Urgent action needed to protect against effects of extreme climate change

The UK government needs to act urgently to protect people from the coming extreme effects of climate change, such as increasing storms and heatwaves, according to its most senior advisors.

In a report published on Tuesday by the UK Committee for Climate Change (CCC), experts argued that building regulations should ensure new homes were properly ventilated so they didn’t overheat as summer temperatures increased in the coming decades.

Lord Deben, chair of the Committee for Climate Change, explains why action on climate change now is important for the lives of our children:

The soaring temperatures of the UK’s coming heatwave will become the norm for British summers by the 2050s, according to the CCC.

A fifth of homes in the UK are at risk of overheating and around 90% of hospital wards were designed in such a way as to put them at risk.

Temperatures inside many hospitals can reach 30C even when it is just 22C outside and that makes sleep and recovery more difficult for patients.

Without appropriate action, said the CCC, the number of deaths from heat in the UK could triple by the 2050s to 7,000 every year.

Lord Deben says most fossil-fuel companies understand the need for action on climate change:

To prevent flash floods, they argued, towns and cities should be encouraged to stop paving over gardens and other urban green areas in a bid to prevent flash floods.

The UK has lost around 7% of its urban green spaces since 2001 and, if that trend continues, between a fifth and a quarter of the country’s green spaces will have disappeared by 2050.

In addition to preparing for the effects of climate change, the CCC report also had a series of recommendations for government to reduce the country’s carbon footprint, including an increase in subsidies for low-carbon technologies to generate electricity.The current subsidy scheme for solar and wind power (among others) runs until 2020 and the CCC said that the government had to indicate as soon as possible whether it would continue, so that the relevant industries could make long-term investment plans.

The CCC reports to parliament on how well the UK government is doing in meeting its commitments every year.

Today’s report is arguably its most important progress report to date, since it comes six months ahead of a major international meeting on climate in Paris.

In December, world leaders from 196 nations will come together in the French capital to hammer out their collective response to the biggest long-term challenge faced by human society: climate change.

Backed by the United Nations, these talks will aim to agree worldwide targets to reduce carbon emissions over the coming decades and work out how to pay for the climatic changes that are now inevitable in some parts of the world as the Earth warms - more storms, water shortages, rising sea levels and melting ice.

The UK has always tried to position itself as a leader on environmental issues - it had the world’s first climate change legislation, for example, in the form of the 2008 Climate Change Act.

Among other things, that committed the government to reducing carbon emissions by 80% in 2050, compared with 1990 levels.

There’s lots to feel encouraged about in the CCC’s progress report - in 2014, there was a 6% drop in overall carbon emissions and, to date, the government has spent £2.5bn to better-protect homes that are at risk of damage from the increased floods we can expect as a result of warming temperatures.

But, says the committee, we don’t yet know enough about what the current government is planning. Will politicians maintain the policies that have historically kept the UK’s carbon emissions falling?

Other recommendations from the committee include increasing government help for the estimated 45,000 homes that will be at increased risk from flooding by 2050.

To reduce air pollution, the government should also ramp up support for electric vehicles - drivers could save an average of £150-£370 per year while the health problems associated with pollution would also be reduced.

“This Government has a unique opportunity to shape climate policy through the 2020s,” said Lord Deben, the CCC’s chairman.

“It must act now to set out how it plans to keep the UK on track. Acting early will help to reduce costs to households, business and the Exchequer. It will improve people’s health and wellbeing and create opportunities for business in manufacturing and in the service sector.”

Emma Pinchbeck, Head of Energy and Climate Change at WWF-UK, said the committee’s words “should be a wake-up call to Ministers, prompting action to protect consumers, businesses and the environment from the costs of climate.

"Progress on deploying cost-effective measures has been unacceptably slow, creating a gap between rhetoric and reality and weakening the UK’s ability to meet its carbon budgets while keeping bills down."

John Shepherd of the University of Southampton National Oceanography Centre, said that the CCC report showed “we face a major global challenge in the next few decades to keep the impacts at a tolerable level, and the UK can play a leading role.

"The problems will get harder if we delay effective action any further, so industry needs clear political and financial signals so that it can respond effectively. Creating strong incentives for developing low-carbon technologies will be a crucial factor.”