Public opinions and social trends, Great Britain: 15 to 26 November 2023

Ahead of the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), in the period between 15 and 26 of November, we asked adults in Great Britain about climate change and how it had impacted their lifestyle.

• When asked about the important issues facing the UK today, adults continued to report the cost of living (89%), the NHS (87%) and the economy (74%) as the top three issues.

• The fourth most important issue remained climate change and the environment, which was reported by around 6 in 10 (61%) adults; this was a decline from 66% of adults choosing the same issue last year ahead of COP27 (in the period 26 October to 6 November 2022).

• Other important issues reported in the current period included crime (60%), housing (59%), immigration (54%) and international conflict (50%).

• We asked adults the extent to which they had made changes to their lifestyle to tackle climate change; around 1 in 12 adults (8%) reported they had made a lot of changes, around two in three (64%) had made some changes, and around 3 in 10 (28%) had made no changes.

• Among those who had made a lot of or some changes to their lifestyle to tackle climate change, the most reported concerns that motivated them to do so were the effect on future generations (69%), loss of natural habitats or wildlife (66%), and the direct effects of climate change such as extreme weather events or rising sea levels on others (52%) or themselves (32%).

• Among adults who had not made changes to their lifestyle, the most reported reasons for this were thinking the changes they make will have no effect on climate change (41%), thinking large polluters should change before individuals (34%) and finding it too expensive to make changes (30%).

• Compared with last year's estimates (in the period 20 to 31 July 2022), among adults who had not made changes to their lifestyle, there was an increase in the proportion of those who thought the changes they make will have no effect on climate change (41%, compared with 32% in 2022), thought the effects of climate change are exaggerated (11%, compared with 4%), and said they do not believe in climate change (7%, compared with 3%); these differences in sentiment may be influenced by an extreme heatwave in July 2022.

This release contains data and indicators from the Office for National Statistics' (ONS's) Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN).

From the 16 June 2023 release onwards, we have made changes that reduce the scope of the release and accompanying datasets. This is based on a routine review of the relevance and usefulness of this release.

Breakdowns by age and sex are no longer provided for fortnightly estimates in the latest Public opinions and social trends, Great Britain datasets. All previous versions of the dataset remain available from this page. Estimates from the OPN by these and other personal characteristics will continue to be provided on a regular basis in other ONS releases. For example, OPN estimates relating to the impact of the cost of living among different sub-groups of the population are provided within the regular Impact of increased cost of living on adults across Great Britain series.

Confidence intervals are provided for all estimates in the datasets. Where changes in results from previous weeks are presented in this release, or comparisons between estimates are made, associated confidence intervals should be used to assess the statistical significance of the differences. 

Sampling and weighting

In the latest period (15 to 26 December 2023), we sampled 4,989 households. This sample was randomly selected from people who had previously completed the Labour Market Survey (LMS) or OPN. The responding sample for the latest period contained 2,424 individuals, representing a 48.6% response rate.

Survey weights were applied to make estimates representative of the population (based on ONS population estimates). Because of sampling changes in July 2023, some groups in our unweighted sample may be over-represented. Although our weighting strategy aims to account for this, in some instances, we may see some differences in population totals presented in the data tables from wave to wave. Further information on the survey design and quality can be found in our Opinions and Lifestyle Survey Quality and Methodology Information (QMI).