Listen first: Why the UK's climate adaptation and Net Zero plans need public voice

Image: Greenwich Park London in August 2022, following weeks of high temperatures and a low rainfall. Credit: Alisdare Hickson on Flickr

As the climate crisis intensifies and the UK experiences an unusually warm and dry spring, The Climate Change Committee warns we are dangerously unprepared for growing climate impacts. This is at a time when cross-party political support for Net Zero is crumbling. This is based on an assumption that the public don’t want to see governments responding to the climate crisis, but that is not our experience. 

Through our work, we have seen that when people participate in structured, informed deliberation, they consistently demonstrate capacity to engage with complex climate science and policy options. They balance competing priorities across different timeframes, often developing creative solutions that address multiple needs. Perhaps most crucially, they support taking action. 

So why are we still making crucial climate decisions - to act or not act - without meaningfully involving the people whose lives these policies will transform? Meaningful public involvement in development helps increase the acceptability of climate policies and allows progress on addressing the climate crisis to be accelerated. Without it, lots of the great technical solutions that we have risk falling short in implementation. 

Ask, don't assume: it results in great insight and support

The Climate Change Committee has been a consistent champion of public engagement in climate policy. Their pioneering work with Sciencewise on household emissions demonstrates their understanding that technical expertise alone isn't sufficient for effective climate action - they need to understand what is important to people and what sorts of measures are going to work for people. This commitment to public voice provides a great example of an approach for the UK government when considering adaptation measures. 

Their panel on net zero earlier this year included 26 members of the public reflective of the UK population in terms of demographics and attitudes to climate change. The outcome was clear: people are willing to make low-carbon choices if government provides the right support. This included information provision; setting clear phase-out dates for petrol/diesel cars and gas boilers; improving public transport and EV charging infrastructure; setting standards for home energy efficiency and providing grants and loans to support households to purchase low-carbon technologies. 

Unsurprisingly, cost was a major consideration, but deliberations revealed that upfront costs mattered most, not potential savings further down the line. Views on how these costs should be fairly distributed varied by activity. For home heating, participants preferred general taxation so that everyone could access some support (such as grants for heat pumps). When it came to aviation however, they generally favoured higher charges for those who fly more frequently. This echoes findings from our previous work: in Climate Assembly UK, 108 people from diverse backgrounds explored trade-offs, with one discussion resulting in 80% supporting a carbon tax on those who fly more often or further, provided the money is ring-fenced and transparently spent.

These findings show that deliberative processes provide a much richer understanding of public attitudes than the headlines from polling alone might suggest. Deliberation reveals the deeper reasoning behind people’s views, and when given the chance to weigh up the evidence and discuss trade-offs, a greater willingness to embrace ambitious policies. In short, our work shows that with the right support and engagement, the public are willing to accept, and even endorse, plans that might otherwise seem politically challenging, giving policymakers the confidence to go further, faster.

Beyond Net Zero: the role of the public in shaping how we adapt

Time and again, our work at Involve consistently demonstrates that when people are meaningfully included in climate policy development, they tend to support ambitious action while providing practical insights that make implementation more effective. This is especially true when it comes to conversations about climate adaptation. Local Councils across the country are talking to their residents about how to prepare for the impacts of climate change. 

This time last year the Hackney Citizens' Jury on Extreme Heat brought together local residents to develop practical adaptation recommendations that the council is now embedding in its plans. Far from resisting change, participants advocated for ambitious measures while ensuring they were fair and would work for diverse communities. Regardless of people’s different views on climate change, they were generally supportive of approaches like cool spaces, clear emergency responses targeted at those most likely to be impacted by heatwaves and building adaptation baked into planning. What’s more, the public are more willing to accept necessary changes when they've been engaged in this way and been part of designing them. Research for our Citizens' White Paper with Demos shows that when people know a policy has been made with “people like me” trust in government increases by 10% (35-45%). 

Moving forward: from retreat to meaningful participation

With competing economic priorities and resistance to climate policies, the answer shouldn’t be less democracy but more, to strengthen policy ambitions with public deliberation, transparency, and legitimacy. In the words of the recent report from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change "we need to rebuild public trust in climate policy, and for that, politicians need to start with showing the public they are listening and delivering."

Rather than retreating from public engagement in the face of resistance, we should deepen it. The evidence from our work suggests three key principles:

1. Ask people what they want through structured, informed deliberation rather than making assumptions about public preferences or willingness to change
2. Integrate public deliberation into formal climate governance, not as a one-off exercise but as an ongoing component of policy development and implementation. It will be exciting to see the DESNZ Public Participation Strategy do that. 
3. Design engagement that acknowledges the challenges and shares responsibility - be clear that decision makers need to take action, and support others to do so too.

The public needs to be viewed as essential partners in designing workable solutions. Rather than guessing what trade-offs people are willing to make, or what priorities they hold most dear, we should create structured opportunities to ask them directly and involve them in developing responses. Better public participation in climate policy is an essential tool for sound policy design, and one of the most effective for breaking the deadlock and ensuring workable implementation.