Comment: Over the past 20 years, Kiwis’ belief in climate change has strengthened and preferences for government action have increased along with it. But there are now signs that support for climate policies may be weakening.
My analysis of data on climate attitudes, taken from the 2020 and 2023 New Zealand Election Study—which surveys the public after each election—shows the gap between left and right is widening and opinion is becoming more polarised.
Support for stronger climate policy
When it came to power in 2017, Jacinda Ardern’s Labour-led government made climate change central to its policy platform. During its first term, the government passed the Zero Carbon Act and ended the provision of offshore oil and gas exploration permits.
Against this backdrop, the 2020 election study showed more than 60 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “To act against climate change, stronger government policies are needed to reduce carbon emissions”.
But three years later, after the failure of the He Waka Eke Noa programme—a government-farming sector partnership to price agricultural emissions—and a backlash against climate policies by the rural protest group Groundswell, support had waned.
By 2023, just 50.4 percent wanted stronger climate policies. The proportion strongly disagreeing that these policies were needed doubled, from 5 percent in 2020 to 10 percent in 2023.
An overall drop of more than 10 points is notable. But it conceals a much sharper shift that becomes visible when we break down the numbers by left–right position.
The left-right divide on climate policy
Between 2020 and 2023, there was a big shift in climate opinion among people who considered themselves right-leaning. In 2020, a majority of those on the right supported stronger climate action. By 2023, this had dropped to below 30 percent.
Support for climate policies declined among centrist and left-leaning voters as well, but by much smaller margins. Overall, the gap between left and right in support for climate action widened substantially.
A gap in policy support—or beliefs in the science itself?
One reason support for stronger policy might decline is that people feel the government is already doing enough. The Labour-led government enacted several climate policies over its two terms, which could partly explain the drop in policy support in 2023.
However, we might expect people’s views on the science of climate change to be more stable than their level of policy support.
In 2020 and 2023, the election study asked people whether they thought climate change was happening, and if so, whether it was due mostly to human or natural causes. As we can see in the figure below, there was a small difference in responses between the two surveys, with fewer people in 2023 believing climate change was mostly attributable to human causes than in 2020.
But when we split responses by left–right position, we again find evidence of polarisation. Right-leaning respondents who attributed climate change mostly to human causes dropped by almost 10 points. The gap between left and right in 2023 stood at 46 points (93 percent vs 47 percent), up from 31 points in 2020 (87 percent vs 56 percent).
The picture of climate opinion in Aotearoa is of a gap between left and right that is not only wide, but widening.
Temporary blip or trend reversal?
My analysis is limited to the election study results for 2020 and 2023. This is because the same climate questions were not asked in earlier surveys. It’s entirely possible that 2023 was a low point for climate concern and we might see a turnaround.
However, there are reasons to believe we may be seeing the beginning of a trend reversal of climate concern among the public.
World and national events—including the Iran war, the fuel crisis, and growing economic anxiety—can leave less space for climate concerns. Climate change, which can feel less immediate than the cost of living, might just drop down our priority lists.
Climate change has also become entangled in the culture wars across the Western world, as have issues such as immigration, LGBTQI+ rights, and gender equality. These cultural issues have been on the front line of politics and are a major contributor to political polarisation.
There are similar patterns emerging in climate views in many countries, such as Germany, where the gap in climate opinion is widening along ideological lines and is linked to support for the radical right party AfD.
The widening left–right gap in climate opinion we’re seeing in Aotearoa therefore seems to be part of a global trend. We may well have passed the high-water mark of public support for climate action in 2020—but we’ll have to wait for the results of the 2026 election study to confirm whether this is the case.
Unfortunately, if we are witnessing a long-term decline in support for climate action, and a widening gap between left and right, it is only going to get harder to push effective climate policies across the line.
This article was originally published on Newsroom.
Sam Crawley is a teaching and postdoctoral fellow in the Political Science and International Relations Programme at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington. He also writes a blog on New Zealand and climate politics called Three Long Years.