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World desk5 min

Did the Hot Summer Make More People Worry About Climate Change?

Some European polls found modest rises in climate concern and stronger increases in heat awareness or attribution. The evidence does not prove a hot summer caused more worry.

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Somewhat, in some places—but the evidence does not show that summer heat caused the change. A 2026 European polling summary reports a small rise in some measures of climate concern and larger increases in noticing heatwaves or drought and connecting personal weather experiences to climate change. A UK tracker also found a modest seasonal rise in concern. U.S. polling, meanwhile, shows that many people who reported unusually hot weather believed climate change contributed to it, but does not show that their worry increased.

What does “more worried” mean in these polls?

Polls measure different attitudes that can move independently. Overall concern asks how worried someone is about climate change; salience asks whether it is top of mind. Other questions ask whether people noticed heat, experienced a weather event, or believe climate change contributed to it. A rise in one measure is not automatically a rise in all the others.

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The distinction matters for the headline question: people may be more likely to connect a heatwave with climate change without becoming more worried overall. And a poll conducted after a hot summer can show an association, but by itself cannot establish that the weather caused a shift in attitudes.

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What changed in the European polling?

The Climate Opinion Research Exchange (CORE) Wave 9 summary reports online data collected in July and August 2026 in most locations, with Norstat used in Scandinavian countries and Senegal. Its European results point to a small increase in the share who were very worried about climate change, alongside larger changes in reported heat awareness and attribution.

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Measure in the CORE summary Reported change What it tells us
Europeans noticing more frequent heatwaves and/or drought Up 12 percentage points More respondents reported noticing these conditions; this is not itself an overall-worry measure.
Strong agreement that respondents had personally experienced weather events resulting from climate change Up 6 percentage points More respondents strongly connected personal experience with climate change.
Belief that climate change will harm the world Up 5 percentage points A measure of expected harm, distinct from current worry.
Climate salience Reported as rising in France, Italy and Spain The summary names these countries but does not provide country-level percentages here.

The summary describes only a slight increase in Europeans who were very worried. It does not establish that every country changed in the same way, or that heat alone explains the shifts. The comparisons are observational, and the public summary does not provide enough detail to isolate heat’s causal effect. CORE Wave 9 summary

What do the longer-term European and UK figures show?

EU countries: widespread impacts and concern, not a single-summer test

A European Environment Agency and Eurofound report, published on 4 February 2026, draws on Eurofound’s 2025 online survey of more than 27,000 respondents across 27 European countries. Four in five respondents reported at least one listed climate-related impact in the previous five years, and more than half were very or quite concerned about future extreme temperatures. These findings show substantial reported experience and concern, but the survey period and questions do not measure whether one particular summer changed attitudes. EEA and Eurofound report

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The same survey found that over 38% said they could not afford to keep their home adequately cool in summer. That is context about people’s ability to cope with heat, not a measure of climate worry.

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UK: a small summer uptick, still below the 2021 figure

The UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s nationally representative Public Attitudes Tracker surveyed adults aged 16 and older from 8 July to 13 August 2025. Overall concern was 79% in Summer 2025, compared with 77% in Spring 2025; it had been 85% in Autumn 2021. The seasonal increase was modest, and the figures do not show that heat drove it. DESNZ Public Attitudes Tracker

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What does U.S. polling say about heat and climate change?

Pew Research Center surveyed 5,085 U.S. adults from 28 April to 4 May 2025 through its American Trends Panel. The panel was recruited using random sampling of residential addresses and weighted to represent the U.S. population. Roughly half said they had experienced long periods of unusually hot weather in the previous year. Among those respondents, 91% said climate change contributed to the heat a lot (64%) or a little (27%).

That result measures attribution among people who reported experiencing unusual heat. It does not show that their climate worry increased. Pew also found a partisan difference in reported experience: 60% of Democrats and 37% of Republicans said they had experienced unusually hot weather in the previous year. Those answers describe respondents’ perceptions, not an objective comparison of local temperatures. Pew Research Center findings

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A separate 2025 summary from Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communication found that 64% of U.S. adults believed global warming was affecting extreme heat. Yale distinguishes weather—the day-to-day conditions people experience—from climate, the long-term average of weather conditions over decades or more. A single hot season can prompt attention or attribution, but it cannot by itself establish a long-term climate trend. Yale climate opinion summary

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Can these numbers be compared directly?

No. They come from different places, dates, samples and questions. For example, the European figures combine a 2025 EU27 online survey reported in 2026 with a separate CORE summary of July/August 2026 polling; the UK figure comes from a national tracker; and Pew’s U.S. result concerns reported heat experience and attribution. Treating them as points on one continuous scale would obscure what each survey actually measured.

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  • Geography: EU27, selected European countries, the UK and the United States are distinct populations.
  • Timing: Survey dates range from 2025 to July/August 2026; some ask about recent seasons, others about experiences over several years.
  • Question: Concern, salience, noticed heat, personal experience and climate attribution are related but not interchangeable.
  • Method and sample: The surveys differ in recruitment, fieldwork and population coverage, so their percentages should retain their original context.

What can we conclude?

The best-supported answer is that some European measures moved upward after a heatwave summer: concern rose slightly, while reported heat awareness and climate attribution rose more. The UK’s overall concern measure also edged up between spring and summer 2025, but remained below its Autumn 2021 level. U.S. polling shows a strong perceived link between unusual heat and climate change among people who reported that experience, not a rise in worry.

These findings are consistent with heat making climate change more noticeable or more personally relevant to some people. They do not prove that a hot summer caused more people to worry, nor do they establish one worldwide trend.

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