Almost two-thirds of adults in Great Britain now see climate change and the environment as an important issue the UK faces, as record-high summer heat, drought and wildfires brought the impacts of a changing climate closer to home.

TV and radio were much more likely than online and social media to connect a week of heatwaves, wildfires, emergency alerts and North Sea drilling. Drilling received the least coverage, but was the topic most consistently linked to climate change.

Heatwaves provided the main opportunity to connect extreme weather with the move away from fossil fuels, but the transition was more often a secondary part of the story and was rarely discussed on TikTok.

Former Head of the BBC Newsroom and Controller of BBC World Service Mary Hockaday argues that extreme weather is giving journalists clear opportunities to explain the climate story, while new audience research suggests the public wants that context. by Mary Hockaday (Former Head of the BBC Newsroom and World Service controller) News crews have been […]

As heatwaves, wildfires and drought dominate summer headlines, new Climate News Tracker research finds half the UK public want news organisations to explain the climate link when scientific evidence supports it, while a further 20% want climate change central to every extreme-weather story.

Coverage surged after drought was officially declared, but online and social video audiences received far less explanation of its causes and long-term solutions.

Climate coverage reached its highest level of 2026 during two June heatwaves, but the rise was short-lived. Climate News Tracker’s latest quarterly analysis finds extreme weather remained the only story that consistently broke through, while other climate stories with clear news pegs received little attention.

Climate News Tracker analysed how UK public service media organisations covered Europe’s July 2026 wildfires across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Audiences consistently received vivid reporting on the destruction caused by the fires, but were far less likely to hear why conditions for them are becoming more common.

While warnings and health advice came through reliably everywhere, the climate science behind the heat was explained least often in the formats younger audiences rely on most for their news.

Heat warnings dominated, but articles were far less likely to explain what those warnings meant or connect the record temperatures to climate change.