Climate News Tracker’s latest analysis finds the Iran war reshaped the UK broadcast agenda, even as climate coverage continued its year-on-year decline.

by Rosie Frost (Journalism Insights Analyst), Alina Sandauer (Content Analyst) & Dr Lissa O’Reilly (Content Analyst)

1 May 2026

Climate coverage on UK television and radio fell further behind public concern in the first quarter of 2026, even as the Iran war pushed energy security up the broadcast agenda, new analysis by Climate News Tracker finds.

A single event defined this quarter: the Iran war, which began on 28 February. It sent shockwaves through global energy markets, drove up fuel and household energy prices, and reshaped coverage across multiple topics.

Climate News Tracker tracks keyword mentions across 27 TV and radio programmes from the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, ITV and Sky, comparing coverage of seven topics against ONS public concern data.

Across these topics, coverage in Q1 split in two directions: areas driven by the Iran war saw increased attention, while others declined.

Key Findings:

• Climate and environment had the largest gap between coverage and public concern of any tracked topic.
• The increase in March was driven largely by energy and security framing linked to the Iran war.
• Cost of living coverage rose sharply in March, increasing by 30 percentage points, while conflict coverage reached 99% of programmes.
• Public concern about conflict rose, but concern about the cost of living remained largely unchanged.

Energy stories boosted climate coverage, but only superficially

Climate change and environment had the largest gap between coverage and public concern levels of any tracked topic in Q1.

ONS data shows concern remained stable at between 51% and 53% across January, February and March. By contrast, broadcast coverage ranged from 23% to 29%, leaving a persistent gap of 20 to 30 percentage points throughout the quarter.

Coverage rose slightly in March, increasing by seven percentage points to 29%. However, keyword-level analysis suggests this was not driven by increased attention to climate change itself. Mentions of “climate change” fell from 16% of programmes in January to 10% in March.

Instead, the increase was driven by energy-related terms. Mentions of “net zero” rose from 4% in February to 13% in March, “carbon” from 7% to 17%, and “renewable energy” from 2% to 6%.

This suggests the March rise reflected spillover from energy security coverage linked to the Iran war, rather than a sustained increase in climate reporting.

Separate analysis of Iran war coverage supports this finding, showing that even when net zero or renewables were discussed, they were rarely linked directly to climate change.

Iran war caused a jump in coverage of cost of living and the economy

The most dramatic shift in coverage was in cost of living, which rose from 47% of programmes in February to 77% in March as energy price concerns moved up the agenda.

Public concern in cost of living as a topic remained broadly stable at 87–88% throughout the quarter.

International conflict followed a similar pattern. Coverage reached near-saturation at 99% of programmes in March, while public concern rose to 63% — the largest increase of any topic tracked. Climate News Tracker updated its conflict keyword set during Q1 to include Iran war-related terms.

Economy coverage also increased, rising from 69% in February to 85% in March. This likely reflects both the economic impact of the conflict and the timing of the Spring Budget on 3 March. Public concern remained relatively stable.

Coverage of immigration and the NHS declined across the quarter despite little change in public concern.

Immigration coverage fell from 61% of programmes in January to 36% in March, while public concern held steady at 56–58%.

NHS coverage dropped from 69% to 58% over the same period, despite concern remaining high at around 81–82%. This made it one of the most consistently under-covered topics after climate.

Crime remained largely unchanged, with coverage holding between 90% and 94% and public concern stable at around 55–56%.

Climate coverage continues year-on-year decline

Comparing Q1 across 2024, 2025 and 2026 shows a clear downward trend in climate coverage.

Coverage in 2024 remained consistently highest, followed by 2025, with 2026 the lowest throughout the quarter. Rather than recovering, climate’s share of the broadcast agenda has continued to fall.

This reflects a broader trend identified in Climate News Tracker’s annual analysis, which found climate coverage fell 12% across UK public service broadcasters in 2025, the largest drop of any topic tracked.

Other topics show more short-term, event-driven shifts.

Cost of living coverage in March 2026 rose sharply above both 2024 and 2025 levels, likely reflecting energy price pressures linked to the Iran war.

International conflict followed a similar pattern, remaining below previous years early in the quarter before rising sharply in March.

Economy coverage in 2026 and 2025 followed similar trajectories before both increased in March, while 2024 remained consistently lower.

Crime remained the most stable topic, with coverage levels largely unchanged across all three years.

A broadcast agenda shaped by breaking news continues to leave longer-term issues such as climate trailing behind public concern.

Methodology

Public concern data is drawn from the ONS Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, which asks a nationally representative sample of adults to identify the issues they consider most important across 12-day collection periods.

Broadcast data covers 27 flagship TV and radio news programmes from the BBC, ITV, Sky News, Channel 4, and Channel 5.

A programme is counted as covering a topic if at least one relevant keyword appears in the transcript.

This methodology is designed to measure the frequency of topic mentions only. It does not assess the quality, prominence, or editorial stance of coverage.

Full details of keyword selection, data processing, and error calculation are available on our methodology page.