UK worries about climate change are at their highest level since 2010
Worries about climate change have been slowly increasing in the UK for the last few years. This has continued in 2018, with the latest wave of the BEIS (previously DECC) climate and energy poll, out today, showing concern is at its highest level since the series began with 2012.
I’ve combined this with earlier polls that have asked the same question, going back to 2005, making the longest-running comparable series of data that I’m aware of on UK concern about climate change. (See here for links to the earlier polls.)
27% are now very concerned about climate change and 47% somewhat concerned, making a total of 74%. That’s the highest since 2010, if we look at the proportion who are very concerned, or equals the 2012 level if we look at total concern. On either measure it’s still behind the levels in 2005 and 2008.
July 2018 update: see here for why the 2005 poll may not be comparable.
This mirrors the trend of rising concern about climate change that we’ve generally seen in the US and Australia.
My book, The Climate Majority: Apathy and Action in an Age of Nationalism (New Internationalist), is now available.
