Greenpeace says that its Newspoll on greenhouse issues shows Kevin Rudd would make himself popular by taking radical steps to reduce Australia’s greenhouse emissions:

[Greenpeace head of campaigns Steve] Campbell said that this week Mr Rudd had the opportunity to show leadership at the Bali climate talks and help gain consensus on the 25-40% range of reductions.

“This poll shows that such a move would be extremely popular with the people of Australia, who delivered Mr Rudd a firm mandate at the last election, and want him to take even stronger action by reducing Australia’s emissions within his first term,” he said.

Actually, the poll (which to Greenpeace’s credit they make available in full) again shows how tricky this issue is for any governmment.

There is the usual overwhelming endorsement of action to reduce greenhouse emissions. It’s when we get to how this is to be done that, also as usual, things start to get complicated.

One question asks:

Do you agree or disagree that government should begin phasing out existing coal-fired power stations and replacing them with renewable energy generation within the next three years?

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Australia’s richest think-tank, The Climate Institute, has been carefully following the model set by board member Clive Hamilton’s The Australia Institute. It feeds the media’s love of public opinion surveys, even targeting the current election media frenzy with polling in marginal seats on climate change. It produces attention-grabbing semi-gimmick research, like their latest report which calculates superannuation costs if action on climate change is delayed (a male of my age will be $1,165.46 a year worse off in retirement, it says with all the spurious precision of economic modelling). Despite Clive’s strict insistence on leisure, both his think-tanks take advantage of slow news weekends to release reports on Sundays.

Yet despite all this the Climate Institute’s profile seems modest. The superannuation report had a bit of media coverage, but nothing like the masses of publicity the Australia Institute can often pull, particularly in the Fairfax papers and on the ABC. The Climate Institute is a new think-tank, of course, and it will take time to build a reputation. But I doubt it will ever do as well as The Australia Institute.

The basic problem is summed up in its statement of purpose:

Established in late 2005, The Climate Institute has a five-year goal of raising public awareness and debate about the dangers to Australia of global warming and to motivate the country to take positive action.

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I was rather surprised to find myself mentioned in the latest greenhouse book, Guy Pearse’s High and Dry. But there I am, on page 244. How I managed to make any appearance in a book on an issue that is a very long way down my list of interests requires some explanation.

High and Dry analyses why (at least until recently) the PM was a climate change sceptic. From what I have read, it is a more detailed version of Clive Hamilton’s book Scorcher, arguing that the influence of the fossil-fuel industry and ‘neo-liberal’ think-tanks explains the PM’s stance (Hamilton, one of Pearse’s PhD supervisors, draws on Pearse’s research).

To argue that ‘neo-liberal’ think-tanks influence Howard, Pearse has to show their connections to the government. And this is where I come in:

Andrew Norton, while not so vocal on greenhouse policy, is another at CIS with close links to the Howard government. He was once an adviser to former environment minister David Kemp.

‘Not so vocal’? ‘Not vocal at all’ would be closer to it. So far as I can find, my only expressed opinion on greenhouse policy was this passing reference in a blog post this February that does not support Pearse’s case:
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Clive Hamilton is back on the new releases shelves with another book, Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change. I’ve dipped into it today, and while there is much criticism of the ‘right-wing’ groups that with the ‘greenhouse mafia’ of fossil fuel industry groups Hamilton believes persuaded the government to go slow on climate change, the initial chapters also have a distinct resemblance to public choice theories favoured by many on the right about how special interest groups capture the political process.

Of course there were other reasons why the government was always likely to lean to the sceptical side of the climate change debate. Industries that produce high levels of greenhouse gas are an important part of the Australian economy, and have contributed significantly to our current prosperity - no government is likely to jeopardise this lightly. As I argued last year when examing polls on the issue, while the public seems to have accepted the alarmist view of climate change, it still seems well short of accepting the measures needed to deal with it. The political commotion that goes with every oil price spike shows how hard it’s going to be to take this issue from abstract principle to practical policies.

Also, there were tribal political reasons for doubting the views of some climate change proponents. As I noted in my review of Hamilton’s Affluenza, he is part of a political tradition that has never much liked modern industrial society. Climate change is a godsend for such people, because it gives them a scientifically respectable way - a way consistent with modern thinking - to oppose material consumption. The instinct of those who like modern industrial soceity would always be to doubt what people like Hamilton say.
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According to The Australian this morning, reporting on the latest Newspoll:

FEAR of global warming has dramatically reversed Australians’ attitude to nuclear energy, with more people supporting nuclear power for the first time. In the past four months, support for nuclear power has risen from just 35 per cent to 45 per cent, and opposition has fallen in the same time from 50 per cent to 40 per cent.

Actually, what this poll shows is that if you put the magic words ‘greenhouse gas emissions’ in the question you increase support for nuclear power. Back in June last year, Roy Morgan Research asked the question:

Do you approve or disapprove of nuclear power plants replacing coal, oil, and gas power plants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

And found that 49% approved and 37% disapproved. In December 2006, Newspoll, after reminding respondents that there was a nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights but no nuclear power station in Australia, asked:

Are you personally in favour or against nuclear power stations being built in Australia?

The result was 38% in favour and 51% against.

In the latest Newspoll, the question changed:

Are you personally in favour or against the development of a nuclear power industry in Australia, as one of a range of energy solutions to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

The result was 45% in favour and 40% against - closer to the June 2006 Roy Morgan survey that also mentioned greenhouse than to the December 2006 Newspoll that did not. This indicates that there is a section of the electorate that is willing to accept the logic of their views on global warming, and change their otherwise negative view of nuclear energy. But this is still dangerous political territory for the Prime Minister, with overall support below 50% and 11% of Coalition voters ’strongly against’ a nuclear power industry.

8 March update: A new Morgan Poll confirms that opinion is stable on this issue, with recent debates having no net effect.

Today’s ACNielsen poll in the Fairfax broadsheets has a ‘best party to handle’ issues question I don’t think I have seen before, and which could be just as worrying to the Coalition as the 58%-42% two-party preferred result. This was which party is best to handle water resources, which Labor led 48% to 34%. That’s well under the 40% who said in 2004 that they tend to identify with the Liberals, and close to the Coalition’s core support of around one-third of voters.

Purely on an issue basis, it’s hard to see why Labor has a strong lead on this. Water has little history as a federal issue, and not much more (at least in recent times) as a state issue, so there are not strong party stereotypes to fall back on, as there are on issues such as health, education, and tax. But if you had to think about it in the context of the governments who have been responsible for water, ie the state Labor governments, you’d have to say that their long-term performance (except perhaps in WA) is in the poor to mediocre range. In Victoria, the Bracks government’s strategy seems to be limited to killing off gardens and shorter showers. When Newspoll asked Victorians during last year’s election which party would better handle water management, Labor was nevertheless ahead, but only 38% to 32%.

As Malcolm Turnbull theatrically told Parliament last week, thanks to severe domestic water restrictions bucket back is afflicting pensioners as they carry water from their showers to their gardens. You don’t have to be raving right-winger to think we can do much better than this policywise (some ideas today from Professor Q). And whatever the merits of the PM’s $10 billion plan for the Murray-Darling Basin, it had been more prominently in the news than any suggestions from the Labor side.

It’s hard to tell without repeat polling, but this result could just be the flow on from the enthusiasm surrounding Kevin Rudd - that voters don’t actually have real views on which party federally would best handle water, but they are feeling positive toward Labor at the moment and so when asked they say ‘Labor’ rather than say nothing. Another possibility is that this is a case of issue association - that because water seems related to the environment, and Labor is way ahead on that (60% to 26%), Labor seems the more obvious answer to this question. Unless the drought breaks between now and the election, the Coalition had better hope this poll does not reflect solid opinion.

This month’s Newspoll on nuclear power plants, as reported in The Australian yesterday, again highlights the political complexity of the greenhouse issue. While several polls confirm that the public believes global warming to be a major issue, they do not accept the most feasible ways of reducing emissions. In this poll, 50% are against nuclear power plants, and only 35% are in favour - with most of the remaining 15% of unsure respondents likely to go for a negative response if pressed (if people are forced to choose they tend to go for status quo options; all the more so on an issue ripe for scare campaigns like this one).

Due to the particular history of this issue, with opposition to uranium mining an article of faith on the left, we have the situation of Labor voters being considerably more likely (80%/60%) than Coalition voters to think global warming is a serious issue but considerably less likely (29%/51%) than Coalition voters to support a way of significantly reducing emissions. It is another example of the reluctance of left-of-centre voters to see politics and policy in pragmatic terms.

It’s enough to turn me into a tree-hugger. Melbourne City Council - having already killed the gums along the middle of my street in an unnecessary and bungled road repavement - is now planning to get rid of Melbourne’s beautiful European trees, on the grounds that they use too much water. Personally, I’d be quite happy to pay higher rates to set up a water recycling scheme if there is genuinely a problem here. And who is leading the charge on this crazy policy? It’s the Green councillor Fraser Brindley. The irony! What finally turns me into a politicised nature-lover is a Green plan for environmental destruction. For my fellow residents of inner Melbourne, remember that on November 25 the Greens have a chance of winning the seats of Melbourne and Richmond. Put them last!

All the survey research into what the public knows about politics and policy comes up with the same conclusion: very little. I added an Australian pebble to the mountain of international evidence back in April. Not only do people lack factual information, but they freely express ‘non-attitudes’, opinions they don’t really hold, just to answer pollsters’ questions (one way non-attitudes are detected is by asking the same question again with different wording; if the replies are inconsistent the respondent probably doesn’t have a clear position on the issue).

For a democracy, this research raises important questions. For a start, should we be guided by majority preferences if the majority clearly has no idea what it is talking about? One way that I think governments can be democratically responsive and still be guided by expert opinion is to pay far more attention to the general goals the public wants achieved and the problems it wants solved than to any of the public’s specific views about how to achieve those goals and solve those problems. Goals and problems place much lower cognitive demands on poll respondents and voters; you don’t need to know anything about economics to know that you would rather have more money, or that it is better if unemployment and inflation are low. You don’t need to know anything about teaching or medicine to know that good schools and hospitals are preferable to the alternatives.

This morning’s Age/ACNielsen poll on global warming highlights the issues. 91% of respondents think that global warming is a serious problem. 62% are not satisfied with the Howard government’s response to it. As a guard against non-attitudes, a recent Lowy Institute poll found only 7% of resondents thinking global warming was not a problem, and 68% agreeing that we should take significant steps to reduce it even if costs are significant, and an April Roy Morgan Poll found that just 12% thought that concerns about global warming were exaggerated and 71% thought that if we don’t act now it will be too late. With broadly similar results from three different sets of questions we can be confident that people believe that global warming is real, and that something should be done about it. This is the kind of poll result that governments need to take into account.
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