By DAVID WILCOCK, DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR Published: 10:32 BST, 10 September 2025 | Updated: 10:32 BST, 10 September 2025
Britons are cooling their enthusiasm for Net Zero amid the wearying cost of living crisis, new data reveals today.Less than a third of voters back the proposed 2035 ban on sales of new petrol and diesel cars designed to speed a move to electric vehicles.And amid a stagnant economy and toughening job market they are less willing to make sacrifices than they were in 2021, analysis by YouGov for the Times found. The proportion prepared to pay higher domestic bills has halved, and fewer people were prepared to pay higher taxes, cut back on meat and dairy produce and cut back on air travel.Overall the proportion of people saying the threat from climate change had been exaggerated rose more than 50 per cent, though almost two-thirds (61 per cent) still say it has not been overblown. Professor Wouter Poortinga, an environmental psychologist at Cardiff University, told the Times: 'Climate change is being politicised [in the UK] in the same way that has been done in the United States.'If you have Kemi Badenoch standing up saying that we're going to drill, baby, drill, that will have a polarising effect.'
