Local councillors around Australia underestimate how much public support there is for stronger action on climate change, University of Queensland research has found.
Researchers surveyed 211 local government councillors from all states and the Northern Territory, asking how many Australians they thought were supportive of stronger action on climate change.
Lead author Ms Annabelle Wilkinson, of UQ’s School of Psychology , said when these results were compared to two large-scale surveys, each featuring responses from more than 1000 Australians about their support for climate change action, researchers found politicians had underestimated many areas.
“Local government policy makers misjudged where Australians stand on climate change, including calls for stronger government action and how worried people are about the impacts,” Ms Wilkinson said.
“We found elected local members thought 61 per cent of Australians wanted stronger government action on climate change, when the figure is in fact 83 per cent.
“Australia is in danger of not meeting its climate change targets, and potential misconceptions about important issues like this matter because public opinion is a key driver of policy implementation.”
Senior author, Dr Christoph Klebl , of UQ’s School of Psychology, said they also examined whether councillors thought people were happy to contribute financially to climate change.
Councillors thought 32 per cent of people were supportive, but 56 per cent of Australians have indicated they would be open to financially supporting action.
Councillors were also asked to estimate what percentage of Australians wanted the country to use less fossil fuel in future, which 66 per cent of Australians have indicated they want.
“When we examined support of fossil fuels, we found left-wing politicians overestimated the number, believing 78 per cent of Australians wanted less fossil fuels, while right-wing councillors underestimated with 56 per cent, which was interesting,” Dr Klebl said.
“Politicians are there to enact what the public wants, but if they misperceive these views, they are not only disadvantaging themselves but they are not accurately representing their constituents.
“Local government is where a lot of climate policy is delivered, including waste and land use management, and these misconceptions could be one reason why there is a distance between public demand and political action.”
Dr Klebl said psychology research into climate change often focused on individual action, but less was known about perceptions of policymakers.
“We need to know the psychological side because there is no way to mitigate climate change without understanding the policymaker side of it,” Dr Klebl said.
“We hope this research will prompt policy makers to question their knowledge and views of what they think the public wants when it comes to climate change action.
“It might also prompt people to engage more in election campaigns because the public has a right to know what their elected representatives think.”
Read the research published in Journal of Environmental Psychology.
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