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.

by Climate News Tracker 

Public concern about climate change and the environment has risen to its highest level since late 2024, according to new data from the Office for National Statistics.

Some 62% of adults in Great Britain identified climate change and the environment as an important issue facing the country in August, up from 53% in June.

That puts climate change and the environment just ahead of immigration, at 61%, and crime, at 58%. The cost of living, NHS and economy remain the public’s three most commonly identified issues.

The increase follows a summer in which extreme weather felt very real for audiences.

The Met Office provisionally declared summer 2026 the UK’s hottest on record. Heatwaves were followed by drought conditions, water restrictions and wildfires. On 14 August, an emergency alert was sent to phones across England and Wales warning of the risk of wildfires as hot, dry conditions intensified.

The ONS itself highlights the timing of these events, noting that climate concern rose during a period of heatwaves across Great Britain.

When people experience the story

Climate News Tracker compares ONS public concern with the amount of coverage major issues receive on UK public service television and radio.

The latest ONS figures are interesting because our research has consistently found climate coverage often spikes during extreme weather events.

In the second quarter of 2026, climate coverage rose from 25.7% of monitored TV and radio programmes in April to 38.1% in June, its highest point of the year. But two heatwaves in May and June drove this increase.

As the heatwaves arrived, mentions of extreme weather and climate change rose sharply. Once the events passed, coverage fell away again.

This is compared to other climate stories with clear news pegs, including major reports and an international summit, that struggled to break through.

Public concern didn’t follow this pattern. Through the first half of the year, it remained relatively steady, even as climate coverage rose and fell with the news cycle.

Now that concern has climbed to 62%, the highest level since late 2024, the question is whether increased public concern about climate change will be reflected in the wider news agenda beyond these individual extreme-weather events.

Climate News Tracker will publish its full Q3 analysis, including July, August and September, in October.

Extreme weather people could see and feel

There are good reasons why this summer may have shifted public attention.

The effects of extreme weather have been visible across daily life, from pressure on hospitals and transport during heatwaves to dry reservoirs, hosepipe bans, crop concerns and wildfires.

The ONS found that 88% of adults had taken at least one action to reduce their water use during the previous month. Almost half, 48%, up from 36% in July, said they had reduced their use of tap water in the garden, during a period when water restrictions affected parts of Great Britain.

Climate News Tracker’s own research has documented how these events moved through the news agenda.

Our Q2 analysis (April, May and June) found that climate and NHS coverage rose together during the June heatwave. Record temperatures put hospitals under pressure, and the UK’s second-ever red extreme heat warning turned climate change into an immediate domestic story. Climate coverage reached 38.1% of programmes in June, compared with public concern of 53%.

By July, drought and wildfires had become prominent news stories. When drought was formally declared across seven areas of England, coverage increased almost immediately.

But our analysis found that greater attention did not necessarily mean greater explanation: 34% of online drought articles linked the conditions to climate change, compared with 13% of short-form social videos.

Wildfire reporting showed a similar pattern. Only 8.3% of the short-form videos we analysed explicitly linked July’s wildfires to climate change, even though audiences received extensive reporting about deaths, evacuations and damage.

 

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In August, these connections became even harder to ignore. Within a matter of days, the UK experienced another heatwave, destructive wildfires and a national emergency alert, while consultations on the Rosebank oil field and Jackdaw gas field brought the future of fossil fuel production into the political agenda.

Our analysis found that TV and radio were considerably more likely than online and social media to connect those stories and provide climate context.

What audiences and journalists are telling us

Climate News Tracker’s own research suggests there is an appetite for that context on both sides of the newsroom.

In our survey of journalists and production staff, 89% said climate reporting needs new approaches, while almost two-thirds said current coverage is not fully meeting audience needs.

More recently, our Kantar survey of UK audiences found that 50% want news organisations to explain the role of climate change in extreme weather when the scientific evidence supports it, with a further 20% saying climate change should be central to every extreme-weather story.

When asked what they wanted news organisations to do more often, the two leading responses were explaining the climate connection and explaining what extreme weather means for people where they live.

Taken alongside the latest ONS figure, the findings point to a useful challenge for newsrooms. As people live through the impacts of climate change, audiences are asking for reporting that helps them understand the connection between the events they experience and the wider climate story.

Public concern and news coverage

Climate News Tracker uses ONS data as a benchmark, not to insist on what news organisations should cover.

News agendas are shaped by breaking events, editorial judgement and news values, and no one would expect the proportion of programmes covering an issue to mirror a public opinion survey.

But looking at the two measures over time can reveal important patterns.

In 2025, an average of 52.8% of adults identified climate change and the environment as an important issue, while climate appeared in 31.3% of the programmes we monitored. Climate coverage also fell 12% year on year between 2024 and 2025, the largest decline of any topic tracked.

In Q1 2026, public concern remained between 51% and 53%, while coverage ranged from 23% to 29%. In Q2, extreme heat pushed coverage higher, reaching 38.1% in June as public concern stood at 53%.

The latest ONS data now puts public concern at 62%.

We don’t yet know whether news coverage reflected that. Climate News Tracker’s full Q3 analysis, covering July to September, will be published in October.

But the ONS data reinforces something this summer’s reporting has already made clear, which is that extreme weather can rapidly move climate change up both the public and news agenda.

The bigger question is what happens when the immediate event ends.