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
The Climate Change Committee published its latest stock take of climate preparedness, painting a stark picture of floods, heat risks and possible water shortages in the UK – while emphasising how much can still be done to support, protect and prepare communities.
‘A Well-Adapted UK’ highlights that 92% of the country’s homes are likely to ‘overheat’ by the middle of the century – while peak river floods could be 45% higher, and water shortfalls could exceed five billion litres per day. Inaction could cost anywhere between £60-£260 billion per year.
A citizens’ panel, published alongside this report, found that people people want to see adaptation happening now and for it to be done ‘properly’, with long-lasting preventative solutions that limit harm to no more than what is already being experienced.
The stocktake points towards a range of key policy measures needed to improve UK resilience to rising climate impacts, including:
New data from Public First shows that the public believe that climate risks – are becoming more frequent and severe. Nine in ten (87%) expecting the UK to be impacted again in the next five years.
The public feel the UK is least prepared for flooding (70% said not prepared), closely followed by heatwaves (68%). Dry spells and drought (66%), wind storms (66%), and cold snaps (57%) were also seen as areas of unpreparedness.
Most believe that better planning could reduce the severity of weather impacts, but many are not sure what that looks like in practice. When asked directly, a majority (60%) say it is ‘possible’ to reduce the effect of climate impacts, but they are uncertain of how.
Commentary & Analysis
18th May 2026
New analysis of national survey data shows how experience of heatwaves and extreme heat varies by region across the UK. People in the East of England were the most likely to report direct personal experience of heat, with almost two thirds saying they had felt this (60%). London, the South West and South East were the next most likely to report heat experience – with more than half in each of these regions saying they have been directly affected. Respondents in Northern Ireland were the least likely to say they had experienced the heat (26%), while those in the North of England, Scotland and Wales were also less likely to report personal experience of heatwaves. This data was collected in March-April 2026 by Climate Barometer and Flooded People.
Commentary & Analysis
16th April 2026
The paper illustrates that effective heat adaptation requires multifaceted action that goes beyond public warnings – including the ways overheating risk needs to be improved in planning, building design, regulation and delivery.
UK building regulations can support adaptation to increasing overheating risk – however, there are several key issues associated with ‘Part O’ of the regulations in particular – including:
A new study has examined how people in England receive, understand and respond to Heat-Health Alerts – showing that there are clear perceptual and behavioural gaps along the pathway from ‘alert’ to ‘action’.
The researchers carried out a nationally representative online survey in August 2025, finding that not all UK heat experiences are equal, and that heat health alerts do not straightforwardly lead to behavioural changes:
Looking deeper into how people’s beliefs influenced responses, the researchers found that protective behaviour was associated with a sense of the heatwave severity, the possible benefits of acting, perceived barriers in the way, and people’s confidence in carrying out actions (self-efficacy). Inaction was associated with low perceived personal risk, uncertainty about what actions to take, and difficulties understanding or responding to warnings.
This work builds on other recent study that shows a range of ‘perception gaps‘ exist in the context of UK extreme heat.
Commentary & Analysis
26th March 2026
Polling by IPPR and Persuasion UK has highlighted high levels of net support for heat and flood adaptation policies in the UK. The policies receiving the highest net support were:
The poll also found that 81% of people feel the UK is unprepared for the worst impacts of climate change, although 59% of people think it’s not yet too late to avoid the worst impacts.
When it comes to climate adaptation vs. reducing emissions, just 5% of people say they would prioritise adaptation alone.
This builds on previous polling by Climate Barometer showing that the majority of people feel the UK is not well prepared for climate impacts, and most feel climate adaptation is equally important alongside the shift to clean energy.
New data from the winter 2025 edition of the DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker finds that 65% of the British public feel that it is very or fairly important for the UK to be a global leader in tackling climate change but only 39% slightly or strongly agree that this is currently the case.
Looking across subgroups, those aged 16-25 are less likely to see the UK as a global climate leader (30%) than those aged 45 or older, of whom 39-45% think so. Older age groups are also less likely to think that it is important for the UK to be a global leader on tackling climate change, with 33% of those aged 65+ saying this is not important, compared to only 16% of those aged 16-25.
These findings echo results from our most recent Climate Barometer tracker that found that a plurality of the British public (43%) want the UK to be one of the most ambitious countries in the world when it comes to tackling climate change, compared to 31% who think the UK should not take steps to address climate change until other bigger countries agree to do the same.
Commentary & Analysis
11th March 2026
The government’s newly published Local Power Plan points the country in a direction that the British public support: clean energy that’s transparent, affordable, and delivers real benefits to communities and their local environments.
Our latest Climate Barometer tracker shows that people across the UK are in agreement on the top priorities for new infrastructure in their area. These are: the project’s impact on the local environment, what it means for energy bills, and whether it benefits the local community.
Though their order varies slightly, these three priorities are consistently the highest for all groups across age, gender, region, social grade, housing tenure, political affiliation, education level, ethnicity, and whether they live in urban or rural areas.
People’s views on climate change and net zero were fairly low on the list, highlighting (at least when it comes to specific clean energy projects) that local impacts and practical considerations loom larger for the public than the salience of climate change as a wider issue.
This doesn’t mean joining the dots with the risks of climate change and the benefits net zero can bring isn’t important – it’s crucial. But getting the delivery of policies like the Local Power Plan right is a key route to rebuilding climate salience and shoring up support for the wider net zero programme.
The government’s newly published Local Power Plan points the country in a direction that the British public support: clean energy that’s transparent, affordable, and delivers real benefits to communities and their local environments.
When we asked about the three most important factors for involving local communities on infrastructure proposals, both the public and MPs were most likely to select “clear, plain language information about the project and its impacts” and “being asked for views early, before decisions are made”. These were followed by “a clear explanation of how views influenced the final decision” for MPs and “independent or trusted organisations running the process” for the public.
When we asked which 3 factors people felt were most important in terms of influencing their support or opposition for local infrastructure projects, they picked: the project’s impact on the local environment, on energy bills and on the local community as the top considerations.
These three priorities are consistently the highest for all groups across age, gender, region, social grade, housing tenure, political support, education level, ethnicity, and whether they live in urban or rural areas; a rare point of alignment between these different subgroups of the public.
Strikingly, what made much less of a difference were people’s views about climate change and net zero.
This doesn’t mean that belief in (or concern about) climate change isn’t a critical foundation on which to build engagement around clean energy in general (this is the core idea behind linking the ‘how and the why’ on net zero, as we argued in our recent message testing work with Public First).
But when it comes to specific clean energy projects, the local impacts and financial considerations loom larger: as the transition becomes ever more place-based, this trend is only likely to accelerate.
Like support for the 2050 net zero target, support for renewables comfortably outpaces opposition. And people are much more likely to consider renewables as the route to building energy security than fossil fuels.
But there is a creeping growth in support for oil and gas – wrapped up in the very same conversation about energy security. Since the 2024 election, support among MPs for expanding drilling for oil and gas has inched up, driven by Conservative MPs pursuing an increasingly Reform-influenced agenda on domestic energy policy.
Yet, despite most Britons supporting clean energy, even when it means wind and solar farms in their local area, there remains a clear perception gap. As covered by Business Green, our most recent data shows that both the public and MPs continue to overestimate local opposition to these renewable developments.
Our tracker shows the enduring popularity of policies that also save on household bills (like installing insulation, or incentives to do so).
Although Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) get a bad rep, our tracker shows support outweighing opposition and support gently rising over the past three years.
One way to look at levels of policy support across the piece is that they’re really quite stable – but some are not stable in a good way. When it comes to sales of new gas boilers, and the phase out of sales of new petrol and diesel vehicles, opposition started to outpace support around 18 months ago, and this trend has (slowly) continued.
The public want urgent action on floods, heat, and droughts