UK voters need to hear battle over bills and climate crisis are linked, green experts say | Local elections 2026

Doorstep feedback suggests the rising cost of living in the UK will be the defining issue of Thursday’s local elections. But green campaigners have warned voters need to be informed about the links between inflation and the impacts of fossil fuels and the climate crisis, or that the remedies they choose could make the situation worse.

Greenpeace UK’s head of politics, Ami McCarthy, said: “These local elections have a global context, driven by the Iran war, as people’s bills and prices soar due to a new fossil fuel crisis.

“Bringing the UK out of the cycle of fossil fuel disaster and switching to renewable energy will secure a stable and affordable energy supply. Voters face a choice between parties that want to keep us dependent on expensive, imported oil and gas, and parties that offer a way out of this cycle of insecurity.”

The Reform party, led by Nigel Farage, is expected to do well in the elections with around 5,000 council seats up for grabs in England and, to a lesser extent, in Scotland and Wales. The party takes an anti-climate stance and has promised to encourage fracking, impose punitive taxes on renewable energy production and block solar and wind farms. Conservatives have also embraced more drilling in the North Sea and downplayed the climate crisis without explicitly denying it.

But Fatih Birol, the world’s leading energy economist and head of the International Energy Agency, said new oil and gas fields would do little to improve Britain’s energy security or alleviate high prices.

Mike Childs, director of science, policy and research at Friends of the Earth, argues that opting instead to increase renewable energy production offers a better way out of the crisis because solar and wind energy are cheaper, safer than oil and not subject to pressure from hostile forces. “Most people in Britain support strong climate action. Voters deserve candidates who will act in their interests, not on behalf of polluters or the super-rich, when the same solutions cut bills, restore nature, stimulate the economy and make our local areas better places to live.”

Energy is not the only problem. “Cheaper bills, better quality housing, access to green space and more frequent bus services are among the issues voters care about most,” Childs said following listening exercises by Friends of the Earth groups in the UK.

Ed Matthew, UK director of the E3G think tank, said water and air pollution were also big concerns. “Local people want an end to the pollution that is ruining their lives.”

According to the VoteClimate initiative, tactical voting can play a significant role in the results. tracks seats and voting intentions. The group identified about 1,800 seats where the Green Party had a chance of winning; but much of this could come from the Labor Party, which also has strong policies on increasing renewable energy and green solutions to ease the crisis of living.

Around 240 seats across England are “super marginal” An election in which the difference between defeat and victory for the Greens and Liberal Democrat candidates could be as low as around 50 votes. Of these, around 114 are seats where the Greens and Reform could edge each other by around 50 votes. These include seats in Hounslow, Croydon and Oxford, with others scattered across the country. Ben Horton, director of VoteClimate, said most people in the UK wanted strong climate action but the issue was too often ignored. “The climate emergency is accelerating and it is time for our politicians to act accordingly,” he said.

According to the National Farmers Union, the main problems in rural areas are likely to be planning, rural crime including the fly scourge, continued poor internet and mobile phone connections and food supplies; Farmers want at least 50% of food purchased by municipalities for schools, hospitals and other public purposes to be from local sources.

NFU president Tom Bradshaw said: [farming] The sector remains quite low. Farm businesses are under extreme cost pressures for feed, fuel and fertiliser; “These pressures, geopolitical tensions that began with the invasion of Ukraine and most recently the war in the Middle East, combined with unpredictable climate and extreme weather conditions, are affecting our ability to produce food.”

The answer, McCarthy suggested, would not be more fossil fuels, but rather taxation of those who contribute most to the crisis of life. “People and businesses need support during this turbulent time,” they said. “What better way to raise funds than to properly tax the eye-popping and paltry profits of oil and gas companies?”