Whilst countries are struggling to reach a climate agreement in Denmark, the time-old tradition of political musical chairs has left both the Socialist Left (SV) and Liberal (V) Parties and their leaders standing in the woods, according to Dagens Næringsliv’s (DN) latest opinion poll.

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The results show SV’s voter confidence has sunk to the lowest level for 11 years, whilst V hasn’t slipped into such a quagmire for four; an anomaly, considering they are the parties with the highest environmental profile.

“It’s interesting that both SV and V are experiencing this negative development at the same time as (the World Climate Summit) in Copenhagen,” Frank Aarebrot, election expert tells the paper.

Silje Schei Tveitdal, SV’s party secretary, also thinks this is a paradox, suggesting that their climate debate should be more about the possibilities of doing something, rather than one influenced by pessimism and negativity.

Weak

And whilst Aarebrot believes SV’s drop in popularity is partly because their leader, Kristin Halvorsen, hasn’t made much of herself since September’s General Election, Marius Holm, deputy leader of the environmental organisation Bellona, suggests SV in particular suffers from a lack of credibility regarding their environmental policy.

He goes on to say that both parties have a weak environmental profile; something which gives voters problems distinguishing them from the rest of the political landscape.

“We’ve seen that the voters want a tougher environmental policy in other surveys. They’d like more drastic emission cuts, which they’re also willing to pay for.”

Here is how the percentages stand in relation to last month.

PARTY	PERCENTAGE	CHANGE
Rødt (R)	1.3	+0.2
Socialist Left (SV)	5.2	-1.5
Labour (Ap)	34.1	-1.6
Centre Party (Sp)	6.1	+0.6
Christian Democrats (KrF)	5.4	+1.1
Liberals (V)	3.4	-0.8
Conservative (H)	20.9	+1.8
Progress (FrP)	22.7	+0.3
Others	0.6	-0.2

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