A recent survey indicates home solar power is considered an important or very important emissions reduction action by the majority of Australians.
Taking the Pulse of the Nation (TTPN), a Melbourne Institute and Roy Morgan partnership, captures Australians’ sentiments and behaviours in relation to current economic and social issues.
Conducted monthly, the latest findings from TPPN indicate:
“While most Australians are committed to minimising their impact on climate change by actively cutting their energy use and installing solar panels, they feel let down by previous governments’ commitment to actively acting towards minimising the country’s impact on the environment.”
72% of Australians believe the Federal Government has historically done too little to address climate change. 28.4% said the Government had done “about the right amount” and just 12.4% “too much”. The difference in the latter between genders was significant – 8.55% of males and just 3.89% of females held this view.
Taking Action – Solar Panels Rank Second
In terms of actions at the individual level, the following indicates what were considered “important” or “very important” in addressing climate change:
- Reducing energy use and bills: 85.37%
- Installing solar panels: 68.36%
- Choosing green investment: 44.78%
- Purchasing an electric vehicle: 44.58%
- Using public transport more: 43.38%
- Contacting local government: 34.73%
- Eating less meat and dairy: 33.03%
- Cutting back on flying: 31.34%
In relation to installing solar panels, 51% of those surveyed indicated they have already or will soon. Just 11% of those who don’t have panels said they do not plan to install them in the future. This indicates Australia can look forward to a shedload of new residential rooftop solar installations in the years ahead; building on the 3 million plus systems installed to date.
The installation of rooftop solar also feeds into the most popular action – reducing mains grid electricity use and slashing power bills.
Beyond energy use in the home, it was encouraging to see acknowledgement of the important role electric vehicles have in the scheme of things. Once pricing and supply issues are sorted, there will be plenty of takers.
Local Government Underrated
The result for contacting local government was interesting given many local governments have been leaders in uptake and promotion of renewables (particularly rooftop solar power) and addressing/raising awareness of climate change.
112 jurisdictions representing close to 11.2 million Australians – over 44% of our population – have declared a climate emergency. And those declarations aren’t just stating the obvious and pointing a finger at the Feds to act – they are generally accompanied by commitments to action at a local level too. Local government probably deserves a bit more credit.
Commenting on this result, the analysis stated:
“Local governments have an important role to play in motivating communities to effectively respond to climate change, but trust needs to be regained following the perceived inaction of former governments.”
The TTPN analysis is based on a sample of 1,005 survey respondents in the June 2022 survey. Further detail can be viewed here.
It’s worth noting this survey was taken before the very unsettling 2021 State of the Environment Report was finally released. The report was delivered to the Morrison Government last year but hidden from the Australian public until this week. When presenting the report, Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek mentioned trust – the lack of it among Australians in relation to government handling of environmental issues – eight times.
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According to the data, 9% more females think former governments did too little in response to climate change while 5% more males think too much has been done. Could this reflect the city:country gender divide?
As for reducing energy use and bills, is that primarily about reducing energy use, or more about reducing bills? If electricity prices halved for instance, would folk worry about power use? Solar is, in theory, a way for folk to maintain or even increase their power usage whilst reducing their power bill – as long as it’s sunny. 🙂
As for the climate change emergency declarations, doesn’t this basically break down by political affiliation? You’ve got the ACT which tends Left or Far Left, you’ve got 40 Victorian councils (roughly half Victoria’s LGAs and comprising a third of Australia’s total climate emergency declarations) in a state consider Left or Far Left. A further 37 are in NSW (roughly a quarter of LGAs and slightly less than a third of all emergency declarations).
By contrast in the NT only Darwin, and in QLD, two tourist region councils, have declared anything. As for WA, 11 out of 141 LGAs doesn’t sound so good. Curiously, Tasmania, often considered Australia’s most extreme Green\Far Left state only has 4 of 29 LGAs declaring anything.
All in all it seems like political posturing more than anything.
George Kaplan,
“As for the climate change emergency declarations, doesn’t this basically break down by political affiliation?”
I’d suggest it’s a case of whether people (and organisations) accept the overwhelming scientific evidence/data on anthropogenic climate change (or remain in denial).
Right wing populism affects trust in agencies advocating anthropogenic climate change as a reality. Groups of conservatives perceive liberal elites forcing a type of relative deprivation upon conservatives.
Lack of trust in science has evolved on multiple levels, from well-funded special interest groups and lay people, to right wing governments to the extent of institutionalized ‘war on science’.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00930-7
Meanwhile, the Laws of Physics and the constraints of chemistry and biology, that are non-negotiable, ‘don’t care’ what anyone’s political beliefs are. We/humanity ignore these constraints holding dominion over the world we live in at our peril. That’s the reality, whether you (and others like you) believe in it or not, George. ?
https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/tonga-eruption-cooling-solar/#comment-1360675
Geoff, despite me being a (the?) resident skeptic and you being rather the opposite, we actually do agree, somewhat.
The issue isn’t right-wing populism affecting trust in institutions, but rather Right and Left having radically different levels of trust in different institutions.
A recent Gallup poll on confidence in major US institutions found the Right retains trust in small business, the military, the police, and possibly organised religion. By contrast the Left doesn’t trust the police, doesn’t trust religion, but does trust small business, the military (oddly enough), the presidency under Biden, and possibly the medical system, public schools, and organised labor er labour. A 2019 Pew survey also points out that whereas roughly two-thirds on the Left see college (academia) as having a positive effect on the US, only a third on the Right say likewise – a majority see it as negative, likely due to the Left’s near total control of higher education and opposition to intellectual diversity.
Obviously that’s US not AU, but I expect polling here would return loosely similar results. Exacerbating the issue, green funding is such that questioning anthropogenic climate change is professionally dangerous – folk have lost their jobs for doing so, and financially pointless – there’s little money to be made disproving anthropogenic climate change and much to be made by supporting it.
As regards liberal elites forcing relative deprivation on conservatives, er that’s not perception that’s reality, and one said elites actually boast about. Between the staggering degree of do as I say not as I do hypocrisy shown by the aforesaid elites, selective application of facts – CO2 emissions per year v all of history, CO2 emissions per capita v per square km etc, and obvious increases in both capital and cost of living expenses, is it any wonder that a high degree of skepticism exists?
I’d suggest it’s not that trust in science has eroded, but that science has become so politicised by special interest groups and even government that it can be impossible for laypeople to determine the truth of things beyond proposed actions will cause them serious pain.
I absolutely agree with you that that the laws of physics, chemistry, biology etc don’t care about politics or ideology. Sadly it is all too common for scientific absolutes be denied in favour of ridiculous ideology that flies in the face of objective reality. We just likely disagree about what constitutes scientific absolutes, and what constitutes ridiculous (even dangerous) ideology.
George Kaplan,
“I’d suggest it’s not that trust in science has eroded, but that science has become so politicised by special interest groups and even government that it can be impossible for laypeople to determine the truth of things beyond proposed actions will cause them serious pain.”
George, I’d suggest it’s very simple for both laypeople and professionals – discount the special interest groups and the politicians (that may have their agendas/ideologies to push), and go to the primary sources of the extensive system of scientific evidence/data all pointing to the same consequences, examined, reported and peer-reviewed by tens of thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of climate scientists and technicians around the world. I’d suggest evidence/data referred in my slides 2 through 17 in the pdf file (10.4 MB) are a derived and simplified summary of some of that work.
https://www.ipcn.nsw.gov.au/resources/pac/media/files/pac/project-submissions/2022/05/mt-pleasant-optimisation-project-ssd-10418/20220708t144208/theclimateenergycrisis20220708.pdf
George, either you accept the overwhelming scientific evidence/data or you don’t – either you trust in the climate science or you deny/reject the peer-reviewed work of probably tens/hundreds of thousands of climate scientists/technicians. I’d suggest that’s the political/ideological dimension that laypeople choose to engage in (or not), and more importantly, what to do about it.
“We just likely disagree about what constitutes scientific absolutes…”
Do you disagree with the climate science evidence/data referred in my slides (referred above)? Why?