‘Significant’ Jump In Number of People Who See Climate Change as a Top Concern for Britain

onApr 29, 2016 @ 00:01 PDT

The number of people who believe climate change is among the top three biggest challenges facing Britain has increased significantly compared to last year, new government data shows.

According to the Department for Energy and Climate Change’s (DECC) latest public attitudes survey, the proportion of people who rank climate change among the top three challenges increased from 15 percent in March 2015 to 22 percent this year.

And when asked specifically about climate change, 70 percent of survey respondents said they were very or fairly concerned – a slight increase from 66 percent last year.

While no reasons are given as to why people are more worried about climate change this year, perhaps recent winter flooding and the success of the Paris climate conference may have helped give a boost to public concern on the issue.

As DECC‘s data shows, the increase in people feeling that climate change is a top concern comes after a significant drop last year. Over the course of four years however, since the surveys began in 2012, the proportion of people who see climate change as a significant challenge has doubled.

Data via DECC

And when it comes to the level of awareness about the impact of humans in causing climate change – a fact which 97 percent of scientists agree on – the survey shows a steady increase from 35 percent in 2014 and 40 percent in 2015 to 43 percent in 2016.

This is followed by a significant drop in the percentage of people who believe climate change is caused entirely, or mostly, by natural causes (10 percent) compared to last year (12 percent).

Data via DECC

Some other note-worthy statistics revealed in the survey which seem to follow the trend of climate-awareness include an overwhelming support of renewable energy and increased opposition towards fracking.

Over the past two years the public’s enthusiasm for fracking has fallen steadily from 29 percent in 2014 to just 19 percent now.

Meanwhile just 4 percent of people oppose renewables, with support for clean energy soaring to a new high of 81 percent.

This is despite the government’s overwhelming support for fracking and continued decrease in support for renewable energy over the past year.

Photo: Richard Scott via Flickr

By Kyla Mandel

Kyla is a freelance writer and editor with work appearing in the New York Times, National Geographic, HuffPost, Mother Jones, and Outside. She is also a member of the Society for Environmental Journalists.