A Mediated Reality on Net Zero, with Becca Massey-Chase

If you're feeling a bit beaten up by the relentless negative news coverage on net zero and climate action, guess what? The data tells a more complicated and more hopeful truth. We sit down with Becca Massey-Chase, Head of Citizen Engagement at IPPR, to unpack their new research on public opinion, media narratives and the real risks to climate progress. If you care about climate action, democracy and what happens next for UK climate policy, this conversation sharpens the picture fast. 

We look into the perception gap: why politicians can believe voters have soured on ambitious decarbonisation even when the public remains broadly supportive. Becca explains how right-wing populism and partisan media try to reframe net zero as ideology, and why many of those attacks do not “land” unless they tap into something deeper: distrust in institutions and low confidence that government can deliver. 

We also talk about what climate communication can learn from this, including why messages around energy security and energy independence resonate. 

And is if all of that wasn't enough, we the switch to transport decarbonisation, where the same dynamics show up in miniature. Low traffic neighbourhoods, ULEZ, active travel and electric vehicles get dragged into culture war narratives, even as most people just want safe, reliable ways to get around. 

Follow GoodGeist for more episodes on sustainability, communications and how creativity can help make the world a better place.

Transcript

Welcome And Show Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Good guys. A podcast series on sustainability. Hosted by Damla Eusler and Steve Connor. Brought to you by the DNS Network.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Hello, hello everyone. You are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability, which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damla from Mira Agency Istanbul and This is Dave from Creative Concern in Manchester.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicating, and what creativity can do to make positive changes happen.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

So in this episode, we're going to talk to Becca Messi Chase, who is head of citizen engagement at IPPR, the UK-based charity and think tank that has shaped progressive politics and debate for almost 50 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

And that is a big anniversary coming up. Becca joined OPPR in 2020 to leave citizens' joys for the Environmental Justice Commission and now provides the institute with in-house expertise on engaging the public in policy development. Becca has expertise in transportation, transport decarbonisation, the threat of right-wing populism, which we're going to focus on today, to climate policy, a fair transition for farming, very interesting, and public opinion on climate. And she's previously worked at the charity Sustrans, where we met and worked together, and at the RSA. So Becca, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to Delma and myself.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Thank you very much for having me.

Becca’s Unconventional Career Path

SPEAKER_02 1:39

It's wonderful to have you with us, Becca. So, first of all, of course, tell us about you. What journey did you take to take a leading role in one of the UK's best-known think tanks?

SPEAKER_03 1:53

I think I probably took a slightly, a slightly unconventional route into IPPR. My background's always been in the charitable sector. I started off in my very first job working with young people in a, well, it was a genocide prevention charity. So working on sort of international issues, but mostly focused with young people in schools. And then I worked for an interface organization, and then another program with young people, and then I went to the RSA, and then Sustran. So always in the charitable sector, but across a range of issues, all kind of united by a focus on supporting people to engage in social issues and social problems and a sort of very sort of public-facing engagement type role until I got to Sustrans, where I worked on the strategy for the organization, how to, how Sustrans as a charity could achieve its goals more effectively. And worked very closely with the chief exec there at the time. I came into IPPR to work on these citizens' jewelries. And I think that was my background in working with people in facilitation that really drew me to that role. And have, yeah, not looked back since, really. So it's an amazing organization, IPPR, a really, a really impactful place to be. And I feel that the sort of areas that we're able to work on in terms of policy and research, particularly around the climate environment, is is really important. So yeah, I'm really pleased and lucky to be there. But certainly, yes, a slightly, I think probably slightly unusual and unconventional role into the into the job.

IPPR Explained In Plain Terms

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Well, I I know this is going to sound absolutely preposterous, Becker. But I now send you separately the fascinating global map of where people listen to this podcast from because it's all over the place. So there might be a few couple of listeners around the world who haven't actually come across IPPR. So could you do a very quick explainer?

SPEAKER_03 3:46

Super speedy. So we're a think tank, we're a charity. That means we're independent. So we're independent from government, uh, government, and that independence is really important to us. Um, we're a charity, so we have a charitable purpose. So we work towards a fairer, greener, more prosperous society. And the way we do that is through think tanky things. So we do research that's both qualitative and quantitative, we do working with the public, understanding their ideas, analyzing data, understanding problems, and then making suggestions on the solutions to those problems. But in combination with thinking about how do you really affect change? How do you influence, how do you make change happen? And we're very lucky that we have the relationships to be able to support us to do that. We're good at convening, bringing different people together, and yeah, making the case for the sorts of things that we think need to happen, making the kind of case for the policy changes that we want to see.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

And today we were really keen on talking to you, Becca, because this week you have released a new report with very important implications for climate action, public policy, and democracy. The research reveals that claims of a water backlash against net zero have been overstated with political debate and biased media coverage, not public opinion, posing the bigger risk to climate progress. So, could you tell us about the headlines in this report? Yeah, of course.

Media Negativity And Climate Democracy

SPEAKER_03 5:15

So the starting point for this research and this piece of work was that we really wanted to understand, to really understand the detail of the arguments that right-wing populists were making against net zero, against climate policy. The this net zero net zero in and of itself is an interesting term, and we can come back to that maybe. But what it represents is is ambitious climate policy in the UK. It's a loaded term, it's complicated, but the drive to reduce emissions, that's what we're talking about when we're talking about net zero. And in the UK, there are attacks from particularly the right of politics and the right-wing media being made against net zero. And from that, you might think that there was fracturing in the opinions on this issue across the public. So historically, the UK has been very, very pro-climate action. And we have a really proud history of that here. And the reassuring finding from this report, from this article, is that the public is still pro-climate action. The public is still on side on this issue. But what we've seen in the last couple of years since the last jump, since the 2024 general election, is particularly a change in how the politicians see this issue. So it's a real left-right divide now, and that isn't historically the case. Net zero was was signed by into being by by by Theresa May. This is something that the you know, the net zero goal that we have now is signed into, and and you know, various other conservative prime ministers have had positive things to say about this. So it's it's not always been the case that there's been this left-right divide on this issue. But since the last general election, there's that's happened. There's been this real fracturing in the consensus, the political consensus on net zero. That's not happened in the public. But what we do have is a very oppositional media, and that's really increased, that's really ramped up over the last year or so. So they're now seeing much, much more negativity in the press. And as a consequence, it's not surprising that MPs therefore think that the public is less supportive of this issue than they actually are. So there's a real gap, a real perception gap between the where the MPs, the politicians are at, and where the public's at. So part of what we wanted to do through this research was to reassure people that actually the public has got your back on this. This is an issue where progressives should be positive and confident. And actually, one of the things that we found in this research was that the arguments that are being made against net zero, broadly speaking, they're not really landing with the public. People aren't really believing them. The arguments that are being made from the right by the populists, they're not really landing, with the exception of arguments that are based on, or in spark rather, feelings of distrust and low confidence. And we know that the public is in that place at the moment. The public is not feeling confident in the institutions that are designed to serve them. They don't trust government. And and so when you speak to that feeling that they have, so the argument that it just can't be done and politicians aren't going to manage it and it's all all a bit hopeless, that speaks to people because that resonates with how they feel about lots of issues in their lives at the moment. But actually delivering effective and ambitious climate policy and really owning it and really being positive and confident about it is one way, amongst many, and it can't be the only thing that's responsible for this. But it is one way that you could build some public confidence. It could be a proof point for competence, a proof point for capability on an issue that actually loads of people really care about.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

So honestly, Becca, there's so much to get into with this. And I think I would people need to read the whole thing because you've got loads of recommendations in there as to what you could do with all of this. But just to stay in the in the kind of, oh my god, this is so shocking and awful space for a minute. Yeah. One particular shocking finding in the report was that online news coverage was more than two and a half times more negative towards net zero than public sentiment. And that's essentially an onslaught against the truth.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

And so don't don't you feel that has really worrying implications around climate, what you might call climate democracy?

SPEAKER_03 9:47

I think it does. And I think it's symptomatic of a overall challenge in our media environment, right? And how that is how that's managed, how it's funded, how it all works, it's symptomatic of that wider issue. And it's a problem. It's a problem that exactly climate policy isn't going to solve. It's a it's a it's a bigger problem than that. I think that what's interesting is that actually, despite that incredibly shocking statistic, the public has still haven't actually bought into that counter-argument. They still are not huge, you know, the public still isn't like greatly oppositional to this issue, despite the fact that that the media, and let's be honest, it's it's the our media landscape is dominated by right-wing outlets, and those right-wing outlets have, you know, some vested interests in being oppositional on this issue. So there's a big problem there, but I think it's heartening actually that the public hasn't been as swayed by this as you might expect, even if the politicians maybe have been. Not necessarily in their I think on the case of Labour MPs, it's really interesting to note that Labour MPs haven't dropped their faith in net zero. What they've lost faith in is the Democratic mandate for net zero. And that's what we need to reassure them of, is that the public does have their backing on this.

Populist Playbook And Polarised Platforms

SPEAKER_02 11:15

That's interesting. And another interesting key finding, one of our favorite charts in your report, compare the wheels of Great Britain news watchers to TikTok users, with 71% of the former being consistently anti-Net Zero versus 13% of TikTok fans. I mean, enormous gap between those. So this shows the polarization going on here beautifully. What are your thoughts on the popular stride as actors on climate and what their end goal is on net zero?

SPEAKER_03 11:53

And to add to that, you're more likely to be supportive of climate policy and more likely to be pro-net zero if you are a BBC watcher. So if you watch the BBC, you're more likely to be pro-net zero. If you watch GB News, you're more likely to be anti-net zero. I mean, it makes logical sense. But it is, I think, interesting to see these different actors and GB News as being one of them kind of really changing the way that people sort of think and feel about these issues. And it's important, I think, to think about that broad landscape of these all these different populist and right-wing actors. It's not just the political parties. You know, we have two right-wing parties in the UK that are very oppositional and net zero now. As I said, that wasn't always the case. And actually, what we'd love to see is some moderate voices from the right of politics speaking up on this issue, because actually reducing polarisation would make a big difference. That would be really positive. But there are also lots of different groups. And, you know, one of the things that we did as part of this research was to look on different social media platforms and to see what these kinds of arguments that are being made. And they're, you know, they're all working from a similar playbook, definitely. And they're using what I think is quite interesting for the left actually to learn from, for progressives to learn from, which is this ability to tap into public mood, to tap into how people feel. They tell a story that may not be true, but it it speaks to some kind of truth about people's lived realities. So you can challenge that by saying, let's tackle some of the myths and misinformation. But unless progressives and people on the the side of net zero get a little bit better at speaking to what people feel as their lived experiences, what their lives are really like. People are looking for stories that make sense of their lives as they experience them. And we're also all wildly inconsistent and you know, and they're like, you know, all sorts of things, you know, we're complicated. People are complicated. You know, that's what is wonderful about people as well. But it means that we don't necessarily always have entirely coherent, consistent things that we believe. But if we can think about what people are feeling at the moment and tap into those things, that's one of the reasons why when we talk about energy independence as a co-benefit of net zero, that really speaks to people because it's something that they're really worried about. And so it's something that they believe in and they can understand and it feels important to them. So as a as a as a as a thing that's something helpful to talk about, and this is something the government do do a lot of, is talking about energy security and energy independence. That really resonates with people. But I think it's important to think about well, why is that working? Why is that message working? What can we learn from that? And what can we learn from what the populists are doing?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

Fascinating there. So we're gonna have to go there, Becca, on the words net zero. We're gonna do it. But before I get to that, I one of the inconsistencies around GB News. I mean, it's one of those, isn't it, where you think, why has the far right got themselves so worked up on climate? Why? I mean, I can understand the other things that really get their go, like trans rights and uppity women who think they should be equal and all of that shenanigans.

SPEAKER_03 15:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

I I I mean I know where that horror comes from, but climate is kind of it's kind of strange. And one of the great inconsistencies I think's extraordinary is if you look at the science, and I know that's a huge if for the people like GB News, but if we get to two degrees of global heating, the level of migration happening across this planet is going to be off the chart. So if you're waking up in the morning with frothing at the mouth about immigration, you literally, the climate crisis could. One stat I saw was that at 1.5 degrees, we're looking at 50 million people displaced through sea level rise. If we get to two do two degrees, it's 500 million people. And so I just think it's absolutely extraordinary that they're helping to fuel the crisis that will come back and make their worst nightmares come true. But that's that's my little rant.

Salience Distrust And Extreme Weather

SPEAKER_03 16:17

Well, there's two things. Can I just come back there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. One is that I think you can trace a story back as to why this is an issue for the right for two reasons. One more cynical, which is around where do people's funding and money come from and who are the backers, and you know, does smog are really good on this stuff and it's worth having a look at their work. But I do think there's, you know, there's a there's a cynical, there's a cynical argument, or not even cynical, you know, it's true that that we can watch how that money flows. There's I think also there are ideological reasons that climate action is sort of seen as being kind of globalist, it's seen as not being in British interests, it's seen as state overreach, telling people what to do. There are reasons, but then I think you're right, it gets packaged into a kind of category of issues that people distrust. And so you see this, and it happens, you know, uh in other countries as well, where it gets kind of narratively grouped with all these other issues. So, you know, HR policies and the environment and trans rights kind of get all swept up into this kind of same story. And it's it sort of then becomes a thing that people sort of put in a box, a category. But again, I don't think that that necessarily, I don't think the evidence is there that that happens across the UK public particularly. That's something that is a yeah, it's a storytelling trick of the populist right. I don't think that there is evidence to show that that is really, really working. Other than what we do know is that the more that something drops in terms of how important it is to someone. So we talk about this in terms of salience. So as an issue, the less salient it is, the more likely you are to be impacted by elite cues. So politics, media, that when I say elite, that's what I mean by that. So you're more likely to be shifted on the things that you care a bit less about. And we do know that whilst people haven't become more oppositional to climate action, it has dropped down their list of priorities, which makes a lot of sense when you think about the situation that we're facing in the world today. But the real problem of that is that then it makes it something that is easier for people to move. So, what the big threat to net zero actually is that it it sort of becomes this partisan issue that people is if they do move to the right, that it it it kind of gets swept along with that, with that, even though it's not driving anyone there, no one is moving to reform because of their climate policy. That I mean, it's tiny, tiny, tiny fractional percentage of people for whom that would be a say enough issue and the thing that drives them over. But once they're there and they're receiving all the cues and all the stories on that, then I think there is a risk that that sort of is a sort of downstream impact rather than it being what moves people. So the best thing you can do is raise salience, get it out people's, get it out of people's list. And the way to do that is actually to talk about extreme weather and to talk about, to talk about the impacts of climate change. And we need to do that so much more than we're doing. And actually, I think that comes back to your point about when we're talking, you know, this sort of net zero conversation can get a bit too abstracted from the real reason why, which is to avoid these catastrophic climate impacts. And when you tie it back to that, actually a lot of these stories make a lot more sense to people. What you don't want to see happen, and I think the risk is that there are actors on the right who are talking about extreme weather and talking about kind of, you know, we'll know this is something that we need to act at at the expense of reducing emissions. But actually, the public don't buy that. The public want to see both things happen.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Coming from a country and the knowledge that has been talking about polarization for the last 20 years, I think I can also offer a little bit of insight on this matter. When the polarization gets tightened and thickened and hardened in a society, the argument is not as much as important as the actor saying that argument. So if we look at the rhetorical way of Aristotle, Patos and Ethos are overcoming the logos part. So the reality doesn't matter anymore. Who is saying what matters more? So I think that is a fight we have to give on our narratives. That's all.

unknown 21:14

Okay.

Transport Frames LTNs And EV Concerns

SPEAKER_01 21:19

We haven't we haven't dropped a Derrida or a Baudriar in weeks. So I'm feeling a lot better now. Okay, great. One last thing and for our final, final question, because it's part of um the work that you do, and I think it'd be really interesting to flip from that kind of climate action space to transport that you and I feel very passionate about, I know. And the work you've done around framing the transition away from fossil fuels, active travel, dare I say it, low traffic neighborhoods, and uh the the the the adoption of electric vehicles. What are your thoughts on getting the frames right in that space as well? How do we because I mean importantly, I think low traffic neighbourhoods, for those who don't know here in the UK, were a flashpoint a few years ago, probably unnecessarily, but weaponized again by the populist right. So really interesting analogies with net zero. What are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_03 22:19

Yeah. Well, and then actually, when we think about where the public are at in in contrast to where the the politicians are at, when you look at MP support for net zero, one of the little dropping off points is around ULES. So is around for those across the uh in different different countries, there was a by-election here, and there was a bit of transport policy that was really made into a big deal as a as a part of that. And whilst I think the sort of jury's out a little bit on what the public, you know, how much it really swayed public opinion, it certainly made politicians feel nervous. And so it had a real impact on public conf on politicians' confidence in net zero. But when we look at that sort of disconnect between what politicians think and what the public think, you can look at that at not just an overarching kind of position, but also at the more granular level of different policies. And low-traffic neighbourhoods is the one where the gap between where the public are at and what MPs think is really big. So the public are much less oppositional than MPs think they are. Now, there's probably a whole load of different reasons for that. I imagine it's partly to do with vocal minorities at a local level. MPs will hear from their constituents who are really unhappy about a scheme. And they don't hear from the sort of silent majority of people who've who are happy about it. And we know that there's all sorts of evidence that once these schemes are in, support increases once they've been bedded in. And so there's all sorts of kind of, there's all sorts of learnings about that. But oh, to take kind of to take a step back on transport policy overall, we've done lots of research on this. And the public is pragmatic about transport. Politicians often talk about it in terms and frames around ideology, and that isn't how the public feel. They want to be able to get around in ways that are comfortable and safe, you know, that they feel they feel it is efficient, it works for them. Generally speaking, people would like to use their car less. They don't want to be dependent on a car. Actually, we've, you know, there's a huge number of people in the UK who don't own a car, they're locked out of car ownership because it's expensive, or they have to run a car, but actually it is participating expensive for them, and that has a really big impact on their on their household overall sort of management of their income and their expenditure. So the public are pretty nuanced, they're pretty they're pretty calm, you know, on things like electric vehicles, they're worried about costs, they're worried about charging. It's very practical, pragmatic issues that people are concerned about. And so the policy response needs to meet those concerns. But what actually people aren't is greatly ideological about transport. It's sometimes weaponized, it's sometimes trying to sort of manufacture it into a culture war issue. It's not one.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Brilliant, brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

It's a great punchline, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 25:32

It's just not.

What Makes Becca Smile Closing

SPEAKER_02 25:34

It's not. So I'm so sorry that we are running out of time. So I have to ask our final question if it's okay. Yes, yes, Lily. So our final question. Our network is ironically called do not smile, because we need to make sustainability a subject that brings happiness into the world. So, what object, place, or person always makes you smile?

SPEAKER_03 26:00

Oh my goodness. What always makes me smile? You know, that's funny, because I think my instinctive reaction is my children. I'm not sure they always make me smile. But they maybe smile, but when they do, they maybe smile more than anything. But I think that that's uh that's true. It's um, I mean, I have to say, I'm um I have childlike delight in hot air balloons and rainbows and sunshine and things like that. So I um I'm a simple creature, I think. I think uh if I'm on a train and I see a rainbow out of the window, I will inevitably turn to the person who's sitting me, whether I know them or not, and say, look the rainbow. Um so uh I think, yes, I think probably without fail, those those simple, beautiful things in the in the world that I think every everyone likes those, don't they? Who doesn't love a rainbow or a hot air balloon?

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Oh, that's amazing. That's awesome. Well, we need to put you in we we had somebody on the podcast a couple of episodes ago, Banu, who's obsessed by hot air balloons. So we're gonna we're gonna have to create a hot air balloon club.

SPEAKER_03 27:15

This comes Briscall, where I live, as uh we yeah, there's an international fiesta of hot air balloons every year. And we're very lucky they go by the hundreds over across our house, across the sky. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

It's a lot of people. At which point you are beyond excited now the other side of it. Oh well, Becca, listen, there's been a wonderful opportunity to catch up. I think it's really, really fascinating. I think the the piece around that mediated reality on net zero and the the non-backlash of the public is just gonna run and run. And uh put the point at which we really fight back against disinformation in particular is is gonna be really interesting. So we'll probably need to pick this up again, actually, and talk when I've had a lovely time.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

I'll be happy to be back.

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Excellent. Well, you we'll be we'll keep watching you do your think tanky, think tanky things, and then we'll chat when you get another report out. Damla, do you want to wrap us up?

SPEAKER_02 28:08

So, thanks to everyone who has listened to our Goodgeist podcast brought to you by the Do Not Smile Network of Agencies.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

Um make sure you listen to future episodes where we'll be talking to more amazing people about how we can work together to create a more sustainable future full of hot air balloons. So, Damler, back we'll see you soon. Take care, bye.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Bye-bye. Goodgeist, a podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Eusler and Steve Connor. Brought to you by the DNS Network.