Rural attitudes to climate change – equipping UK rural councillors to engage with their communities

Our findings dispel the notion that climate change is largely the concern of a metropolitan elite. In fact, rural dwellers in the UK were more likely than their urban counterparts to engage in personal actions to reduce their footprint such as buying local food and switching to renewable energy. However, 45% were worried about not being able to drive their petrol or diesel car.

We’ve presented this work in a slidedeck which includes key findings, as well as do’s and don’ts and suggested narratives for communicating about low carbon policies with rural citizens.

This work was commissioned by the UK100’s Countryside Climate Network (CCN) and Purpose Climate Lab.  The UK100 is a network for UK locally elected leaders who have pledged to switch to 100% clean energy by 2050, and they are using this research to help inform their rural members’ climate action plans, and to urge the UK government to invest in a decarbonised infrastructure which provides viable alternatives to the private car. The UK100 CCN shared some of the key insights from this research on their blog.

Media coverage of this work includes BBC Radio Cambridgeshire (starts at 1:50:00) as well as local news websites including The Epping Forest Guardian.