC need to consider how they can help policymakers absorb this information, if they are to incentivise appropriate policies - to act on it, individuals need to be aware of it. The partisan divides in Britain also suggest that whether information is perceived or not and, if so, how, may differ according to political mindsets.  

“In a world of increasing information saturation and disinformation campaigns, getting factual information to filter through is no easy task, especially on a complex challenge like climate change. As time for meaningful action is running out, it is imperative we further understand how to effectively convey the key scientific messages to policymakers and the public.”  

Dr Kenny added, “Understanding whether politicians have knowledge of these facts and how effectively the information is being communicated to them is vital, given that governments regularly follow differing if not contradictory policies to those that would be consistent with the reports’ findings.” 

The IPCC assessment reports aim to provide an authoritative, objective source of information for parliamentarians and policymakers on climate change causes and effects, as well as outline routes for mitigation and adaptation. However, little is known about how aware they are of key findings and policy recommendations. 

The UK has historically been a leader on climate action, with a landmark Climate Change Act in 2008, the first parliament to declare an environmental and climate emergency in 2019 and co-hosting the UN Climate Change Conference, COP26, in 2021. The researchers say it is therefore a likely country for MPs to be aware of key findings from IPCC reports.  

“Since our work was carried out the composition of the House of Commons has changed following the 2024 General Election” said co-author Dr Lucas Geese, also from the Tyndall Centre and School of Environmental Sciences.

“The previous political consensus on reaching net zero by 2050 when it was introduced in the UK parliament in 2019 has also recently broken down, and some of the current divides echo the Labour-Conservative MP differences in knowledge of the IPCC finding investigated in our study.”  

Dr Geese added: “We cannot know from our study whether the current parliament may have a better awareness of the urgency of taking climate action than the previous one. Our results do raise questions however as to whether a lack of knowledge about the urgency of the problem may be somewhat responsible for the recent calls to reduce rather than ramp up climate action, or whether scepticism towards the scientific findings or other ideological perspectives are the primary drivers.  

“Further research is needed to establish this, not just in the UK but also for example with national MPs across the globe on their consumption of IPCC findings and the perceived influence that these do, or do not, have on them.

“Acceptance of human-caused climate change is now widespread across most societies and there is a widespread recognition that action needs to be taken,” said Dr Geese “But if politicians and the public don’t realise the urgency, that is a concern and could be one potential reason for not meeting climate mitigation commitments at the national level. It also suggests the dissemination of the messages into other parliaments may be a problem.” 

The MP survey, involving 51 Conservative MPs, 32 Labour, six SNP and 11 from other parties, was carried out by market research company Savanta, which conducts monthly parliamentary panels, to be representative of the House of Commons. Just over 30 per cent gave 2030 as their answer, followed by about 23 per cent who said 2035.  

In all the public surveys the correct answer of 2025 was either the second or third least chosen response. In Chile as well as Britain, those who trust scientists more were more likely to be closer to the correct answer. 

‘Publics and UK parliamentarians underestimate the urgency of peaking global greenhouse gas emissions’, John Kenny and Lucas Geese, is published in Communications Earth & Environment on October 2. 

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