The climate debate got a new term this week – “spiral of silence” and it spells more trouble when it comes to driving action from policymakers.

It has been created by scientists at the University of Cambridge and refers to members of Parliament from the UK’s three biggest political parties in the House of Commons significantly overestimating levels of public resistance to major policy proposals for tackling climate change.

Researchers added 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,” added 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.

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.

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.

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.”

Jon Guy, Editor,

Emerging Risks