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“Do you have plans to extend the MP survey to other parties?”
All our MP data is asked to a sample of 100-120 MPs each polling wave, which is open to MPs from all parties. Responses are recruited, and weighted to be representative of the House of Commons by party, gender, year elected and region. Although we do collect responses from parties like Plaid Cymru, the Scottish National Party, the Liberal Democrats, Reform UK and the Green Party, their numbers of Westminster MPs are relatively low compared to the number of Labour and Conservative MPs. Therefore, the sample sizes for parties other than the latter two are too small to be a reliable representation of MP opinion, so we don’t provide a breakdown of insights for these parties.
“Will you be doing any surveys of devolved govts ahead of the 2026 elections?”
We haven’t confirmed any plans for this yet, but we are open to the idea – particularly through potential partnerships. We’re also considering other possibilities, such as continuing our boosted samples for the spring 2026 tracker wave and potential events to specifically discuss Scottish and Welsh insights using aggregate data across several waves.
“Can your data be disaggregated to identify patterns in certain places e.g. West Midlands vs North East? This could open up opportunities for adopting a place-based approach to messaging”
Our sample size for the autumn 2025 public survey allows us to disaggregate our data along the following regions of the UK: North of England, Midlands, East of England, London, South of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Our data can also be broken down by rural, town and fringe and urban subgroups. If you would like to see data for specific questions from the most recent wave broken down by these categories, please get in touch.
“Will these findings be shared afterwards? Would love to refer to these in comms and also to include in a climate comms resource library that me and a friend have been setting up” / “When is the full data set going to be published?”
The insights presented at the webinar can all be found on our opinion trackers webpage. Additional insights from the autumn survey wave will be released over the coming months, either in the form of updates to existing Climate Barometer tracker questions (which can be found on our opinion trackers and the Q&A webpages), or as new questions and analysis, which will be added to our topic threads or commentary pages. The best way to keep up to date with our data releases is through our bi-monthly newsletters – sign up here if you haven’t already.
“How are you defining Reform voters, given support has risen since the general election according to opinion polls.”
In our research, when we refer to Reform voters, we mean respondents who indicated that they voted for Reform at the 2024 General Election. By contrast, when we say Reform supporters, we mean respondents who, at the time of data collection, which in this case is October 2025, indicated that if there was a General Election held tomorrow, they would most likely vote for Reform UK. Given changes in voting intention since the last General Election, we tend to use ‘Reform supporters’ because it’s more indicative of the current context.
“Have you done any research on what (if any) pro climate messages resonate with Reform voters?”
We haven’t done proper message testing using an experimental approach but we do track which pro and anti net zero messages have cut through and find agreement or disagreement with the UK public. Broadly, we find that economically populist rhetoric that sides with the general public and puts the onus on the super rich to pay their fair share might be able to cut through with audiences from across the political spectrum.
More specifically, in the autumn 2025 wave, we asked people to read a number of short statements and indicate whether they had heard of them, and if so, whether they agreed with them. Most people who had heard of it, agreed with the statement “the super rich are the biggest, worst polluters so they should pay more for the transition to clean energy” (including those intending to vote for Reform UK). But many people, including 34% of Reform supporters, had not heard it being said, pointing to the importance of getting the attention of Reform backers and exposing them to pro-climate messaging in the first instance.
“The recent HOPE not Hate data on Reform voters found that not all groups in their supporter coalition were hostile to net zero – did you find the same in your data?”
This is definitely in line with what we’re seeing too – Reform’s supporter base seems (as shown in other research) to be varied and while anti-net zero messages are more common among Reform supporters, it’s not unanimous. We know climate isn’t a galvanising/uniting issue in the same way as immigration for this group of potential voters – and while some are hostile, around a third don’t seem to be (according to our data).
For instance, around 30% of Reform supporters in our last wave support the net zero target. 25% think the best way of ensuring UK energy security is through renewables. 35% support a tax on frequent fliers. 56% support incentives for homeowners and landlords to improve insulation, and 37% support the government providing financial support to low income families for green upgrades.
“Does the tracker tell us how entrenched Reform voters’ climate views are compared with other parties?”
We can make an educated guess based on proxies from questions we’ve asked in the tracker. So, for example, our most recent data shows that 27% of Reform supporters agree with the statement “I see myself as someone who is very concerned with environmental issues”. This shows that more than 1 in 4 people who are currently intending to vote for Reform see caring about nature and the environment as a core part of their identity. This also chimes roughly with the proportion of “Squeezed Stewards” identified by HOPE not hate in their recent research on Reform supporters.
“In terms of top issues facing the country, do you feel it ranking low is an issue of phrasing it as ‘the environment’ and the public perhaps not understanding about the impact climate change has on health, poverty, migration, etc?”
In general, it’s true that the connections between climate change and other areas of life beyond extreme weather are often not well known or understood by the general public. That could be a factor here, however, it’s also important to note that our question asks respondents which three issues they think are the most important ones facing the country at this time, which is different from asking survey participants about which three issues they think are the most severe / all-encompassing facing the UK in general. This tells us more about what is on people’s minds day to day than what they believe to be the biggest risks overall.
For this particular question, what we are likely seeing is the effect of continued cost of living pressure, and salient narratives about the economy and immigration dominating the media and public life at the moment.
“Is it fair to say that most people don’t make the link between climate change and the cost of living & economy, for example via higher food prices?”
When asked about what worries them most about the effects of climate change, we do see that people connect some economic concerns to the climate crisis. Data from April 2025 shows that 1 in 2 Britons (50%) say they are worried that over the next 10 years, climate change will cause their bills and other costs to rise and more than 1 in 3 (37%) are worried that it will make some food unavailable.
“Is there a reflection or understanding that if we don’t tackle climate or nature issues then everything else gets worse over the long term e.g. immigration, cost of living, food instability?”
We didn’t measure this specifically, but see above for our answer to the issue salience question. More generally, research has shown that trying to ‘use’ other crises to get people’s attention for the climate crisis is ineffective and can even be harmful to migrant communities or people on the move in the context of climate change.
“Do you have any testing and tracking on whether / how people associate climate messaging with migration messaging and how this affects perceptions of the need to prioritise climate action?”
Not directly. One question we asked in our autumn 2025 wave looks at whether or not respondents agree with the statement that ‘climate change is forcing people in vulnerable areas around the world to leave their homes’. Our data shows that 57% of Britons agree with this statement, 31% neither agree nor disagree and 12% disagree. We do not have any data on how this (dis)agreement translates into views on prioritising climate action but previous research has shown that this line of argument is ineffective and can even be harmful to people on the move in the context of climate change.
“Because NZ is weaponized as an abstract faraway concept that will making poor people poorer, would it help to simplify the language and talk about everyday costs for poor people as a result of inaction – not using the term NZ?”
Our recent net zero messaging study (in collaboration with Public First) showed that in order to counter hostility to the term, it’s important to explain the concept of net zero, relate it to people’s everyday experiences and simplify our language.
One of the narratives that was effective and that resonated across the political spectrum was arguing for expanding British renewables to become more energy independent and to stop energy costs from “spiralling out of control”.
At the same time, it’s important to avoid focusing solely on threats; other research has shown the need to emphasise a combination of risk, efficacy, and positive social norms. Showing people what they stand to gain from taking action and how others like them are already taking steps is likely to be more motivating than only threatening them with the prospect of what else they might lose, especially when the cost of living is already a large worry for them.
“To what extent do you think that addressing public pessimism about the future can get us off that (net zero support) plateau?”
For a while now we’ve seen a general pessimism about the direction the UK is heading in. That in itself points to a greater problem – and addressing the causes of public pessimism, restoring trust in institutions and investing society to increase social cohesion are necessary in themselves, and will likely also have positive implications for people believing that the net zero transition (or any policy measures) can benefit them.
“Did any of your questions look at how people see the challenge of cost today vs cost tomorrow?”
We regularly ask the public about the perceived cost of action vs. the cost of inaction on climate change. Our October 2025 data shows that while overall, more Britons tend to think that “it will cost too much not to tackle climate change now and we should be prioritising it while we can still avoid the worst impacts” (42%), nearly 1 in 3 (32%) say that “it will cost too much to tackle climate change now and we should be prioritising other things at a time when consumers can least afford it”.
Our longitudinal data shows that while these values have remained fairly stable over the past 6 months, there has been a downward trend for those who think it’ll cost too much not to tackle climate change (-12% compared to October 2022), and an upward trend for those thinking it’ll cost too much to tackle climate change (+13% compared to April 2023).
“Hypothetical question, but if we were not in a cost of living crisis, do you think the support for climate policies and action would be higher?”
We can only speculate of course, but looking at our data, we see that in the past, even during the cost of living crisis and Covid-19 lockdowns, support for climate policies and action were higher than they are now – with a high point for net zero support just following the 2024 General Election.
There are potentially a combination of factors at play here (e.g., Conservatives changing their stance since Labour took office, ongoing cost of living pressures, anti-net zero campaigns linking climate with costs). But we can say that opposition to climate policies which are costly to the ‘consumer’ would reduce if those costs were reduced or eliminated: in this sense opposition is more pragmatic than ideological.
“Impact on energy bills is a very high concern here – do you know what people think the impact on their bills will be?”
We didn’t specifically ask whether people link local infrastructure with energy bills. What we do know is that in the context of bills being such a big concern for people at the moment, anything that might impact them negatively is seen as a threat, whether that has to do with climate action or not.
In our spring 2025 survey, we asked participants whether they thought net zero policies would have a positive, negative or no impact on their household energy bills over the next 5 years. 49% of respondents said that they expected a negative impact. This could partly be a result of pessimism or concern that translates ‘anything new’ into something that potentially costs people more.
Perhaps another finding to give context to all of this is that the DESNZ public attitudes tracker found that specific concerns about energy bills have decreased since spring 2022 (from 58-42%), whereas more general worry about ‘all’ bills has increased (11-17%), in particular for food (8-18%).
“Are there any significant differences [on support for renewables infrastructure] across age and demographics around these questions?”
Yes – it differs by question of course. Generally, the autumn 2025 survey wave shows that there tend to be differences along age, location, voting intention, education level, when it comes to their stance on support for renewables infrastructure. This means that those who are younger, highly educated, living in London, intending to vote for Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the Green Party at the next elections tend to support, and those who are older, less educated, and intending to vote for Reform UK or the Conservatives tend to oppose.
These patterns do vary from question to question, so if there is particular data you’re interested in seeing a more detailed demographic breakdown for, please get in touch.
“On what would encourage people to support renewables, could the differences between what the public and MPs say be partly down to knowledge, e.g. guess most people don’t know what a community benefit fund entails but maybe MPs do?”
Unfortunately we didn’t measure public understanding around community benefit funds – and yes, our guess is that such terms are likely to be less familiar to the British public than MPs.
What we know is that in the absence of an explanation, the term ‘community ownership’ fails to garner widespread support. On the other hand, tangible things like compensation in the form of improvements to parks, rivers and forests in the local area are easier for the public to get behind.
“Is there any data to highlight that highlighting messaging on progress made in the energy transition / co-benefits makes net zero skeptics more supportive?”
Our tracker data doesn’t tend to focus on message testing but we did cover this a little bit in our recent net zero messaging study in collaboration with Public First. Explaining net zero in terms of common sense (“net zero isn’t about ideology or impossible dreams – it’s about common-sense solutions”) as well as highlighting progress (“The great news is that the UK is halfway there – We’ve done a good job of reducing the emissions from our energy sector”) performed well with participants in our tests.
In addition to that, the recent Britain Talks Climate and Nature research looked at this, too, and their toolkit recommends talking about the progress made thus far when communicating about climate and energy with the British public.
“Do people who don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change have lower support for local infrastructure projects i.e. even if they say those beliefs aren’t impacting their support, is there any reason to doubt that?”
It’s true that people are not very good at identifying the exact factors that influence their opinions. However, our data suggests that even for people who don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change, other factors like impact on their bills or the local community are more important in how they think about local renewable energy infrastructure than their climate views.
As you’d expect, respondents who think that climate change is just part of the Earth’s natural cycle are more likely to oppose new local wind farms or solar parks than people who do believe in anthropogenic climate change.
That said, even this sceptical group is still more likely to support local renewables developments (46% for wind farms, 51% for solar parks) than oppose them (43% for wind farms, 40% for solar parks).
This would suggest that their views on climate change are not the only or even the main factor determining their support or opposition to these projects.
“Do we have a comparison with fossil fuel development ie if fracking was proposed would it be the same opposition?”
Yes, we also track public support and opposition to new fossil fuel infrastructure projects in people’s local area. Opposition is generally much higher toward fossil fuel than renewables infrastructure: while 21% of the UK public say they would oppose a new wind farm being built in their local area and 19% a new solar energy park, these local opposition figures are much higher for new fossil fuel projects such as a new fracking site (opposed by 60% of the public) or a new coal-fired power station (65% of Britons would oppose this).
“My key takeaway from this is that people report impacts on local area, benefits to local area/people, and genuine/early community involvement as the most important factors in whether they support or oppose renewable energy in the area – is that correct?”
Yes. More specifically, our data shows that the project’s impact on the local environment, on energy bills and on the local community came out as clear top considerations participants identified as determining their views of infrastructure proposals.
“Have you done any analysis of the number of negative media stories on climate changes and relation to your survey responses?”
We don’t usually do this type of analysis but our upcoming Signal in the Noise event will include some third-party insights on this topic! You can sign up here if you haven’t already.
In addition, new research by ECIU and Dr James Painter looked at 73,000 articles across nine outlets and found that “net zero” is increasingly discussed separately from “climate change” in UK media coverage. In 2018, when the dataset began, the link between net zero and climate change was clear: 90% of articles mentioning “net zero” also included the phrase “climate change” or a similar term such as “global warming.” By 2024, that proportion had fallen to just 42%.
“Was there any sense of where people were getting their opinions and beliefs from? Eg who is representing positive climate/renewable stories to people?”
Our most recent survey does not include any data on this particular question but in the past, we have asked respondents what news sources they regularly consume or where they get information on decarbonisation.
More generally, though, opinion polls are important but only one part of the puzzle when it comes to understanding where people get their information from. People’s views are often also shaped by things they hear and see from their friends and family, or individual experiences they have had, which can be difficult to test by means of a survey. Therefore, it’s important to supplement this kind of polling with other data, such as media tracking work (see for example the Climate News Tracker by C3DS) to get a fuller picture of where people encounter and engage with climate stories.
