ONS Report Reveals Gaps in Public Climate Action as 1 in 4 Britons Yet to Embrace Change

A report from the Office for National Statistics has revealed that a quarter of Britons are reluctant to embrace new behavioral habits to help tackle climate change. 

Between August and October 2024, 76% of adults stated that they have made active adjustments to their lifestyle to alleviate the pressures on the environment.

The ONS report concluded that 66% of people surveyed changed their shopping habits, 50% altered the way in which they travel, 43% have adjusted their diet and 38% amended the way they treat their gardens.

Such changes in people’s habits include purchasing more environmentally friendly sourced food, using public transport more frequently, cycling to work, reducing our meat intake, as well as planting native plants and avoiding the use of pesticides.

Alarmingly, this means that 24% of the nation have not made any alterations to the way they live their lives in order to become more environmentally friendly.

Ultimately, this means that the UK will struggle to reach their climate targets, as the UK Climate Change Committee (CCC) has stated that one third of emission cuts must come from consumers, meaning that more people need to embrace change.

This coincides with a YouGov Survey, which reveals that only 7% believe that human activity is not responsible for climate change, meaning that whilst people are aware of the need to alter their behaviour to help the climate, there are barriers which prevent them from doing so.

Such factors which prevent people from altering their behaviour include the extreme costs that taxpayer will have to foot in order to make the governments Net Zero policy successful, with a projected annual cost of £4 million up until the year 2050.

This will only add strain to the average household, who are set to face a rise in excess of £100 towards their household energy bills, despite the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero promising to cut household bills by £300.

This is reflected by a recent IPSOS poll, which found that 41% of Britons believe that the economic costs of climate change will be greater than the measures to reduce it, and that 52% are too worried about the cost of living crisis to think about the impact of climate change.

Whilst the report from the ONS is extremely encouraging as 76% of Britons are embracing change, a quarter of the population being reluctant to alter their behaviour suggests that there is still a significant gap in achieving the required amount of behavioural change to help the climate crisis, and that cooperation may not improve whilst the economic costs remain so high.