Modelling the fall and rise in the importance of the environment to the British public: 2006–2019
| Author | Martha Kirby |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221080651 |
| Published date | 01 May 2023 |
| Date | 01 May 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13691481221080651
The British Journal of Politics and
International Relations
2023, Vol. 25(2) 199 –218
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13691481221080651
journals.sagepub.com/home/bpi
Modelling the fall and rise in the
importance of the environment
to the British public: 2006–2019
Martha Kirby
Abstract
Attention given to the environment by the British public has fluctuated over recent decades.
Having peaked in 2007 it declined, yet has recently risen dramatically. This raises questions about
why public attention to the issue changes over time and to what extent this is driven by other
actors and exogenous forces. This article examines these processes at the monthly level through
a system of simultaneous equations. Methodologically, protest is an important confounding factor
when analysing the relationship between media and public salience. Substantively, protest itself
can be predicted by prior public attention, but in turn, can be successful in increasing broader
environmental salience.
Keywords
agenda-setting, climate change, environment, protest, public opinion
Introduction
If public attention to the environment were driven by rationality, it might be expected to
shift in line with the increasing urgency of the threat from climate change, especially
given that trust in scientists is high and has remained largely stable over time (Wellcome
Trust, 2018). However, despite increasing cognition of climate change’s seriousness, the
proportion of the public ranking the environment as a political priority has been volatile
in recent decades; exhibiting a non-linear trend with frequent fluctuations. This article
considers the mediating factors of these dramatic fluctuations by looking at monthly
changes in public salience, which is defined as the attention given to an issue by the pub-
lic, relative to other political issues.
Central to agenda-setting theory is the idea that attention given to issues by public,
media and political actors are contingent on one another. In this way, shifts in public
attention may be a reflection of respective media or political attention. However, as inves-
tigations into these dynamics are often at the annual level and have focused on different
Nuffield College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Corresponding author:
Martha Kirby, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, New Road, Oxford OX1 1NF, UK.
Email: martha.radford-kirby@nuffield.ox.ac.uk
1080651BPI0010.1177/13691481221080651The British Journal of Politics and International RelationsKirby
research-article2022
Original Article
200 The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 25(2)
countries, sub-annual dynamics between these actors in Britain remain unclear. Moreover,
with much existing literature having been conducted in previous decades, it has yet to
capture recent shifts in attention.
In 2019, Britain witnessed a wave of environmentalism, with unprecedented levels of
public attention co-occurring with global environmental movements including Extinction
Rebellion and Greta Thunberg’s School Strikes for Climate. In light of their co-occur-
rence, rising public attention might partially be attributed to the success of recent protests.
Previous literature says little on the power of environmental protest to change public
opinion, so a key question for this research is what difference these recent movements
made. They may have been vital to increasing public salience, but they may have alterna-
tively been carried by a wave of public salience rather than created one.
This article highlights the striking fall and rise in the importance of the environment to
the British public between 2006 and 2019, and empirically examines what may have
caused it. In doing so, it contributes novel insight into public opinion dynamics in the
British context, and the role of environmental protest. From a theoretical perspective, it
also identifies how mechanisms of influence, which are often studied separately, may
interact when modelled in unison. While it is commonly discussed that protest could be of
importance, with environmental protest it is hard, if not impossible, to point to other stud-
ies to confirm this. This article presents the first systematic study to show significant links
between environmental protest and public salience. Considering such, protest necessitates
inclusion as an endogenous force, which can both shape, and be shaped by, other actors.
Although this article pays particular attention to climate change as a highly salient envi-
ronmental issue, this is tested using a broader measure of environmental public salience. This
is due to a lack of consistent data at the monthly level but, nonetheless, Eurobarometer sur-
veys show the British public have consistently ranked climate change as their top environ-
mental concern for the period of study, and there is also high correlation between concern for
climate change and the environment more generally. In order to analyse these monthly
0
5
10
15
20
25
PercentageReportingEnvironmentas
Most/SecondMostImportantIssue
2006 2008 20102012 2014201620182020
Year
Nobel
Peace
Prize
N
Stern
Review
Summer
floods
Climate Change
Act
Financial Crisis
COP15 &
Climategate
Paris Agreement
XR &
School
Strikes
Brexit Referendum
S
IPCC
1.5ºC
Report
Record
Rainfall
&Storms
Heatwave
&CCC
Report
Figure 1. Importance of the environment to the British public.
To continue reading
Request your trial