Claim: British Media are “Divorcing” Net Zero from Climate Change

Essay by Eric Worrall

Is the British establishment detaching from Labour’s Failed Net Zero policies, while still claiming climate change is a crisis?

We analysed 73,000 articles and found the UK media is divorcing ‘climate change’ from net zero

Published: December 24, 2025 2.55am AEDT
James Painter
Research Associate, Reuters Institute, University of Oxford

In October 2024, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch declared herself a “net zero sceptic”, but “not a climate sceptic”. Most recently she doubled down, announcing plans to scrap the 2030 ban on new petrol cars in a 900-word Sunday Telegraph article that did not mention climate change once. 

Badenoch is not an outlier. She’s following a similar script to one increasingly found in the British press.

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In 2018, when our data begins, the link was explicit. In that year, 90% of articles mentioning “net zero” also included the phrase “climate change” or a similar term like “global warming”. By 2024, this figure had fallen to just 42%.

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This is part of a wider trend of “response scepticism” over the past decade in parts of the UK media. I co-authored a report published in early 2025 which found that scepticism of climate science has largely disappeared from opinion pieces and editorials, but criticism of the policies required to tackle climate change is pervasive. 

“By removing the scientific and policy context,” argues Chalkley, “net zero risks being reframed – no longer the solution to stopping climate change, but part of a green culture war.”

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Read more: https://theconversation.com/we-analysed-73-000-articles-and-found-the-uk-media-is-divorcing-climate-change-from-net-zero-272527

Research Associate James Painter also provided a link to his own work, which confusingly is written by a different author;

British media ‘divorcing’ net zero from climate change – analysis

22 Dec. 2025

Polling shows public confused over meaning of net zero.

By Will Vowell
info@eciu.net

A growing proportion of articles in UK national newspapers focussed on ‘net zero’ are failing to reference climate change, new academic analysis has found. It points to a ‘divorcing’ of climate change from the solution to prevent it getting worse, despite low levels of public understanding around what net zero means. 

Failing to reach net zero emissions will mean climate impacts continue to become more extreme. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated in its 2023 AR6 Synthesis report, agreed by all the world’s governments: “Limiting human-caused global warming to a specific level requires limiting cumulative CO2 emissions, reaching at least net zero CO2 emissions, along with strong reductions in other greenhouse gas emissions.”[1] 

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It comes amidst public confusion and a lack of understanding around the term ‘net zero’. Polling from Climate Barometer in April 2025 found 22% of those surveyed wrongly thought net zero meant ‘producing no carbon emissions at all’, rising to 41% amongst supporters of Reform UK.[2] 

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Read more: https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/british-media-divorcing-net-zero-from-climate-change-analysis

Nine months ago the Tories officially abandoned consensus with Labour’s Net Zero;

However, the Tories are not above promoting their own energy fantasies. From 2023, just before the Labour landslide victory in the 2024 General Election;

In my opinion this whole development stinks of wedge issue manipulation. The current poll leader, Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, is openly climate skeptic. Perhaps the Tories are hoping to salvage their electoral hopes by appealing to people who have defected to Reform, who are still concerned about climate change.