Fewer than one in three voters believe Australia is on track to meet the Albanese government’s target of net zero emissions by 2050, according to the Guardian Essential poll.
The latest poll of 1,149 voters also found that half of Australians support nuclear energy. Although renewables remain popular, their local impact and transmission infrastructure are a concern.
The findings help explain Peter Dutton’s political strategy to talk up the potential of nuclear power and criticise the transition to renewable energy as unfeasible or harmful to local communities.
The opposition leader and the Coalition are yet to provide any detail about how they would support the nuclear industry, beyond removing Australia’s prohibition on nuclear power and experts agree the power source would take decades to get up and running.
The Guardian Essential poll, released on Tuesday, found 55% of respondents agree that human pollution and activity were the “main reasons for global warming”, compared with just 22% who disagreed.
The poll found 38% of voters say Australia is not doing enough to combat climate change, the lowest proportion in seven years coming off highs of 62% who said the same in January 2020 at the height of black summer bushfires.
Some 36% said Australia is doing enough to combat climate change, while 17% said it is doing too much. A further 9% said they didn’t know.
Respondents were sceptical about reaching net zero by 2050: 7% said this was “very likely” and 24% agreed it was “quite likely” – a combined total of only 31%. That compared with 38% who said it was “not that likely” and 19% who responded that it was “not likely at all”. A further 11% were unsure.
Majorities said Australia was not doing enough to preserve endangered species (53%), oceans and rivers (52%), and native forests (52%). They were more pleased with the pace of the transition to renewables, with 45% saying Australia is doing enough and 40% calling for more action.
Support for most renewable infrastructure was high, with majorities backing solar farms (69%), offshore wind (60%), onshore wind (59%) and community batteries (56%). But overground transmission was supported by just 35% of respondents.
Presented with a series of propositions about the transition, 70% said development of renewables should not “come at the expense of local communities”.
Two-thirds (66%) said Australia needs to make the most of its resources and weather conditions to address climate change. Three-fifths (60%) said Australia needs to rapidly develop renewables because they are cheaper and will create new jobs.
Just over a quarter (26%) said Australia does not need to transition to renewables.
Asked about Australia building nuclear power plants to generate electricity, 23% are strongly in favour, with a further 27% somewhat in favour.
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The same proportion (50%) backed nuclear in September 2021, although the proportion of those strongly in favour has increased by three points since then. One in three voters (33%) oppose nuclear power today.
Renewables appear to have a bad rap when it comes to price, with 38% of respondents ranking them the “most expensive” of three options, followed by 34% who ranked nuclear the most expensive and 28% who said fossil fuels.
The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, has repeatedly rebuffed Dutton’s nuclear push, citing cost – including an estimate from the energy department that replacing fossil fuels with nuclear could cost $387bn.
Earlier in October Bowen accused the Coalition of using “the rightwing playbook of 2023 – populism, polarisation and post-truth politics” in making false claims about the potential for nuclear power in Australia.
Asked what the most important drivers of power prices were, respondents blamed: excessive profits by energy companies (28%), efforts to fight climate change including the shift to renewable energy (19%), the ageing electricity network (16%), international circumstances such as the war in Ukraine (13%) and restrictions on oil and gas (11%). A further 13% were unsure.
The Essential poll found 50% of voters had not that much, hardly any or no trust in government to lead the energy transition, compared with 42% who said they had a lot or a fair amount.
A separate Australian National University poll, also released on Tuesday, found 77.4% of Australians are satisfied or very satisfied with democracy, compared with 81% in 2008.
The poll, released ahead of the ANU’s Crawford leadership forum, recorded a big decrease in Australians being “very satisfied” with democracy, down from 23.4% 15 years ago to 14.2% today.