Verdicts · Environment
What the UK thinks about the environment
Settled referendums
32
since Jun 2026
Votes cast
4,491
all time, on the environment
This week
1,040
votes · 2 referendums settled
Written opinions
195
all time, left by voters
This week's opinion highlightThe most respected opinion this week
“No. The idea is small. The stack is not. They want the boiler out, the heat pump in, no air-con from it, and now a cool roof. That is not a joined-up house. It is another duty. New builds can choose a light roof. Do not add a rule until the last three work. Winter heating still matters here.”
HardCompact, debating No on “Should new housing have 'cool roofs' to make them more energy efficient & help combat global warming? (E.G. LIGHT GREY)?” · read the thread →
4
Respects
Most respected on environment this week
- 1.HardCompact6 respects
- 2.BenL5 respects
- 3.JohnnyBoy4 respects
- 4.JustFactsNotBeliefs4 respects
- 5.Jonathan4 respects
Who answered this week
The 699 placed voters lean Centre Right overall.
H. Left6%
Left21%
C. Left8%
Centre7%
C. Right10%
Right40%
H. Right7%
Regions this week
South EastC. Right
ScotlandCentre
LondonCentre
North WestC. Right
South WestRight
YorkshireCentre
East of EnglandC. Right
North EastC. Right
West MidlandsC. Right
East MidlandsCentre
Northern IrelandRight
WalesC. Right
Votes each week
1,040so far this week
42827 Jul
4743 Aug
1,15410 Aug
54117 Aug
24 Aug
1,04031 Aug
All-time environment highlights
Biggest landslide
YES 89%
Should water companies stop paying dividends or bonuses until they fix their 2.6bn litres per day of leaks?
89% of 155 votes went the same way.
Closest result
YES 53%
Should the UK introduce permanent stronger taxes on fossil fuel profits?
Decided by 6 points.
Most debated
YES 82%
Should full ownership over our water shift back to public control, away from profit-driven private companies?
29 written opinions.
This week
2 settled · 1,040 votes
0% YES
Majority for
NO 34%
548 votes
0 skipped
by @MikeyN⏱ Ended 2 Sept 2026
Should new housing have 'cool roofs' to make them more energy efficient & help combat global warming? (E.G. LIGHT GREY)
The verdict
A light-grey roof beat the language of “another duty”: the chamber backed cool roofs by two to one, but the sharpest resistance came from voters who saw one more rule in an already crowded house.
0% NO
Majority against
YES 39%
492 votes
0 skipped
by @refnation⏱ Ended 30 Aug 2026
Should the production of data centres be temporarily banned?
The verdict
The pause lost, but not the argument behind it: water and power were the room’s live concerns, while the winning case was conditional rather than celebratory.
Every environment verdict
- YES 66%Should new housing have 'cool roofs' to make them more energy efficient & help combat global warming? (E.G. LIGHT GREY)?A light-grey roof beat the language of “another duty”: the chamber backed cool roofs by two to one, but the sharpest resistance came from voters who saw one more rule in an already crowded house.
- NO 61%Should the production of data centres be temporarily banned?The pause lost, but not the argument behind it: water and power were the room’s live concerns, while the winning case was conditional rather than celebratory.
- YES 82%Should full ownership over our water shift back to public control, away from profit-driven private companies?“Water is a PUBLIC utility,” the floor’s best Yes argument declared. The vote agreed by more than four to one, while the losing side’s strongest case was that ownership was a distraction from regulation.
- YES 83%Should the government provide £65 million in new grants and adjustments to help farmers cope with drought?Emergency relief for farmers carried the day, but the chamber’s sharpest objection called the package “Drop in the bucket” — support won, while confidence in its scale did not.
- NO 70%Will Labour still be in power in 2030 to enforce the ban on new petrol and diesel cars?“Badly phrased question” was the floor’s sharpest diagnosis: the room voted against it, but the argument was less about petrol and diesel than whether Labour can survive the next election — and sounded grim about its prospects.
- NO 54%Does Andy Burnham's new government role for wildfires set the right spending priority?A fire minister was cast as either a practical answer to wildfires or “gesture politics”; the chamber narrowly chose No, with scepticism about what the role would actually change.
- NO 57%Is the climate change narrative a method to hinder capitalism?“The only winner will be China” was the Yes camp’s warning; No won with a clear majority, but the debate’s real divide was over whether policy’s economic effect proves its intent.
- NO 75%Should the government strengthen the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate to reach net zero faster?With every argument coming from No voters, the chamber rejected a stronger mandate by two to one. The floor’s sharpest case called net zero “economic and industrial suicide”.
- NO 68%Will proposed prevention from human-induced (anthropogenic) climate change work?Every argument posted came from the No side, even as No won by two to one. The floor’s strongest practical case was blunt: “renewables alone cannot provide enough power”.
- YES 89%Should water companies stop paying dividends or bonuses until they fix their 2.6bn litres per day of leaks?“It is intolerable to reward companies...” was the room’s sharpest moral judgement; Yes won by nearly nine to one, with the debate turning on punishment, ownership and who pays.
- YES 53%Should the UK introduce permanent stronger taxes on fossil fuel profits?The chamber narrowly chose Yes, but the memorable line came from the losing side: “Labour cannot see a golden goose without strangling it.”
- YES 67%Should owners of Grade II listed homes face fewer restrictions on installing sympathetic energy efficiency measures?Two to one in favour, and the chamber barely bothered to argue the other side of it: this was a vote where property rights and net zero pulled in the same direction, leaving heritage protection with a single, largely unanswered voice on the floor.
- YES 62%Should the government expand the Sustainable Farming Incentive to pay more farmers for environmental improvements?A clear three-in-five majority backed paying farmers more to green their land, yet the most respected voice on the page belonged to a Yes voter uneasy about the scheme's churn — proof the winning side argued with its head, not its heart.
- NO 72%Rather than attempt to improve the energy efficiency of old housing stock should it be demolished and rebuilt?Demolition lost decisively, but not to a rival vision for retrofit — it lost to caution, with the chamber's sharpest lines warning against a "blanket rule" rather than making the case for repair.
- NO 64%Should the UK adopt a legally binding target to cut emissions by 87% by 2040?The chamber rejected a legally binding 87% emissions cut by 2040 by nearly two to one, and the sharpest voices against it did not quarrel over the science so much as the fairness of going first, one voter arguing for linking UK cuts to "China's" trajectory rather than racing ahead alone.
- YES 76%Should the badger cull be ended in favour of vaccination?What's notable here is less the size of the win than its shape: this is a rout that cuts clean across age, with the oldest voters on the platform - the cohort you'd expect to side with farmers on rural pest control - backing an end to the badger cull by roughly the same margin as the under-25s, three to one against the status quo.
- YES 68%Should the government spend £30m on a Farmer Collaboration Fund to promote peer learning and resilient farming?The verdict split less by ideology than by life stage: it was the farming generation in its prime — voters in their late twenties through mid-fifties — who backed the fund most decisively, while the very young and the over-65s were the only cohorts to tip into scepticism, as the £30m Farmer Collaboration Fund passed by roughly two to one.
- NO 63%Should Parliament approve the proposed Seventh Carbon Budget targeting an 87% emissions reduction by 2042?The Seventh Carbon Budget fell on a fault line as old as the target itself: younger voters warmed to it, older voters buried it, and the chamber rejected the 87% goal by a two-to-one margin.
- YES 61%Should the government spend £3.85bn a year on average to adapt to extreme heat?The under-35s carried this one almost to a person, while their elders split down the middle on committing £3.85bn a year to keep Britain cool — a generational hunch about climate costs, not a national consensus.
- NO 58%Should the government rely on voluntary landowner action to restore 30% of nature in England by 2030?A comfortable win for scepticism about goodwill-based conservation, but the real split runs through gender: men here leaned towards trusting landowners to do right by nature voluntarily, women didn't, by a wide margin.
Show all 32 verdicts ↓
- YES 72%Should the UK abandon its net zero target by 2050?A vote to scrap net zero by 2050 carried almost three to one, and the scepticism ran flat across every age band, undercutting the usual script of young idealists versus older sceptics.
- NO 69%Should the UK government host a prime-time televised national climate emergency briefing?Even amid a third summer heatwave, the chamber declined the theatre of crisis broadcasting, rejecting a prime-time climate briefing by more than two to one, with only the youngest working-age voters bucking the mood.
- YES 55%Should the government implement the Farming Roadmap 2050 for England?A narrow endorsement of a 2050 farming blueprint, carried by younger and middle-aged voters while the oldest cohort here rejected it outright and women split against it.
- NO 75%Should all UK councils be required to reach net zero by 2030?A rare generational island: the 25-34s alone leaned toward a 2030 net zero deadline, while every other age band from 35 up rejected it almost to a person, sinking the plan three to one.
- YES 85%Should licensed, controlled reintroductions of native species like beavers be expanded to rewild more UK areas?Beavers turn out to be one of the least polarising creatures in British politics: voters here backed expanding licensed rewilding by roughly six to one, with the over-45s and women coming closest to unanimity.
- YES 69%Should the UK overhaul planning rules to speed up building wind farms, solar farms, nuclear plants and transport links?Yes carried the day 69-31 on planning overhaul, but the chamber split hard by gender: men backed it 73%, women rejected it 64%, a 37-point gulf hiding inside the headline landslide.
- YES 60%Should Flood Re cap insurance payouts for the UK's wealthiest households?A modest 60% majority backed capping Flood Re payouts for the wealthiest, but the chamber split cleanly by generation — younger and older voters keen to rein in subsidy for mansion-band homes, the 45-54s unanimously against.
- NO 55%Should the UK government introduce stronger measures to protect people from extreme heat?No won a narrow contest of 11 votes, 6 to 5, on whether Westminster should do more to shield people from extreme heat — a margin thin enough that this reads less like a verdict than a shrug.
- NO 54%Should the UK government increase woodland creation to meet the 30,000-hectare annual target?No won narrowly, 15-13, on a small chamber where only the 25-34 bracket carried real weight — and split 41% yes, tilting the whole result against more woodland planting.
- NO 53%Should the UK use private finance for flood defence investment?A narrow win for No on private finance for flood defences — 18 votes to 16 — with the chamber essentially split down the middle and only the smallest, oldest brackets breaking decisively either way.
- YES 67%Should UK businesses importing soy, palm oil, cocoa and rubber be required to prove their products are not linked to illegal deforestation?Yes carried it 14-7, a two-to-one margin, but the chamber split more by age than anything else, with the youngest voters almost unanimous and the 35-44s tied.
- YES 57%Should the UK introduce anti-deforestation rules for imported commodities?Yes carried the chamber 13-10, a narrow win built on near-unanimity among the small over-35 cohort rather than any broad consensus among the younger majority who actually filled the ballot.