We can be in no doubt that the climate crisis is here. The impacts are being felt around the world: from famines, flooding, dangerous heatwaves and global temperature records being repeatedly broken. We are already in a ‘brave new world’.
With the news published today, that we are likely to witness an 80% likelihood of an El Niño event during June–August 2026 and also that there is an 86% chance that one year between 2026 and 2030 will see a new warmest year on record, the signs are clear that our response to rising carbon emissions does not come close to meeting the magnitude of the crisis.
The public appetite in the UK for climate action is very strong. Government polling in 2024 revealed that 77% of respondents supported on-shore wind and 83% supported off-shore wind as energy sources. In 2025, polling for KPMG, indicated that 65% of respondents supported the UK transitioning to renewable sources of energy with only 12% opposing.
Taking a wider stance, 60% of Britons support Net Zero, with 25% in opposition. It is, of course, worth saying that Net Zero is a legally binding target, made by Theresa May’s Government and the UK has made significant progress towards this goal.
Despite this strong support for climate action and Net Zero, time after time, we are bombarded with news stories of campaign after campaign against local renewable energy projects- be they windfarms or solar panels on fields, skewing the narrative that this is the majority position. Politicians also fall into the trap of pandering to the rather vocal minority of the public who demand an end to ‘Net Stupid Zero’, without realising that those who espouse this argument simply want to keep us bound to a fossil fuel future- despite the role fossil fuels have played and continue to play in the human-caused warming of the planet.
Even with the record breaking temperatures in May for the UK of 35.1℃, climate deniers, delayers and dismissives, insisted that this was simply a ‘good summer’- despite it being Spring.
Windfarms are popular with the UK public
According to polling, support for windfarms has been consistently strong over the past few years in the UK. Polling below indicated that over 40% would be happy or fairly happy with a windfarm in their area, while only under 15% being opposed. And yet, whose voices do we hear the most? Those of former Leave voters, with an overlapping circle of Reform voters and those aged over 65 years old. When studying many campaign groups against windfarms and their myriad reasons against turbines, they appear to be very vocal about understanding the need to transition away from fossil- fuel dependency, but scratch the surface and all too quickly it is revealed that rather than campaigners not wanting them in their local area, they simply don’t want them at all.
Campaigns demonise windfarms, as ‘industrialised monsters’ and ‘blights on the countryside’, without considering the impact of abandoned coal mines around the UK, or that the status quo of the fossil fuel industry will simply change the countryside beyond recognition, with global temperatures predicted to be around 2.7℃ above pre- industrial times by the end of the century.
Solar farms are popular with the UK public
Likewise, solar farms enjoy popular support from the UK public, though you may have also missed this with campaigners, ‘flying the flag for UK farmers’, without actually listening to farmers’ concerns about harvests and output.
Well over 50% of Britons support solar farms, though curiously seem opposed to having them within 500m of their home- leading to accusations of ‘nimbyism’.
Ground-mounted solar panels currently cover just 0.1% of all land in the UK and even if this was scaled up to the Government’s Net Zero target, this would still only equate to 0.3% of the UK land area, which is equivalent to 0.5% of the land currently used for farming. Therefore, the argument that solar fields would impact farming is a particularly weak argument. Agrivoltaic systems where crops can be planted below and among raised photovoltaic panels allows for the duality of food production and energy production, with little impact.
The Guardian reported on the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) research from last year which found that 87% of UK farmers have experienced reduced productivity in the face of recent extreme weather, 84% had suffered a fall in crop yields, and more than three-quarters had taken a hit to their income. The piece continued that, ‘The survey of 300 UK farmers found that, in the past five years, 78% of farmers had been hit by drought and more than half had suffered the consequences of heatwaves.’
The Wildlife Trusts reported this year that, ‘In recent weeks, the food industry has had a stark wake-up call – the nature and climate crisis is hitting our fields, our wallets, and our shelves. This is no longer a future prospect, but a very real-life scenario we find ourselves operating in.’
‘We’ll only act when…’
Far too often, we hear the weak argument that the UK should only act after other countries have acted- that despite our colonial impact and historical contributions, we should wait in the fossil-fuel queue until other countries- and it is always China and India- have acted first. This argument is weak for two reasons- one being that the UK has made significant cuts to its emissions over the last 40 years and it also ignores the gigantic strides forward made by China. China now dominates the world in renewables development and is developing more than the rest of the world combined. The incredible rise in solar and wind power in the last 15 years alone in China is remarkable. Rapid and drastic investment and deployment in renewables is possible and if the UK wants to be part of this market, it needs to challenge quickly.
The cost of doing nothing
The UK’s Climate Change Committee released a new report in March this year, which outlined that ‘achieving Net Zero was found to be a more cost-effective path for the UK economy than continued reliance on fossil fuels, bringing a net benefit to society.’ It outlined that, ‘For every pound spent on Net Zero, the benefits outweigh this by 2.2 to 4.1 times. Avoiding climate damages is the most significant benefit of the transition. This saving is estimated between £40 billion and £130 billion in 2050.’
In 2022, the Grantham Institute concluded that there were ‘strong economic reasons’ for retaining the net zero target’, arguing that the benefits would exceed the costs by the second half of this century.’ They argued that doing nothing would simply increase the cost of climate change damages to the UK. ‘Under current policies, the total cost of climate change damages to the UK are projected to increase from 1.1% of GDP at present to 3.3% by 2050 and 7.4% by 2100.’
They continued in their analysis that pursuing net-zero is therefore a ‘no regret’ policy. ‘Combined, the pathway to net-zero is expected to boost the UK’s economy by over 4% of its GDP. Pursuing net-zero is therefore a ‘no regret’ policy, as it provides benefits to the UK economy even if global emissions do not fall enough to avoid the worst damages from climate change.’
If then, there is an economic benefit to reaching Net Zero, clear public support for Net Zero action, a moral imperative to act in a leadership role and a legal necessity imposed by the statutory duty under the Climate Change Act 2008, to argue otherwise, that a renewables revolution would not bring benefits to the UK, is not one based on sound arguments.
Perhaps, we could widen the narrow focus on the UK and argue that a global renewables transition would bring global benefits and be a ‘no regret’ policy and pathway.
Climate Thoughts with Brian 