The dynamics of climate policy narratives in the UK

A new study published in Climate Policy, co-authored by Dr. Daniel Valdenegro of Oxford University’s Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science, exposes the dynamics of competing narratives on climate change between political parties in the U.K. and the influence that climate protests have on them.

The study uses a range of data sources such as parliamentary debates and qualitative interviews with politicians and civil servants between 2017 and 2022 to investigate the existence of trends, patterns and impact in climate policy narratives. While previous research explored the effects of climate movements on policies through the indirect impact of changing public opinion, this study delves into how politicians respond to climate protests.

This study’s mixed methods approach focuses on how different narratives influence climate policy decisions. The researchers then look at the impact of climate protests in creating “windows of opportunity” to shift these political narratives and increase the political salience of climate change. Finally, the study provides a party comparison between Conservative and Labor, showing how internal party dynamics can also affect climate policy progress.

Using supervised machine learning models, the study identified three main competing narratives: normative pro-climate action, denial and delay of climate action, and economic or technical arguments for climate action. In the video below, co-author Dr. Valdenegro explains how a mixed methods approach was used to analyze the evolution of climate change narratives in U.K. parliamentary debates.

The study brought to light that climate protests can affect shifts in policy by increasing the issue’s relevance and changing the frame used to negotiate related policies, successfully establishing a political mandate. For example, the incidence of climate protests between 2018 and 2019 significantly increased the use of normative pro-climate arguments in U.K. parliamentary debates, leading to key climate policies like the net zero by 2050 legislation passed in June 2019.

According to the study results, the Conservative party presents an internal split between pro-climate and delay/denial stance, while Labor predominantly supports pro-climate and occasionally uses delay arguments. As a result of this polarization, policy progress can become afflicted by decision paralysis, which highlights the need for climate movements to address counter-narratives more effectively.

A significant linear trend from the machine learning model showed that when a protest took place, there was a significant increase in all narratives used in parliamentary debates, but particularly in the pro-climate camp. The data shows that major climate protests such as those in 2018 and 2019 increased the pro-climate action in U.K. parliamentary debates, which slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic but were reinvigorated by COP26 in 2021.

As a result, the authors state that climate protests helped establish political mandates for climate action, influencing flagship policies like the net zero by 2050 legislation and Labor’s Green New Deal.

The study shows that the delay/denial narrative also increased as pro-climate arguments arose, often in response to it. Importantly, the authors observed that the denial of scientific evidence for human-induced climate change is increasingly retreating and obstruction in the form of delay is occupying its place. Therefore, climate movements need to address counter-narratives effectively if they want to prevent policy paralysis.

Dr. Valdenegro said, “By using machine learning and qualitative methods in a complementary way, this study provides a mixed methods approach to highlight the influence climate movements have on climate policies and parliamentary debates in the U.K.”