About the portal

Climate change is a complex system issue. Understanding and knowledge can help to design and implement effective measures to reduce the impacts and severity of associated risks to humans, other forms of life on Earth and the environment more generally.

High quality, trusted data, statistics and analysis are required to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation measures and adaptation practices.

In recognition of this, analysts from across government departments, agencies and public bodies came together to bring these data and statistics into one place to improve coherence, accessibility and comparability.

The UK Climate Change Statistics Portal provides an overview dashboard visualising six statistical indicators, and the ability to click through each to discover more indicators and information in those six areas: climate and weather; emissions of greenhouse gases; drivers contributing to climate change; impacts on nature and society, mitigation measures to limit the scale of climate change; and adaptation metrics to track effective actions and sustainability.

Explainer articles support understanding and provide further analysis and insight, drawing on indicators within and across these six areas. These look at the UK’s changing climate; measuring UK greenhouse gas emissions; and emissions and international trade.

The  data explorer  also allows you to search and filter the datasets behind the indicators and explainer articles and download them for deeper analysis in a structured open and consistent format.

The Portal was originally developed as a pilot project of the Integrated Data Service and launched ahead of and showcased at the UN Climate change conference COP26 held in Glasgow in November 2021. It was a beta site from October 2022.

The Portal demonstrated the power of bringing high-quality data, statistics and analysis together, making them easier to access and more usable by policymakers and the public.