KEIR BE CLEAR: Less than a third of voters are clear on what Starmer would do to tackle climate change

Greenpeace has launched a new campaign, ‘Keir be Clear’, inviting Labour to flesh out its vision for climate and nature ahead of the party’s manifesto launch and the first TV leaders debate next week.

This comes as a major new nationwide Survation poll, commissioned by Greenpeace, shows that currently, less than a third of voters (30%) say they are clear on what Keir Starmer would do as Prime Minister to tackle climate change, with the majority (51%) saying they are not clear – showing the opportunity for Starmer to bring these voters on board. 

The polling found that twice the number of people (50%) think Keir Starmer should ramp up action on climate and nature if he becomes Prime Minister compared to those who said he shouldn’t (25%). It also found that 71% of respondents who voted Labour in 2019 think Starmer should ramp up action on climate and nature if he becomes Prime Minister, as do 38% of 2019 Conservative voters. The polling found that three times more respondents (43%) said an ambitious plan to tackle the climate and nature crisis in the Labour manifesto would make them more likely to vote Labour than the only 14% that said it would make them less likely. 

The Labour leadership has made the creation of Great British Energy, a publicly-owned clean power company, one of its first steps for change, as well as committing to clean power by 2030 and overhauling our outdated grid to bring renewable energy online. The Party has also vowed to reinstate a 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel cars and vans, to end new licences for oil and gas, and to require financial institutions and FTSE 100 companies to adopt credible 1.5C aligned transition plans. All of these would support world-leading climate action, if the plans are upheld. 

But when it comes to confirming the levels of climate investment needed to unlock new green jobs, lower bills, and support nature protection, Labour’s climate and nature plan still needs to be clarified. Earlier this year, Starmer rowed back on the party’s landmark climate commitment of £28bn per year of green investment, despite climate action consistently showing up as a top priority for voters. 

With Labour leading in the polls, Greenpeace is now calling on Starmer to offer voters a more positive vision of their climate leadership, built on the pledges they’ve already made, and to strengthen their commitments on climate and nature more widely. The campaign group has laid down six key tests of climate and nature leadership that any political party would have to meet if they’re serious about meeting these challenges. The tests cover six policy areas, the 6 Ws of climate leadership: Warm Homes, Wind Power, Wheels, Wildlife, Workers and World. 

Greenpeace’s manifesto demands fall into three key areas:

1. WARM HOMES, WIND POWER and WHEELS: Fix our draughty homes, unlock affordable renewables and make public transport cheaper and better for everyone
2. WORKERS and WORLD: Boost the economy, create thousands of jobs and support communities around the world dealing with climate impacts by channelling investment into green industries and taxing polluting companies and the super-rich more
3. WILDLIFE AND WORLD: Protect nature at home and abroad from sewage and plastic pollution, destructive fishing and industrial agriculture

Georgia Whitaker, Greenpeace UK climate campaigner, said:

“Labour has a unique opportunity to put ambitious climate and nature solutions at the heart of a positive and hopeful vision for this country’s future. We can cut bills by investing properly to fix our cold homes, create jobs by boosting public transport, support climate-hit communities around the world through taxing fossil fuel giants more, and clean up our oceans through supporting a global target to cut plastic production. And Starmer can reclaim Britain’s global leadership on climate and nature in the process.

“We desperately need a new government that puts the needs of ordinary people, climate and nature before the profits of a rich polluting elite. People up and down the country have had enough, they’re fed up with being ignored, and they’re calling for politicians who have a proper plan to repair the climate, restore nature and revive the economy. Keir Starmer should seize the chance to be clear on climate at this election to win over to the electorate.” 

Notes to Editors

1. Population Sampled: Online interviews of residents of the UK aged 18+. Sample Size: 2,040. Data Weighting: Data were weighted to the profile of all adults in the UK aged 18+. Data were weighted by age, sex, region, highest level of qualification, annual equivalised household income, 2019 General Election Vote, and 2016 EU Referendum Vote. Targets for the weighted data were derived from Census Data and the results of the 2019 UK General Election and the 2016 EU Referendum.

2. Greenpeace’s manifesto demands

WARM HOMES, WIND POWER and WHEELS: Fix our draughty homes, unlock affordable renewables and make public transport cheaper and better for everyone

Energy bills are still painfully high – almost double what they were before the crisis – and we have the draughtiest homes in western Europe. The government is putting up unfair barriers to renewables, our cheapest energy source. And our trains are so expensive that to get to some UK destinations flying can be cheaper. Enough’s enough – we need to stop holding back the solutions that can tackle the climate crisis, lower bills, clean up air pollution and create jobs. We need to see a nationwide programme to help people insulate their homes and get off volatile gas. We need a government that champions safe, clean and affordable renewable energy, and makes public transport cheaper and better for everyone. And we need a ban on new fossil fuel drilling and private jets. Wildfires, floods and droughts have got scary enough – do we really want to make them worse? 

• Invest at least £6bn of public funds annually over 10 years to deliver a national home retrofit programme (providing a fair split for devolved nations); introduce regulations to increase the energy efficiency of private rented-sector homes and social housing to at least Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) C rating by 2028 and fuel poor homes by 2030, and to at least EPC B for non-residential buildings by 2030; and invest a further £2.5bn per year to install at least 900,000 heat pumps a year by 2028 – to help kick-start a revolution in green heating, cut our bills and reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
• Triple renewable energy by 2030 through ensuring support for offshore wind keeps pace with inflation, removing unfair planning barriers for onshore wind, boosting solar on rooftops, and fast-tracking electricity grid upgrades in harmony with nature, ensuring local communities benefit. 
• Follow the science by ending new oil and gas production and stop fuelling the climate emergency. 
• Improve public transport through investing £8 billion per year in electric trains & buses and walking and cycling infrastructure, and providing at least £2.7 billion per year to reduce fares – making trains significantly cheaper than equivalent journeys in petrol and diesel cars, permanently capping bus fares across the country, and providing free bus travel for everyone under 25.
• Ban private jets, short haul flights and new runways, and introduce a frequent flyer levy.

WORKERS and WORLD: Boost the economy, create thousands of jobs and support communities around the world dealing with climate impacts by channelling investment into green industries and taxing polluting companies and the super-rich more

The UK economy is stuck in a rut and the income gap between the richest and poorest keeps widening. A major government programme to support clean industries and force polluting businesses and banks to align with climate goals could give our economy a shot in the arm and help the UK keep pace with the green tech race globally, but most especially in the US, EU and China. But we need a government that’s willing to invest and set a clear direction of travel that business leaders and investors can trust. And where’s the money going to come from? As well as government borrowing to fund vital green infrastructure, we should increase taxes for those who have profited the most from landing us in this mess – the fossil fuel giants making billions from this crisis. And in our society, someone in the top 1% of earners will on average be responsible for 26 times more carbon emissions than someone in the bottom 10%, and they have the broadest shoulders. So we should tax the wealth and assets of the super-rich more to make sure they contribute to a fairer, safer and healthier future for everyone.

• Significantly increase UK taxes on oil and gas companies, such as a climate damages tax, and redirect fossil fuel production subsidies to support workers and communities with the climate transition and climate impacts at home and abroad. 
• Commit to raising wealth and property taxes on the super-rich, for example the richest 1% of Britons with a total wealth of £2.8 trillion, to tackle inequality and ensure the green transition is fair for everyone, and allow borrowing on the scale needed for growth-generating green infrastructure investment from the first year of a new government.
• Unlock UK electric vehicle manufacturing through recommitting to phasing out new petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2030 and boosting investment in charging infrastructure.
• Unleash billions of private sector finance for a 21st century green industrial revolution, through requiring polluting companies and the financial sector to align their business models and investment practices with the 1.5 degree goal in the Paris Agreement and the UN Global Biodiversity Framework.
• The UK’s existing commitment to climate finance of £11.6bn over the five year period of 2021/22 to 2025/26 should be maintained and built upon, ensuring all funds are provided from genuinely new and additional sources and not derived from the international aid or development budgets.

WILDLIFE AND WORLD: Protect nature at home and abroad from sewage and plastic pollution, destructive fishing and industrial agriculture

Nature is taking a battering. Wildlife is disappearing. Our rivers are chock-full of sewage and chemicals. Our so-called marine protected areas are under attack from destructive fishing. And plastic pollution is everywhere. We need a government that stands up to the industries that are destroying nature for profit, both at home and on the global stage. The priority has to be to support communities to transition to more sustainable farming and fishing methods, protect the precious few havens we have left and give nature space to bounce back. 

• Ratify the UN Global Ocean Treaty by the end of 2024 and advocate for the establishment of a network of ocean sanctuaries to fully or highly protect at least 30% of global oceans by 2030; support a ban or moratorium on deep sea mining; and immediately ban all industrial fishing in Marine Protected Areas. 
• Support an ambitious UN Global Plastic Treaty with legally binding global targets to phase out virgin plastic production and end single-use plastic – backed up by policies and targets to deliver these goals at home.
• Set legal targets for eliminating sewage spills in ecologically sensitive areas and designated bathing waters by 2030, ban water company shareholder dividends and bonus payments, and significantly invest in upgrading sewage treatment infrastructure while taking a government share in water companies and protecting consumers from excessive bill increases.
• Commit to the planning and other policy changes required to meet and exceed the Environment Act target on species abundance, in order to halt and begin to reverse the decline of wild species and fully or highly protect at least 30% of UK land and oceans by 2030.
• Support a Scottish-style Right to Roam across the whole of the UK, extending public access to woodlands, rivers and green rural spaces, and invest at least £2bn over the next Parliament to create new jobs and training in habitat restoration.
• Provide at least £6bn per year to incentivise farmers to transition to a more local, healthy, agroecological, plant-based food system, with no delay to the roll-out of new farm payment systems delivering on the principle of public money for public goods. 

3. In September Greenpeace-commissioned independent polling showed high levels of public support, including in Blue Wall and key marginal constituencies, for many of the specific policies needed to deliver a robust plan on climate. You can read the full research here.