Politicians vastly overestimate public opposition to climate policies, study finds
University of Cambridg
- Study involving 100 sitting MPs in the UK reveals gulf between perceptions of the political class and realities of public attitudes on environmental issues such as insulation and green taxes.
- MPs also think the UK electorate is far more divided than it is over climate policies. Researchers find statistical evidence for a ‘spiral of silence’ effect in the British Parliament.
Members of Parliament from the UK’s three biggest political parties in the House of Commons significantly overestimate levels of public resistance to major policy proposals for tackling climate change, a University of Cambridge study suggests.
Researchers say it may be the first data-led evidence for a “spiral of silence” in Westminster, where skewed perceptions of public sentiment among politicians can reduce political support for a policy.
The study’s authors, from the University’s El-Erian Institute of Behavioural Economics and Policy and the Cambridge Political Psychology Lab, surveyed one hundred sitting MPs on how they think voters and other parliamentarians feel about carbon reduction policies, and compared their estimates with public polling from earlier in the year.*
On making grants or loans for improved insulation available to all households with an energy efficiency rating of C or below, MPs collectively estimated public opposition to the policy at around 18%, more than three times the actual level of just 6%.
When asked about rejigging tax on products so that it varies according to environmental damage, MPs believed public opposition to be around 38%, almost double the 20% shown by polling the British people.
“MPs across parties who both support and oppose climate policies consistently overestimate public opposition,” said study lead author Dr Lisa-Maria Tanase, who conducted the work for her PhD at Cambridge. “This is likely to limit the range of what they consider to be politically feasible options for taking action on climate change.”
“Our findings cannot be explained away by wishful thinking of politicians or the projecting of their own worldview. On average, even MPs who support a climate policy think the public is more opposed to it than it really is,” said Tanase.
“Politicians, like all of us, are often exposed to information environments that distort perceptions of public opinion. Social and traditional media can disproportionately reflect particularly vocal segments of society rather than the full distribution of opinion.”
“We find a ‘funhouse mirror’ effect through which politicians see a distorted version of the public position on carbon reduction policies, associated with a lower willingness to promote these ideas,” said Tanase, now a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Cambridge’s El-Erian Institute of Behavioural Economics and Policy.
False polarisation
MPs also believed the UK electorate to be far more politically polarised over carbon reduction – or “net zero” – policies than it is, according to the study published in the journal Communications Sustainability.
Polling showed a 12-percentage point difference in support for the insulation and product tax policies between Labour and Conservative voters, but MPs estimated it at more than double that, at around 25 percentage points.
MPs predicted the difference between Lib Dem and Conservative voters on climate policies at 30 percentage points, when polling put it at just 14 points. Even the small two-point difference between Labour and Lib Dem voters was estimated at nearly five points by politicians.
“A number of previous studies show that exaggerated perceptions of polarisation can reduce the willingness of politicians to engage in cross-party dialogue,” said Tanase.
This “false polarisation” was most evident for Conservative voters, who MPs considered to be far more sceptical of these climate policies than polling suggested.
MPs overestimated the divide by about fivefold, believing Conservatives were on average 12.6 percentage points less supportive than the general public, when polling showed it to be just 2.5 percentage points.
“Environmentally supportive Conservative voters may end up feeling misrepresented if politicians consistently exaggerate how different their attitudes are from those of other voters,” Tanase said.
Spiral of silence
In fact, how MPs perceived public support for a green product tax predicted their willingness to advocate for it, even after accounting for each MP’s personal belief in the policy, the study found. Parliamentarians who thought support among the electorate was lower were on average less willing to speak up for the tax in public.
Researchers also asked MPs to estimate how many other parliamentarians would back a green product tax. Again, believing it to have less support among colleagues across parties correlated, on average, with MPs saying they would be less willing to champion it in Westminster, regardless of whether they personally support the policy.
Tanase says the study provides some evidence of a “spiral of silence” among MPs, as perceptions of low support among the electorate or Parliament reduces their willingness to speak up for a policy – even if it’s one they support. This suppressive effect is policy-dependent, as it wasn’t detected for insulation subsidies.**
Researchers found that parliamentarians not only overestimated opposition, but also markedly underestimated public support for the climate policies.
MPs underestimated public backing for an environmental product tax by 14.9 percentage points and underestimated support for the energy efficiency policy by 7.1 percentage points. Overall, MPs underestimated public support for these climate policies by about 11 percentage points on average.
However, the study suggests MPs’ beliefs about public opposition to climate policies are more influential. “Overestimating opposition is likely to generate greater political risk aversion than assuming the public is merely ambivalent,” Tanase said.
The researchers found all these misperceptions to be so potent that when they randomly assigned half the MPs to receive public polling results, then asked them to estimate support for another set of climate policies, it barely moved the dial in reducing inaccurate estimations.
“Our study found a systematic pessimism about the public appetite for climate action among the UK’s most influential decision-makers, and evidence that it affects their intended behaviour on climate action,” added Tanase.
“This may be contributing to a silencing effect in Parliament around one of the defining policy challenges of the 21st century.”
Tanase, L-M, Reisch L. A., Dewies M, De-Wit, L. Perception gaps in British Parliament reveal a possible pathway to stronger climate policy action. Communications Sustainability. DOI:
Notes:
* The surveying of sitting MPs took place during December 2024 and January 2025. The public polling benchmark was a nationally representative survey of 4,201 UK adults conducted by Ipsos UK between 18 and 24 April 2024. The polling asked people about the specific policies outlined in the study, such as the home insulation policy and green product tax.
** The study’s authors write that: "No significant silencing effect was found for the energy efficiency subsidy policy, likely due to the broader expected popularity and relative lack of controversy of subsidy policies compared to tax-based measures."
The sample of MPs in the study consisted of sitting Labour (80), Conservative (16) and Liberal Democrat (4) parliamentarians. While it approaches representing the composition of the Commons at the time, there is an overrepresentation of Labour MPs and an underrepresentation of Liberal Democrat MPs.
Journal
Communications Sustainability
Article Title
Perception gaps in the British Parliament reveal a possible pathway to stronger climate policy action
Article Publication Date
19-Aug-2026
Cities are getting hotter: 'Thermal Justice' offers a fairer way to adapt
ETH Zurich
image:
Thermal Justice brings together distribution, recognition, participation, capabilities, and ecological justice to assess whether heat adaptation reduces risk without displacing burdens elsewhere.
view moreCredit: Gobatti et al. 2026
When temperatures rise, public advice is familiar: drink water, avoid strenuous activity during the hottest hours, keep homes cool, and check on older or isolated people. These recommendations are reflected in the latest heat-health guidance from the WHO Regional Office for Europe. Authorities can reinforce them through clear warnings, accessible cooling spaces, and protection for outdoor and overheated indoor workers. Such actions save lives. Yet they also reveal a basic inequality: not everyone can decide when to stop working, afford air conditioning, reach a shaded route, or live in a home that remains safe at night.
Thermal Justice framework
Researchers from ETH Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (Eawag), and international partner institutions address this problem in a Comment in Nature Climate Change. They define ‘Thermal Justice’ as an application of Environmental Justice to heat. “The question is not only whether a measure lowers temperatures, but whether people can actually sleep, work, move, care for others, and remain healthy during heat,” says lead author and Environmental Engineering researcher, Lucas Gobatti. The framework brings together five dimensions:
- The fair distribution of thermal burdens and benefits
- Recognition of structurally produced vulnerabilities,
- Participation in decision-making,
- The capability of people and communities to function safely, and the
- Protection of ecosystems and future generations.
Cooling can create new inequalities
The framework also draws attention to thermal displacement: cooling one person or place can transfer heat-related risks elsewhere. Air conditioning protects people indoors, but releases waste heat outside, increases electricity demand and excludes those who cannot afford it. Urban greening can provide shade while raising rents and pushing residents towards hotter neighbourhoods. Cooling that depends on intensive irrigation, fragile energy systems, or neglected maintenance may solve an immediate problem while also creating future vulnerability. These shifts become unjust when the burdens fall on communities, ecosystems, or generations with less power to avoid them.
Adapting for the long term
A thermally just heat response must, therefore, combine emergency protection with structural change. During heatwaves, cities should prioritise exposed and isolated residents, accessible public cooling, worker protection, shaded routes to essential services, and affordable indoor cooling. Between heatwaves, they should retrofit poorly protected housing, expand durable green and blue infrastructure, match vegetation to water availability, and prevent cooling investments from displacing the people they were intended to protect.
Ultimately, success should be measured not only by warnings issued, cooling centres opened or trees planted, but by whether human and ecological life can continue safely without shifting heat risk elsewhere.
Thermal Justice at the Scientifica science festival
The ideas behind this research have also been translated into a collaborative board game, “Thermal Justice: a serious game.” It explores how cities can respond to extreme heat – not only effectively, but in a just way. In this interactive simulation, players work together to protect citizens from heat stress while managing limited energy, water, space, and financial resources. The game highlights the difficult trade-offs involved in urban cooling and explores who benefits and who bears the costs.
The game will be presented in a workshop at the upcoming Scientifica science festival in Zurich, Switzerland. It offers visitors the opportunity to explore the challenges of just and climate-resilient heat adaptation firsthand. More information about the workshop visit Scientifica.ch.
Journal
Nature Climate Change
Method of Research
Commentary/editorial
Subject of Research
Not applicable
Article Title
Thermal justice in urban climate change adaptation
Article Publication Date
19-Aug-2026
Helping decision makers navigate climate risks
International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis
As climate impacts such as heatwaves, floods, and fires are intensifying worldwide, there is an urgent demand for information on how to respond. IIASA researchers and partners have developed a new tool that meets that need, integrating climate drivers, risks, and adaptation options in one framework grounded in IPCC science. It turns authoritative global climate assessments into guidance practitioners can use.
The new climate impact taxonomy, developed as part of research published in Nature Climate Change, can help translate the scientific findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) into practical information for policymakers, adaptation planners, climate service providers, and other decision makers.
The IPCC assessment reports provide a wealth of scientific information, but there has been limited integration between the physical science of climate change and the assessment of its impacts and adaptation options. Practitioner-oriented products that translate IPCC concepts into actionable information have also been missing. The new taxonomy was created to bridge that gap by providing a shared framework that links measurable climate changes with the risks arising from them, and examples of how those risks can be addressed.
The tool systematically connects all 35 climatic impact-drivers identified by the IPCC, including physical climate conditions such as coastal flooding, drought, or extreme heat, with the eight representative key risks, which describe the major climate-related risks to ecosystems, infrastructure, food security, water resources, cities, and human wellbeing. Each connection is enriched with practical information, including the scale at which impacts occur, the systems affected, examples of adaptation responses, links to mitigation options, and references to the relevant IPCC chapters.
"This work is less about producing new climate science and more about making existing information actionable. Navigating the IPCC reports can be challenging due to their scope and complexity. Our taxonomy provides an easier entry point by directly linking measurable climatic impact-drivers to specific risks and adaptation responses," explains lead author Michaela Werning, a researcher in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program.
The researchers highlight several important patterns in the information compiled within the taxonomy. More than half of the combinations of climate hazards and the risks they create primarily play out at regional scales, underscoring that many climate impacts are determined by unique regional conditions. The analysis also found an almost even split between gradual changes in the climate and extreme events, showing that it is important to build capacity not only to deal with such events, but also to plan on longer time scales. In addition, just under half of the climate driver-risk combinations are expected to reach high levels of risk at around 1.5°C of global warming, while a similar proportion reaches high levels of risk beyond 2°C, emphasizing the need for both mitigation and adaptation. The taxonomy also highlights where scientific evidence is still limited, helping identify priorities for future research.
The researchers see a wide range of potential applications for which the taxonomy could provide useful information to stakeholders. Climate service providers could use it to build tailored risk dashboards, adaptation planners could use it to identify suitable response options, and policymakers could better understand how reducing emissions today can lower future climate risks across different sectors. It also offers the scientific community a practical framework for integrating knowledge across the physical science of climate change and the assessment of its impacts and corresponding adaptation options.
“As impacts from climate change become more frequent and climate risks intensify in communities around the world, a shared language and framework will be increasingly critical. This taxonomy can both engage newer and larger audiences and advance a global response that protects people and the planet,” says coauthor Seth Monteith, Director, Advisory and Insights at ClimateWorks Foundation.
The team notes that the taxonomy is a prototype that could lay the groundwork for more coherent and actionable climate impact assessments. They envision it as a starting point and a living tool that invites research and practitioner communities to refine and validate it.
“No single team has the expertise to cover the full breadth of climate impacts on its own. That’s exactly why we have created a structured and transparent way for people to submit feedback. We need voices from across the research and practitioner community to test, challenge, and improve this prototype," says Alexander Nauels, study coauthor and a Senior Research Scholar in the Integrated Climate Impacts Research Group of the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program.
Through this collaborative process, the team hopes to deliver climate information that is increasingly useful for those making decisions in a changing climate.
Explore the Climate Impact Taxonomy at: https://climate-impact-taxonomy.iiasa.ac.at/
Reference
Werning, M., Byers, E., Andrijevic, M., Schleussner, C-F., Monteith, S., Aldrete Lopez, L., Lemaire, V., Matsumae, E., Thomas, A., Nauels, A. (2026). A climate impact taxonomy operationalizing IPCC physical driver and risk concepts. Nature Climate Change DOI: 10.1038/S41558-026-02717-7 (link will be live once the embargo lifts)
About IIASA:
The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts research into the critical issues of global environmental, economic, technological, and social change that we face in the twenty-first century. Our findings provide valuable options to policymakers to shape the future of our changing world. IIASA is independent and funded by prestigious research funding agencies in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. www.iiasa.ac.at
Journal
Nature Climate Change
Article Title
A climate impact taxonomy operationalizing IPCC physical driver and risk concepts
Article Publication Date
19-Aug-2026
Machine learning-assisted thermochromic smart windows for thermal management
Light Publishing Center, Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics And Physics, CAS
image:
Figure 1 | ML-based design process and schematic of the DPP smart window. a, The proposed ML-based approach including candidate materials and spatial arrangements. b, ML-based design with global optimization solutions. c, ML-based design for customized objective and customer-specific spectral demands. d, Schematic of the final goal for directional privacy protection. e, 9 typical commercial glass with statistical Tlum, TNIR, and εLWIR. f, Schematic of the proposed DPP smart window compared with commercial glass.
view moreCredit: Yi Long et al.
The modernization of urban infrastructure and the rapid electrification of transportation networks have brought the severe energy inefficiency of conventional windows into sharp focus. Windows are among the least energy-efficient components, accounting for 50 to 75 percent of the thermal load in electric vehicle cabins and about 45 percent of total energy losses in buildings. In this push for a sustainable environment, dynamic smart windows are increasingly demanded to replace static commercial privacy glasses. However, current commercial glazing cannot adapt to seasonal environmental shifts and suffers from inherent physical trade-offs. Hence, they are far from efficient in many points of view, from all-weather energy conservation to thermal comfort.
In a new paper published in Light: Science & Applications, a team of scientists, led by Professor Yi Long from The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Professor Bin Hu from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, and Professor Shouqin Tian from Wuhan University of Technology, have developed an artificial intelligence-driven framework for the inverse design of function-oriented thermochromic smart windows. Based on a physics-guided neural network, they designed an energy-efficient window optimized for directional privacy protection. Featuring size-controlled vanadium dioxide nanoparticles, this smart window achieves ultrahigh simultaneous modulation of near-infrared transmittance and longwave infrared emissivity. The smart window allows for climate-adaptive all-weather thermal management without compromising the strict dark tint required for commercial privacy protection.
The intelligent smart window is centered around a four-layer Fabry-Perot resonator architecture, empowered by the machine learning algorithm. The photonic structure can be precisely tailored by tuning the geometric parameters of the vanadium dioxide nanoparticles and the underlying polymeric spacer. It can support massive dual-band optical modulation to adapt to various real-world climates. These scientists summarize the operational principle of their design:
“We develop a machine learning-assisted inverse design framework to navigate the complex and nonlinear relationship between optical performance, particle geometry, and multilayer configuration,” the scientists explained. “Our physics-guided neural network allows us to identify that reducing the vanadium dioxide nanoparticle size universally enhances the dual-band modulation, while the spacer thickness can be meticulously calibrated to maximize the optical resonance.”
“The directional privacy protection arises from a low photopic transmittance combined with exterior-interior luminance asymmetry.” they added.
“When applied to electric vehicles, our smart window exhibits robust passive thermal regulation, reducing the maximum indoor air temperature in the summer while preserving heat in the winter. This work establishes a generalizable route for future smart cities, zero-energy building envelopes, and advanced electric vehicles, offering significant energy savings across global mid-latitude regions,” the scientists forecast.
Journal
Light: Science & Applications
Article Title
Machine learning-assisted highly efficient thermal management in function-oriented thermochromic smart windows
Figure 2 | Performance evaluation of the DPP smart window. a, Comparison of privacy-protection performance, ΔTNIR, and ΔεLWIR among the present work, commercial glass, and reported results. b, IR camera image of the low-e reference, high-e reference, and the DPP smart window. c, Apparent temperature measured over 30~100℃. d, Temperature distribution across the entire car body on a typical summer day (left) and a typical winter day (right), obtained from simulations with the DPP smart window (top) and with commercial glass (bottom). The averaged surface temperatures (T) of the used glass are shown in the upper-left corner. e, Ambient temperature and solar irradiance on a typical summer day (top). The mean interior car temperature for the two glazing configurations (DPP smart window vs commercial privacy glass) (bottom). f, Ambient temperature and solar irradiance on a typical winter day (top). The mean interior car temperature for the two glazing configurations (DPP smart window vs commercial privacy glass) (bottom). g, Simulated building energy consumption for commercial privacy glass, low-e privacy glass, and the DPP smart window. h, Annual heating and cooling energy-saving potential of the DPP smart window compared to low-e privacy glass in ten mid-latitude cities.
Credit
Yi Long et al.
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