In this report, Green Alliance director Stephen Hale examines why the existing plethora of Government climate change initiatives and commitments are failing to achieve the progress required in climate change mitigation. Hale suggests four major flaws in the current political approach to climate change: Climate change is seen primarily as an environmental problem; there is too great a focus on behaviour as the key issue for individuals, rather than their potential political impact;

What assures consumers on climate change? published in 2007 by AccountAbility and Consumers International, also looks at consumer attitudes to climate change and to their role in tackling it through changes in behaviour. Like the Ipsos-Mori report, it finds a gulf between expressed concern for climate change and the actual taking of action.

Warm Words II: How the climate story is evolving and the lessons we can learn for encouraging public action, published in 2007 by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) revisits research that the IPPR published last year which examined the public discourse of climate change in the UK; this report highlights what has changed since the 2006 publication. The report looks at language around climate change both in the national media (newspapers, television etc) and in the local press.

In May the DTI published Renewable Energy Attitudes and Awareness Research which examines people's awareness of and attitudes to renewable energy. Generally awareness of renewables tends to be high (although there is less awareness of options such as biomass. Most people are in favour of renewable energy This said only a third of respondents said they would be happy to live within 5km of a wind farm

Defra has published a number of studies resulting from its 2005-2006 cross-cutting research programme on Pro-Environmental Behaviour Change. Several studies were commissioned as part of this programme, each with a remit to explore a particular aspect of pro-environmental behaviour change. A summary of the main study under taken by the University of Westminster and entitled Promoting Pro-Environmental Behaviour: Existing Evidence to Inform Better Policy Making can be downloaded as can a number of supplementary papers.

This synthesis of academic and non-academic literature highlights what is and is not known about public attitudes to environmental change. It reviews attitudes and responses to: climate change; specific climate change impacts (i.e. flooding, heat stress and rising sea levels); changes in ecosystems, landscapes and species; energy technologies and infrastructure (including renewables, fossil fuels and nuclear energy); and different campaigns and engagement activities and their successes and different theories associated with environmental change attitudes.

In January 2009 the UK Department for Transport published the findings of an 18 month study into public understanding of climate change, how this relates to their travel choices, and the role of information in increasing public awareness and understanding of the issues, broadly categorised as: Climate change Barriers and motivations for travel behaviour change Role of information in improving public awareness and understanding

DEFRA has published a framework to encourage environmentally friendly behaviour among individuals and communities. The report pulls together evidence on public understanding, attitudes and behaviours and draws conclusions on the potential for behaviour change among members of the public. It identifies 12 headline behaviour goals based on a range of low/high impact and easy/hard behaviours which could potentially engage large numbers of people and others which would be more appropriate for targeting particular population groups. These are: use more efficient vehicles