A quarter of UK residents say climate change and pollution are two of the biggest challenges facing society today, research from Eon suggests.
The energy company has released the results of its pan-European survey ahead of the COP24 conference in Katowice, Poland next week.
Its research shows that 27 per cent of UK residents believe climate change is the biggest issue, while 25 per cent rate pollution as the main concern.
Climate change and pollution are only surpassed by poverty, which was rated as the top worry by 35 per cent of those surveyed.
Meanwhile more than half of Britons (54 per cent) believe the country is not doing enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and tackle human impact on the planet. This is compared to 65 per cent of people across the European nations taking part in the survey.
Of those surveyed 61 per cent of those in the 18 to 30 age bracket believe we are not doing enough to tackle greenhouse gasses, compared to 48 per cent of those aged 51 and older.
Over a quarter of those surveyed in the UK (27 per cent) believe it is the responsibility of industry to tackle this issue.
More than two thirds (67 per cent) of UK residents have already started making changes to reduce their own impact on the planet, compared with 71 per cent across Europe, the survey revealed.
Interestingly 70 per cent of UK consumers said they would be willing to pay more if the manufacturer of a product was making sustained efforts to act in a climate-friendly way.
In response to the findings Michael Lewis, chief executive of Eon UK, said: “Climate change is not just a problem affecting distant countries; problems like pollution affect us in our cities and streets and through the air we breathe, which is why we all need to commit to make changes to tread more lightly on the planet.
“What is interesting in these statistics is that people believe there is a role for everyone in tackling climate change; whether that is all of us in our everyday lives, how businesses manufacture and distribute goods or with cities and national governments taking the lead across communities.”
Eon says there are several ways it is helping customers make changes to tackle climate change. These include switching away from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy, replacing petrol and diesel vehicles with low carbon electric alternatives, offering clean energy tariffs and improving the energy efficiency of homes.
The research polled more than 7,000 people across the UK, Germany, Sweden, Italy, the Czech Republic and Hungary.