Survey for Avaaz suggests support for Ed Miliband's call for action with only 27% denying climate change linked to floods

Nearly half of people believe that the floods and storms that have ravaged Britain for the past three months are a result of climate change, compared with just over a quarter who do not, according to a new poll.

The Labour leader Ed Miliband's statement at the weekend that Britain was "sleepwalking into a national security disaster" appears to have struck a chord, with 38% of respondents saying the government needs to take more action on climate change. Just 22% of people agreed that the government is taking strong enough action.

More than one in three people said that political leadership on climate change and extreme weather events would affect how they voted in future.

The poll of more than 2,000 people was carried out by ICM for the global civic organisation Avaaz. It found that 46% of respondents agreed that the "frequency and severity of the storms" were a result of climate change, while 27% did not agree.

Women and young people are more convinced than men and older people that the storms are linked to climate change. Only 23% of all women questioned do not think the storms and floods are caused by climate change, compared with 31% of men. In the 18 to 24 age group, the figure is just 17%.

The UK winter weather has become a flashpoint in the global debate over whether climate change is taking place and how governments should respond to it.

The proportion of people who think the environment is the biggest cause of concern in the UK has jumped from 6% to 23% in the last month, according to a YouGov poll.

Senior Conservative party politicians, known to include many climate sceptics, have been divided over the causes of the floods and storms.

Philip Hammond, the Tory defence secretary, said at the weekend that climate change was "clearly a factor" in the stormy weather but Michael Fallon, the Conservative energy minister, said that "unthinking climate change worship" had damaged British industry.

Labour has questioned whether the environment secretary Owen Paterson's climate change scepticism is blinding him to the dangers of flooding and extreme weather in future years.

Young people are overwhelmingly sure that climate change will pose a threat to their way of life. Two-thirds of people under 24 questioned by ICM said they thought that climate change would affect them, compared with 29% of over-65s. In total, 57% of the people asked thought climate change threatened the UK way of life.

The ICM poll backs up an Opinium poll for the Observer last week. This suggested that 51% of people thought David Cameron had responded badly to the floods, with 28% of these saying he had reacted "very badly" and 23% "quite badly". More than half of people questioned agreed the flooding was a sign of climate change while 24% disagreed.

Iain Keith, the Avaaz campaign director, said: "David Cameron has said that he will spend whatever's necessary to help people hit by the floods. But dealing with the consequences of climate change is not just about dams and dredging; it's about backing a long-term plan to cut emissions by half by 2030, which 50,000 people have urged him to do today."