The costs of climate breakdown in the UK amount to an estimated £3,000 per household over the course of this year, new research by Global Witness shows.
Rising global temperatures, primarily driven by fossil fuel pollution, are on track to cause an estimated £1.1 trillion worth of damage to the UK’s economy over the next decade, according to the analysis. Per household, this comes to £38,000 over the same 10-year period. In 2025 alone, households face climate damage costs of £3,000.
The UK's climate damages bill includes the economic costs of flooding, crop losses, sea level rise, droughts, storms, disruption to overseas trade, and harmful impacts on public health that result from global heating.
Households are being hit directly by higher food prices, as climate heating is making extreme weather more frequent and severe, which can damage crop production and push up the price of
food.
In 2023, the effects of extreme weather alone added an average of £192 to each UK household’s food bill, according to the Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit.
Jeevun Sandher (Labour MP for Loughborough) said: “Our reliance on fossil fuels is making it harder for families to afford the basics.
“The high price of gas is leading to higher energy bills and inflation, while the warming of our planet is making food more expensive and is damaging long-term economic growth.
“This double hit is increasing costs for households across the country.
“Investment in clean energy is the best way to get household bills down and get wages rising, while ensuring we protect our planet for our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.”
Ellie Chowns (Green MP for North Herefordshire) said: “These shocking statistics are a wake-up call, showing just how much we stand to lose if we don’t
tackle the climate crisis.
“While communities are bearing the brunt of these costs – whether through flooded homes or higher grocery bills – fossil fuel giants continue to rake in outrageous profits.”
“This is clearly wrong. The polluters should pay. The Government must use the tax system to ensure that fossil fuel giants bear the costs of the damage they cause.”
Oil firms operating in the UK, including Shell, BP, TotalEnergies, Exxon and Chevron, are on track to make more than £56 billion in pre-tax profits from extracting oil in the UK North Sea over the next 10 years, according to forecasts from Rystad Energy.
Global Witness is calling on the UK Government to ensure some of these profits help communities to cover the costs of climate damage, and to support workers’ transition from high-carbon to green jobs in the UK.
Legislators in several states
in the USA, including California, Vermont and New York, have adopted or proposed laws that require fossil fuel companies to fund climate action projects within those states, including to compensate local communities for damage costs. These measures, however, are coming under attack from fossil fuel lobbyists.
Dominic Eagleton, Senior Campaigner with Global Witness said: “UK households are already paying the price of climate breakdown, with the effects of fossil fuel pollution driving more intense storms, flooding and heatwaves at home and abroad.
"The fossil fuel companies most responsible are not only raking in billions in profit but also face no obligation to pay for the climate damage their businesses cause.
“The UK Government needs to shift this burden from people onto big polluters. And climate damage costs would be much lower if governments took stronger action to tackle global heating, including a fair and fast shift
from fossil fuels to green energy.”
Global Witness’s analysis builds on research from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics.
This estimates the economic costs of climate heating in the UK against a scenario with no global temperature rises, and factors in potential benefits for the UK from higher temperatures such as new agricultural production.
The Grantham study estimates the UK’s climate damage costs under two scenarios: one assumes current global policies are maintained and no further measures are taken, which Global Witness used for this analysis. The other assumes stronger policies are introduced to tackle global heating.
The authors state that their results are conservative, likely lower-bound estimates of the costs of climate change to the UK.
Recent modelling by the Climate Change Committee shows that cutting the UK’s emissions by 87 percent by 2040 would help reduce household costs by £1,400 a year by 2040, as the transition to cheaper renewables brings down heating and motoring costs.