Do you believe in climate change?
Changing and polarised attitudes to the climate-change agenda
Peter Carruthers
Belief in anthropogenic climate change is levelling out or falling
Belief in climate change is at its lowest since 2019, and attitudes remain very polarised, especially around political affiliation.
A recent (10 March 2025) YouGov survey examined attitudes to climate change among adults in Great Britain. It revealed that the overall level of belief in anthropogenic climate change has dropped slightly since mid-2019 and markedly since its recent peak in mid-2020,
In 2021, YouGov reported that 72% of Britons believed that ‘the climate change is changing as a result of human activity’, compared with 49% in 2013. Just 3% of people believed the ‘climate is not changing’, compared with 7% in 2013, while the proportion believing ‘the climate is changing, but not as a result of human activity’ dropped from 28% in 2013 to 13% in 2021.
Belief among Britons in anthropogenic climate change reached 77% in May 2020, but dropped to 67% in March 2025. The proportion of people who stated that they did not believe the climate is changing increased from 3% in July 2019 to 4% in March 2025. Over the same period, belief that ‘the climate is changing, but not as a result of human activity’, increased slightly from 16% to 17%.
While the data reveal a steady overall increase in belief between 2013 and 2020, the picture since then suggests both a levelling out and much greater volatility (see here and here).
The YouGov survey explored the effects of age, gender, politics, region and social grade on attitudes to climate change.
Political differences were particularly marked, with those on the left much more likely to believe the ‘standard’ climate-change narrative than those on the right. In the March 2025 survey, 84% of Labour voters, 79% of Liberal Democrat voters, and 81% of Remainers believed that ‘the climate change is changing as a result of human activity’, compared with 55% of Conservative voters and 57% of Leavers.1
Farmland should be used for climate and natural environment purposes
Attitudes to the move to use more farmland to sequester carbon are of particular interest to those of us concerned with rural and farming issues.
Another YouGov survey in January of this year asked respondents, “Do you think it is a good or bad idea to convert more of the farmland in England to climate and natural environment purposes, including solar farms, tree planting and improving habitats for birds, insects and fish?”.
Half of respondents thought this was a very good or fairly good idea, while 22% thought it was a fairly bad or very bad idea; 18% thought it was neither good nor bad and 10% did not know.
Once again, politics was a major determinant of attitudes: 39% of Conservative voters and 29% of Reform voters thought it was a good idea, compared with 60% of both Labour and Liberal Democrat voters.
Committed Christians are more sceptical of climate change
YouGov did not examine the effects of religion on attitudes to climate change, but a 2024 survey commissioned by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL) and conducted by Whitestone Insight did. Christian Today reported the survey under the headline above.
Overall, this survey concluded that, “people of faith in Britain are slightly more sceptical of climate change” than are people in general: “16% of religious Brits do not believe climate change is happening compared to the national average of 13%”.
‘Exclusivist’2 Christian respondents showed the highest levels of disbelief in the standard climate-change narrative, with 31% agreeing with the statement, "I don’t believe the global climate is changing” (compared with 13% overall) and 45% agreeing with the statement, “I do believe the global climate is changing, but it's not primarily caused by human activity” (compared with 28% overall).3
Nevertheless, some 52% of ‘exclusivist’ Christians believed that, “humanity faces the real threat of extinction as a result of climate change”. This is fairly close to the national average of 56%. It also suggests that more than half of those who believe non-anthropogenic climate change is underway believe it sufficiently serious to pose an existential threat to humanity.4
With regard to Christian attitudes to climate change, the report’s author noted that, while “Christians in general are least likely to recognise the harms of climate change, to take personal environmental actions and to vote with environmentalism in mind … exclusivist Christians also hold strong beliefs in their faith’s requirement to care for the world”.
This article is offered as background reading for the forthcoming Hope Countryside online meeting on ‘Climate change, faith and farming’, Saturday 5 April, 9.00 - 10.30 AM. If you would like to find out more, discuss and pray about these critical issues, please join the meeting. More details and log in are here or click below.
‘Exclusivist’ was used to describe respondents who agreed with the statement “I believe my faith to be the only one true religion.”
See Table 7 here.