Imogen Learmonth / Nov 2026
Photo:Shutterstock
After a summer of record heat waves, energy insecurity and conflict in the Middle East, climate politics seems to have renewed its place on the political agenda. This presents an opportunity progressive politicians and the Green movement must not squander.
In a multi-country poll conducted by Mandate Research in August during the heatwave, well over half of respondents in each country say they are worried about climate change. The survey, which covers Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, Hungary, Poland, as well as the US and Great Britain, saw levels of concern about climate change especially high in France (80%) and Italy (81%) and astonishing in Hungary, with 91%.
The number of people saying that climate is a top issue for them seems to be trending upwards. In every country except Sweden the number of people placing climate change in their top three issues has increased in the past year. Previously, the issue importance of climate change had been in decline for a number of years, according to multiple datasets including YouGov Eurotrak and Eurobarometer.
For climate advocates at COP31 that renewed attention is a double-edged sword: it offers an opening to advance policy, but only if they heed the lessons of recent years. After the momentum of 2019, marked by headline-grabbing summits and the European Commission’s Net Zero by 2050 target, the fallout from the pandemic, soaring inflation and global conflict sidelined green issues. This gave far-right critics room to frame the movement as elitist. Now that climate is back under the spotlight, this time in the context of energy security and household costs, advocates cannot afford to look detached from kitchen-table realities.
Two data points from the recent survey illustrate the vulnerabilities and opportunities inherent in this political moment for the green agenda.
First, the challenge: the survey reveals that more people think that pro-environmental policies have left ordinary people worse off, as opposed to better off. This is a majoritarian opinion in the Netherlands (54%), Spain (46%), Germany (45%), France (45%), Sweden (42%) and Great Britain (42%). Even in Hungary, where there is the largest ‘positive’ minority, only 32% of people would say that pro-environmental policies have left ordinary people better off compared with 44% who say the opposite.
This is a damning indictment of the green agenda. This perception exists despite measurable, real-world improvements in air quality, public health indicators, and biodiversity conservation across Europe. Granted, many of the benefits of environmental policy will only be felt in decades, and are no less important for that.
However, there are ways that green policies are making ordinary people’s lives better right now. The movement is failing to ‘win its wins’ and communicate these to people. Take Poland for example. Rather than believing environmental policies have been mostly good or bad for people, most responded “I don’t know”, at 52%. The majority have no opinion on what the impact of environmentalism has been on their lives at all, despite 59% of the country saying that they are worried about climate change (including 50% of the populist-right PiS voters). If Greens and progressives cannot connect their policies to real-world, tangible improvement in quality of life during a cost-of-living crisis, far-right framings that depict environmentalism as meaningless Brussels overreach will win the day.
So what do voters think would help? Another striking data point from the survey is that voters make the connection between renewable power and structural affordability. Clear majorities across Europe agree that transitioning to renewable energy will lower energy bills and reduce dependence on volatile fossil fuel markets. In a similar vein, expanding renewable capacity is consistently ranked by voters in Hungary, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Great Britain and the US as the single most effective action governments can take to lower energy costs. In Sweden and Poland, it comes in a narrow second behind increasing nuclear energy capacity. Renewables win out against nationalising gas and electricity, increasing domestic coal and gas production, taking part in military action in the Strait of Hormuz and importing more oil and gas from Russia.
This is invaluable at a time when affordability is voters’ number one issue. And it proves something important: whilst many people don’t see environmental policies as having benefited them so far, they do believe in the tangible benefits of the renewables transition.
The blueprint for a successful COP31 seems clear when considering these insights. Voters are dissatisfied with the impact of environmental policies as they’ve been rolled out thus far, and there is clear demand for renewables as households feel the pinch.
European voters have not abandoned the green transition. Most recognise that drastic change is needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and they believe that green growth can help make their lives easier. Despite the fact that the summer’s heatwaves and floods have brought renewed interest (or, rather, anxiety) to the climate change conversation, hoping that extreme weather will shock electorates back to reason is bad politics. The climate movement must link renewable energy directly to the cost of living, presenting the green transition as a tool of economic stability. It must meet voters where they are.
