Vote Compass data has revealed more than half of New Zealanders think the country should do more when it comes to climate change, but the proportion wanting more to be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has dropped.
The online tool asked voters for their views on how the government should act on climate change and environmental regulation.
Climate change is affecting every region of the world, with consequences for people, species, and the environment, as well as the economy, scientists say.
Vote Compass results show 55% of voters think the country should do somewhat more or much more to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 16% of people thinking the country should do somewhat less or much less to reduce its emissions. Meanwhile, 27% of voters think the country should do ‘about the same as now’ and 3% didn’t know.
That's a drop from the last two elections - it compares to 64% support for more action on emissions in 2020’s Vote Compass survey and 65% support for more action in 2017.
Belinda Storey researches the impact of extreme weather events on property, infrastructure, and insurance and is managing director of Climate Sigma.
She was surprised people aged 18-29 didn’t stand out as significantly more in support of the country doing more to reduce emissions than other age groups. Young people were still the leading age group in support of more action at 29%, followed by voters aged 65+ at 24%.
“Climate change is often framed as an issue of the next generation or our grandchildren’s. The work that I do demonstrates that those changes are happening already.
“I would expect people who are under 30 to be much more concerned about the rate of change of reducing our emissions.”
Voters in Māori electorates were more likely to think the country should do much more to reduce emissions, at 41%, compared to 23% of voters on the general roll.
Tui Warmenhoven, a Ruatōria-based extreme weather researcher, said most Māori are more climate aware and climate active as tangata whenua.
“We see ourselves as one and the same with the environment, the custodianship is very strong within us to the taiao (environment) – land, ocean, rangi and papa (sky father and earth mother)."
The highest support for the country doing much more to reduce its emissions came from people who earn $20,000 or below at 28%, compared to people who earn more than $100,000 at 20%, the Vote Compass data showed.
People with low personal incomes were also most likely to somewhat or strongly agree that environmental regulations should be stricter, even if it means consumers pay higher prices.
“Some of the humble, needy in our society actually care more about our environment and are more future focused. I found that profound,” Warmenhoven said.
Environmental regulations
The data also showed people with a graduate degree were significantly more likely to strongly agree that environmental regulations should be stricter.
Overall, 41% of voters somewhat or strongly agreed with the statement compared to 36% of people somewhat or strongly disagreeing. Just over a fifth of people were neutral on the issue.
“Generally, consumers are much more committed to environmental or sustainable consumption, but they do want government leadership and they want businesses to lead the way, so that also comes through pretty strongly,” University of Otago marketing researcher Associate Professor Leah Watkins said.
She said there’s a growing awareness of climate change among Kiwis, with extreme weather events like Cyclone Gabrielle showing the impact.
“The connection between people understanding that actually consumption is a key aspect of climate change, it’s one of the most important things. Simply, we’ve got to change our levels of consumption,” she said.
Watkins said research she’s completed shows price is the biggest barrier to choosing sustainable products.
“It’s not that the younger people don’t have the intention, it’s that they don’t have the means to do that whereas the older segments are actually at a stage of life where they can enact that commitment.”
She said people view responsibility to act on climate change differently based on where they sit on the political spectrum.
“People on the left wing are more committed to things like equality and social justice and so for them, their environmental concerns are key, and it’s not to say that people on the right don’t also care, but it’s just a different kind of moral foundation.
“People on the right do have a sense of duty and loyalty to their communities so if it’s framed as this is your obligation then they are motivated to do that, whereas people on the left are more motivated by the big picture, concern for the planet, concern for equality.”
Vote Compass also asked people if the government should prioritise public transport over building new roads.
Nearly half of voters somewhat or strongly agreed, at 48%, while 35% somewhat or strongly disagreed and 17% were neutral on the issue.
Climate Sigma’s Storey was surprised by how some people intending to vote for National responded, with the party campaigning on building 13 new roads around the country.
“Even in the National party there was a significant minority of National voters that felt that public transport should be prioritised over new roads.”
When asked if the government should put more emphasis on adapting to climate change rather than trying to prevent it, just over a third of voters somewhat agreed. When combined with those that strongly agreed, support jumped to around half of voters compared to 29% of people strongly or somewhat disagreeing that adaptation should be the focus.
“There is a shift in the political debate that maybe we should adapt. Some of the work I do demonstrates just how significant a challenge that would be, how costly it would be to adapt,” Storey said.
“People are still underestimating what that world would look like and have very little understanding of how expensive it would be to adapt and have almost no understanding of what things you just can’t adapt to. There’s some hard limits that you wouldn’t be able to adapt to.”
Climate researcher Warmenhoven said time is not on our side when it comes to climate change so it’s important that with the election, “really good” decisions are made, by councils but also by iwi, land block owners and industries.
“It’s more important that we stem the tide in terms of our contribution to climate change.”
Storey said: “We’ve only got three elections until 2030. The overall population doesn’t appreciate how fast we need to be moving.”
All the political parties vying for votes have different climate change policies.
The current Government’s approach is to reduce emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change.
ACT’s policies are most at odds with that and include repealing the Zero Carbon Act, the country’s key legislation for reducing emissions and contributing to international efforts.
Vote Compass
Developed by a team of social and statistical scientists from Vox Pop Labs, Vote Compass is a civic engagement application offered in New Zealand exclusively by 1 News/TVNZ. The findings are based on 136,330 respondents who participated in Vote Compass from September 10 to September 28, 2023.
Unlike online opinion polls, respondents to Vote Compass are not pre-selected. Similar to opinion polls, however, the data are a non-random sample from the population and have been weighted in order to approximate a representative sample. The Vote Compass sample data have been weighted by gender, age, education, income, region, Māori ancestry, and partisanship to ensure the overall composition reflects that of the actual population of New Zealand according to census data and other population estimates.
SHARE ME