We use cookies where necessary to allow us to understand how people interact with our website and content, so that we can continue to improve our service.
We only ever receive anonymous information, and cannot track you across other websites.
View our privacy policy
In a new paper (open-access link) published in the journal Language and Ecology, Clare Cunningham and her colleagues at York St John University analysed the prevalence and use of climate change words and phrases by politicians and activists.
The analysis revealed major differences. Activists use emotive language and talk about ecology, guilt, and morality. Politicians use much more technocratic language and focus on finance, trade-offs, technologies and the economy, reflecting a longstanding positioning of environmental issues among political elites as emerging from a cost-benefit analysis perspective.
Perhaps most strikingly, ‘people’ barely feature in politicians’ discourse on climate – showing up only as ‘bill payers’.
The analysis is important to help understand why campaigns aimed at political or other ‘elite’ groups can sometimes fail to land with public audiences, and vice-versa. In related research, IPPR tested a range of climate change narratives and found that (despite their common usage by climate campaigners) language around ‘green jobs’ was not as compelling for the public as language around protecting the environment for future generations, or the need to reduce the risks from climate impacts.
Climate Barometer tracker polling backs this up: the public is not very persuaded by arguments that climate policies will deliver lots of new jobs. But this is more likely to reflect a widespread lack of trust in the ability of government to deliver on its promises, than a distaste for green jobs.
Following months of sweltering heatwaves, record-breaking wildfires and five regions in drought, this week it was provisionally confirmed that 2025 was the UK’s hottest summer on record.
While this new record was made ‘70 times’ more likely by climate change, the overwhelming sentiment is that the country is not prepared for more summers like this. The UK’s official climate advisors, practitioners who work on the frontline of the heatwave response, and the British public all agree that the UK isn’t ready for more extreme weather,worsening heat, and compounding risks like water scarcity and wildfires.
At the same time, there are important perception gaps to address. Despite the alarming statistics about heat-related deaths in the UK, many people were looking forward to the first heatwaves this summer. Lots think that heatwaves will only become a problem for the UK in the future. And many believe that hot weather poses more of a risk to other people, not themselves.
In this context there are important conversations now happening about how to grapple with the growing climate risks in the UK, including the sudden lurch towards air conditioning (despite its potential to make heat risks worse).
For more on the key issues surrounding heat communication, check out our recent opinion piece in Climate Home News.
A climate of silence in the UK?
New analysis from Climate Barometer reveals more than half of Britons say they ‘rarely’ or ‘never’ share their opinions on climate change in everyday conversations.