EDINBURGH — The weather has cooled since a Europe-wide heat wave brought record temperatures here last month. But climate change is still on people’s minds.

At the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest of the 12 festivals held in the city each year, the topic has dominated the theater program, with dozens of shows on the subject, and even some stand-up comedy. At the smaller, grander Edinburgh International Festival, five international playwrights are in residency, writing climate change-themed plays. The Edinburgh International Book Festival is hosting talks on the subject. And the activist group Extinction Rebellion has set up a temporary gallery in town.

But are arts festivals themselves part of the problem?

An impact study commissioned by an umbrella body representing all 12 festivals estimated that they generated the equivalent of 44,130 tons of carbon in 2010, mostly from audience travel . That’s equivalent to burning 48.2 million pounds of coal .