LONDON — Since Labour swept into office last year, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband has traveled the country enthusing over the government’s dream of a humming, futuristic net-zero economy. The good news, according to polling released Wednesday, is that his vision still has the backing of the public. The bad news is that support is slipping — and voters aren’t convinced Miliband is the guy to deliver it. For Miliband’s political opponents, this validates their wider attacks on him as an out-of-touch climate warrior, flogging a net-zero dream voters have rejected. At Reform’s party conference Friday, party chair David Bull referenced “mad Ed swivel-eyed Milliband.” Not to be outdone, the Conservatives have vowed to squeeze every molecule of oil and gas from beneath the North Sea, deadly heatwaves be damned. But it also shines a light on a confusing feature of British politics: a misalignment between the stories politicians want to tell about efforts to stop climate change, and stuff the public actually care about. At Reform’s party conference Friday, the party chair David Bull referenced “mad Ed swivel-eyed Milliband.” | Leon Neal/Getty Images The polling, conducted by progressive think tank More in Common and the Climate Outreach NGO, found the number of people who think reaching net-zero emissions will be good for the U.K. vastly outnumber those who think it will have a negative effect — 48 percent versus 16 percent. More people feel that the shift to clean energy has been fair than unfair. In Scotland, more are proud of the offshore wind industry (63 percent) than the oil and gas industry (54 percent). “Those who seek to divide communities with climate disinformation will not win because they do not represent the interests or values of the British people,” Miliband said in a statement shared with the media. Despite this, voters are hesitant about the personal impact of a country rushing to go green. Seventy-four percent of people think the U.K.’s commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 will eventually cost them money personally. The gap between those who think it will be beneficial for the U.K. versus harmful has shrunk by 20 points in only a year. This is frequently interpreted as a sign that a personal desire to help fix the climate is butting up against the hard realities of net zero, which requires changes like fitting millions of heat pumps and EV chargers and overhauling the energy grid. Further polling released by The Times Tuesday backs up the sense voters are growing more divided on climate change. It shows support for net zero collapsing among Reform and Conservative voters, while overall the issue has slipped from voters’ list of top concerns. But analysts from Climate Outreach said part of the problem isn’t the message but the messengers. “Politicians are not well trusted to speak about climate,” the NGO said in an analysis shared with POLITICO. In fact, elected leaders were the least trusted carriers of the climate message — beneath also-lowly ranked protesters and energy company executives. TRUST ISSUES Voter wariness about pro-climate messages isn’t a feature of green politics in particular, said Emma James, a researcher at Climate Outreach, but a symptom of broader public cynicism about government. “They don’t trust that politicians are there for people like them. Some audience segments feel that the system is rigged against them,” she said. It’s not net zero the public aren’t buying, it’s the ability of this government — or any government — to deliver it. Voters believe the NHS remains broken. National projects like high-speed rail lines and nuclear power stations keep being delayed at higher and higher costs. This creates a problem for Miliband. At a time of deep voter skepticism, his Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) is pursuing precisely that kind of major national project — involving upfront costs, disruption and complex trade-offs, with the promise of huge savings to private and public purses down the line. It will, Miliband argues, generate new jobs. Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives went in search of their own set of climate salespeople. | Carl Court/Getty Images “We will win this fight by showing the visible benefits of the clean energy transition,” insisted one Labour official, granted anonymity to discuss the government’s internal deliberations. The story of failure, however, is pervasive and self-reinforcing, said Richard Johnson, a political scientist at Queen Mary University of London. “Policy delivery has to be tied in with a compelling political narrative and the political leadership that can tell that story and interpret what people are seeing in front of their eyes,” he said. “I wonder now if there is such a high level of cynicism … that even if you did tell a compelling narrative around policy delivery, that people would not believe it.” Johnson lays the blame with Miliband’s boss, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, “who has been in a way almost catastrophically unable to put together a compelling narrative for his government. Or, quite frankly, even his own leadership.” Downing Street says it is focused on driving economic growth across the country. This is not isolated to Labour. Under Rishi Sunak, the Conservatives went in search of their own set of climate salespeople — before deciding that there was more political capital in ditching pro-climate policies. Climate Outreach said Miliband could turn this problem into an “opportunity,” as long as he laid off the grand projet and focused on the visible, local benefits of climate policies. And there is some evidence that Labour gets it, seen in the government’s move to chip in for the energy bills of people living in sight of unpopular new electricity pylons. The more conservative or skeptical parts of the British electorate still had deep enthusiasm for messages about protecting the environment, the pollsters said. But most important, the NGO argued, was bringing other voices into the frame. While politicians are viewed very dimly indeed, experts and scientists are seen as credible messengers, the polling shows. So too are those seen to understand what life is like for normal British people. Farmers were among the messengers who cut through most with traditionalists and those described by the pollsters as “patriots.” Jeremy Clarkson, DESNZ needs you.

LONDON — The U.K. government is considering a string of reforms to energy policy, in a bid both to bring down bills and hit flagship green targets.  Details of the multi-billion-pound Warm Homes Plan, designed to help improve energy efficiency at millions of households, will not be made public by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband until this fall.   But the content of government emails seen by POLITICO, as well as conversations with people familiar with planning in Whitehall, show Miliband is pinning his hopes on an overhaul aimed at incentivizing people to take up clean tech.  This includes a new policy, being mulled by Miliband’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, which would reduce energy bills for heat pump owners, as part of the overarching plan to cut costs and upgrade five million homes this parliament with clean tech and better insulation. The move would involve shifting green levies — the policy costs used to pay for other green schemes — off the electricity bills of heat pump owners, according to three industry figures familiar with government thinking.  Other ideas for a beefed-up Warm Homes Plan being discussed in Whitehall include increasing the money available for subsidies to help households install a heat pump, restructuring existing schemes, and more funding for so-called heat zones, through which homes and businesses get their heat via an underground pipe network from one central source. THE POLITICS OF BILLS The government confirmed at June’s Spending Review that it would spend £13.2 billion over the course of this parliament on bulking up homes with energy efficient upgrades and clean technology, including £5 billion in “financial transaction” loans.  Details on spending the cash will be released by October, according to Treasury documents. A greater portion of green levies are currently added to electricity bills compared to gas bills, meaning electric, climate-friendly technologies like heat pumps are more expensive to run.   The impact of removing the levies could be felt “almost instantaneously” on bills, according to one of the industry figures cited above, at a time when Labour is scrambling to find ways to honor its election-time promise to cut energy bills by up to £300 a year.  The thinking is that, by cutting the operational costs, more people will opt for heat pumps, incentivized by lower bills and contributing to efforts to cut damaging emissions at the same time.  Ministers “want lots of different groups of people who have seen lower bills because of government intervention,” said the same industry figure.  Details of the multi-billion-pound Warm Homes Plan, designed to help improve energy efficiency at millions of households, will not be made public by Energy Secretary Ed Miliband until this fall.  | Pool photo by Chris J. Ratcliffe via EPA The government has been under pressure, including from the influential Climate Change Committee (CCC), to make electricity cheaper in order to encourage uptake of technologies like heat pumps.  Heat pump sales in the U.K. are “not yet sufficient” to cut emissions at levels required to hit end-of-decade climate goals, the CCC warned earlier this year. The cost of electricity relative to gas is “still too high for households who switch to heat pumps to see the full benefits of their greater efficiency,” the committee said.  IN THE ZONE But there is a political risk in making the shift, insiders say, which will specifically cut bills for a portion of the population who can afford expensive heat pumps.  DESNZ research released earlier this year found homes dependent on electricity for heating had the highest rate of fuel poverty, at just over 20 percent, but the vast majority of homes still depend on gas.  “It is a significant political risk of the policy, as designed, that it will help a small demographic, and that by choosing that over, say, broader rebalancing [of green levies on all bills] they have chosen risk of that accusation over fiscal risk,” the industry figure said.  Ministers are considering other policies ahead of October to incentivize a shift towards cleaner tech. That includes year-on-year increases to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, a grant program to help with the cost of installing a heat pump, every year up to 2029/30, according to the text of emails sent by DESNZ and seen by POLITICO.  Grants of £7,500 are currently available under the scheme, which has a budget of £295 million between 2025 and 2026. Ministers are also considering “significant funding to deliver heat network schemes” during this parliament, the same email said. DESNZ said last year that heat zones are one option to help “more homes and businesses … access greener, cheaper heat.” The government could also expand existing home insulation schemes, such as its long-running Energy Company Obligation, to fund greater uptake of heat pumps, the industry figure said, although no plans on this have been finalized.  In efforts to address growing energy bills, the government has already expanded the number of people eligible for the Warm Homes Discount scheme, a one-off £150 payment to help people struggling with costs. The U.K. government said it did not “recognize” the account. A DESNZ spokesperson added: “As long as Britain remains exposed to the rollercoaster of global fossil fuel markets, we will be vulnerable to energy price spikes beyond our control. That’s why our clean energy mission is the best route to protect consumers and bring down bills for good.”