Anti-climate opinion columns becoming a regular feature in UK newspapers.

Sidhi Mittal, 21st January 2026, https://www.edie.net/anti-climate-opinion-columns-becoming-a-regular-feature-in-uk-newspapers/

Nearly 100 UK newspaper editorials were published opposing climate action in 2025, a record figure that shows the scale of the backlash against net-zero policies in the right-leaning press.

Carbon Brief examined editorials published since 2011. These included those written by external columnists and those acting as a publication’s official editorial ‘voice’.

In 2025, it identified 98 editorials rejecting climate action, compared with 46 in support. This was the first year in which opposition overtook support across the 15 years of data.

All 98 editorials opposing climate action appeared in right-leaning titles. The largest contributors were the Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, followed by the Times and the Daily Express.

By contrast, almost all of the editorials pushing for more climate action were published in the Guardian and the Financial Times, which have far smaller circulations than several of the conservative papers.

Overall, 81% of climate-related editorials in right-leaning newspapers in 2025 rejected climate action – either overall, or due to specific policy interventions.

Carbon Brief said this marked a sharp change from a few years earlier, when many of the same papers showed increased enthusiasm for climate policy as Conservative governments under Theresa May and Boris Johnson introduced the net-zero by 2050 target and backed measures to deliver it.

Right-leaning press drives opposition

The media shift has coincided with political changes on the UK right, according to the research.

Over the past year, the Conservative party has distanced itself from the net-zero target it legislated for in 2019 and from the Climate Change Act.

Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch has stated that she would scrap the Act altogether if elected. This would spell the end of the UK Government’s official climate advisory body and all future carbon budgets.

Reform UK has also been rising in the polls while pledging to “ditch net-zero”. Carbon Brief said the positions taken by right-leaning newspapers tend to reflect and reinforce the politics of the parties they support.

None of the editorials opposing climate action questioned the existence of climate change or the science behind it. Instead, they criticised the policies designed to address it, a position Carbon Brief describes as “response scepticism”.

In many cases, newspapers attacked “net-zero” without mentioning climate change at all.

The report links this to earlier research by Dr James Painter of the University of Oxford, which found that UK newspaper coverage has been “decoupling net-zero from climate change”. This comes despite polling showing majority public support for many of the policies that underpin net-zero and for the 2050 target itself.

Economic arguments dominated the opposition. Carbon Brief found that more than eight in ten of 2025’s editorials rejecting climate action cited cost as a reason, describing net-zero as “ruinous” or “costly” and blaming it for driving up energy bills.

Earlier this month, several national newspapers also gave prominent coverage to a pamphlet from the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) on the “cost of net-zero” that misrepresented the work of the National Energy Systems Operator (NESO).

The IEA claimed net-zero costs could exceed £7.6trn, but the figures were based on the flawed assumption that no investment would be made in energy systems if the UK did not have its 2050 climate target.

Critics also say the IEA mischaracterised NESO’s analysis. Regardless, the pamphlet appeared on the front page of the Daily Express and was reported by political correspondents at the Express, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph without scrutiny of the underlying energy data.

Miliband under sustained attack

Alongside criticism of policy, newspapers also targeted the Labour Government’s energy security and net-zero secretary, Ed Miliband.

In 2025, UK newspapers published 112 editorials taking personal aim at him, nearly all in right-leaning titles. The Sun alone published 51.

Six in ten editorials opposing climate action used criticism of climate advocates as part of their justification, and almost all of these mentioned Miliband.

Miliband was described as a “loon”, a “zealot” and the “high priest of net-zero”, and accused of “eco insanity” and “quasi-religious delusions”.

Newspapers frequently framed policies as “Ed Miliband’s net-zero agenda”, “Mr Miliband’s swivel-eyed targets” or “Mr Miliband’s green taxes”, presenting climate measures as being imposed on the public by the energy secretary. This is despite the fact that many targets and initiatives were kick-started under the Tories.

Renewables, nuclear and fossil fuels

Carbon Brief additionally analysed editorials on specific energy technologies.

There were 42 editorials criticising renewable energy in 2025. For the first time since 2014, anti-renewables editorials outnumbered those supporting them.

Cost was the dominant argument, with 86% of critical editorials using economic justifications.

The Sun referred to “chucking billions at unreliable renewables”, while the Daily Telegraph warned of an “expensive and intermittent renewables grid”.

At the same time, right-leaning newspapers continued to support nuclear power despite its high costs. There were 20 editorials backing nuclear energy in 2025, nearly all in conservative titles, and none opposing it.

The Times was the only right-leaning newspaper to publish any editorials backing renewables.

Support for fracking also reappeared. After falling away in 2023 and 2024, there were 15 editorials in 2025 arguing that fracking would be economically beneficial, even as the Government plans to ban the practice permanently.

North Sea oil and gas remained a major focus. Thirty editorials, all in right-leaning newspapers, mentioned the issue, with most arguing for increased extraction while also opposing climate action or renewable expansion.