A key Government adviser has warned “this is as good as it gets” for the heat and drought-ravaged UK without action to drive down climate emissions.
Baroness Brown, who chairs the independent advisory Climate Change Committee’s adaptation work, called for measures to help the UK cope with more extreme weather that rising global temperatures are bringing.
These range from grants for vulnerable families for air conditioning to cooled libraries stocked with toys for mothers and children to escape overheating flats.
But the crossbench peer warned it “gets worse from here” until the greenhouse gas emissions – mostly caused by burning fossil fuels in power plants, vehicles, home heating and industry – behind global warming are cut to zero overall, known as net zero.
The warning comes as the Prime Minister prepares to chair an emergency Cobra meeting on the crisis, amid drought and as parts of central, east and southern England face a rare amber warning for extreme heat on Thursday, with temperatures set to peak as high as 38C.
In a stark warning to politicians and others lobbying to water down commitments to get the UK to net zero by 2050, or claiming that the answer to the climate crisis is simply to adapt to rising temperatures, she said: “We need to remember that this is as good as it gets.
“It gets worse from here. Until we get to net zero, things go on getting worse.
“This isn’t the worst we can expect, this might be the best we can expect.
“People keep saying we’ve got to get used to this being the norm, but we don’t get a norm until we get to net zero, because we’re on a continuous path of the weather getting more extreme until we get to net zero” she warned.
“Until we stop burning fossil fuels, then this is the best it’s going to be.”
She issued the warning as 27 million customers are under hosepipe bans, with the whole of Wales and nearly three quarters of England in drought, while Southern Water has put in an application for a rare order that would ban businesses from non-essential water use.
The summer has seen multiple heatwaves, which have likely caused a record number of heat-related deaths, ambulance services have seen record call-out days, schools have closed in the heat, rail lines have buckled and train services have been cancelled or delayed.
Baroness Brown also pointed to farmers warning of hits to milk yields and harvests, and the Europe-wide impact on food production likely to put up prices.
“The evidence is screaming at us that we have to do something,” she told the Press Association.
The Climate Change Committee’s “Well Adapted UK” report, published earlier in the summer, warns the UK needs to start preparing for 2C of global warming by 2050 – compared to around 1.3C today – which Baroness Brown said is “probably the best we could hope for”.
She said there was a need for more reservoirs, easing planning rules to make it easier for farmers to build storage that could fill up in wetter winters and use for irrigation in dry summers, and the new water regulator must have a focus on tackling leaks and helping households reduce their water use.
Hospitals and schools need appropriate cooling systems, and vulnerable households will need support to help them keep cool – much of which is likely to be air conditioning, she said.
And she reiterated her call for a rethink of the school year so that young people were not sitting important exams at the hottest time of the day – when they may have not been able to sleep in tropical nights.
She also warned that sporting events that make up a traditional British summer such as the London Marathon and Wimbledon tennis championships were having to consider whether they needed to move their timings.
Action to stop things getting worse for the UK on water, heat and flooding, would cost about £11 billion a year split between public and private sources, according to estimates from the committee, which has a statutory role to advise Government on climate action.
But it estimates climate change is already costing up to 2% of GDP a year – up to £60 billion – in impacts from flooding damage to failing harvests, and that could rise to 5%, or £260 billion by 2050.
Baroness Brown said £11 billion would be a very good return on investment, adding: “It’s a time when the Government is very pressurised in terms of spending, but this is spending that makes a difference for people.”
But she pointed to the dangers of soaring heat on people’s health, with temperatures of 48C possible in south-east England in the future without action to cut global emissions to net zero, and warned “we can’t keep adapting”.
She said she was giving the new Government led by Prime Minister Andy Burnham “the benefit of the doubt” at the moment, and said departments had been told they have to plan for 2C of warming by 2050.
But the UK could not keep treating extreme weather with an emergency response every other year, she said, adding “it’s got to become how we normally behave”, with the country ready for the droughts, floods and high temperatures that it is increasingly suffering from.
Share