While major heatwaves have affected southern Europe, China, the US and many other areas, it has been raining and less hot in the UK. But that doesn’t mean there’s no risk of extreme heat: this exact week last year, the UK broke 40°C for the first time.
Even if countries deliver on their emission reduction pledges, set under the Paris agreement, the UN Environment Program estimates that we will still see at least a 2.5°C rise in global temperatures. For the UK, the new reality is that 40°C temperatures are possible and will eventually become the norm, and the country needs to adapt quickly.
Adaptation means making changes in social, economic and ecological systems to reduce the impact of events such as heat waves. For example, creating green space in urban areas to provide a cooling effect that reduces the intensity of extreme heat. Although the government has recently released a new proposal for UK preparedness, as researchers of climate change adaptation plans we have seen little done.
Even before the Paris agreement requires adaptation plans, the UK has begun planning adaptation actions under the Climate Change Act 2008. On July 18, as required by law, the UK government released its third National Adaptation Plan (NAP3), after it was leaked a day earlier.
The government’s own official advisory body, the Climate Change Committee (CCC), quickly criticized the plan. The chairman of the CCC’s adaptation committee said the new publication represents progress on previous plans but “promising more action is not enough. […] The scale of the climate impacts we are seeing makes it clear that resilience to climate change must be an even greater national priority”.
What risks does the UK recognize?
Climate change projections show that the UK will experience hotter summers and warmer winters. This will likely cause more flooding and more heat. These projections are used by the government to develop climate change risk assessment, on which national adaptation plans are based. NAP3 identifies eight priority areas for action, including health risks from extreme heat, climate-related power supply failures and breakdowns in supply chains.
To deal with these risks the UK is planning important actions to protect against extreme heat and flooding from sea level rise and rainfall. For example one of the highest profile schemes is the Thames Barrier and associated infrastructure, which protects London from flooding. The Environment Agency has recently reported confidence that the scheme will be reliable until 2070 but there is little confidence it will remain the case for the rest of the century as sea levels rise.
Progress has also been made in building stability in water supply and transportation. However, insufficient progress has been made in health care, energy supply, telecom and food supply, both in terms of policy development and action.
UK adaptation plans
NAP3 will provide more structure, compared to previous plans, and delivery through the current management process. For example, integrating climate change into planning decisions through the National Planning Policy Framework. Changes have also been made to building regulations to include provision for overheating in new buildings.
This is useful, but there is still a large amount of heritage infrastructure and buildings that are not adequately taken into account. A recent paper in Nature Sustainability estimated that in the UK there are around 570,000 homes and other buildings, such as hospitals, which cannot cope with the projected 30% increase in demand for cooling associated with 2°C of global warming. Such buildings should be retrofitted with cooling systems, better ventilation and natural or artificial shading.
Cooling should also be considered in conjunction with other methods such as urban planning, introduction of non-native, drought-tolerant species and development of green infrastructure and public awareness campaigns. Therefore, there is still much to be done.
The UK, like many countries, has a number of frameworks and plans, such as the Heatwave Plan, Green Infrastructure Framework, and National Infrastructure Delivery Plans. All of these relate to or consider climate change. The national adaptation plan should, in theory, bring them together in a coherent approach. However, they are not integrated, do not consider the dependencies between sectors and issues and they lack appropriate targets.
Adaptation is complex, involving many parties on many scales from the great Thames Barrier to a few trees in the street outside your house. It can’t be taken with a clue. This lack of targets, and appropriate indicators and data is an important obstacle—sometimes we risk not knowing if we are investing in effective adaptation.
The UK can look elsewhere in Europe for inspiration. An analysis of adaptation plans for European cities identified Sofia (Bulgaria) and Galway and Dublin (Ireland) as the best quality. In Slovakia, green infrastructure is developed in the most vulnerable areas of cities. Or it can be looked at in Gujarat, in India, where district cooling schemes are reducing air pollution and reliance on air conditioning.
National adaptation plans have evolved, but those that are actually coordinated at the national level, as in Ireland, are rare. As a result, there are still trade offs. For example relying on air conditioning for cooling creates more emissions and is out of reach for everyone.
Much more needs to be done to adapt to climate change and build resilience to extreme heat, floods and other extreme events should they occur. But it requires more focus and coordination among national governments to avoid significant and costly consequences.
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Citation: UK still unprepared for extreme temperatures—here’s what to do (2023, July 24) retrieved on July 24, 2023 from https://phys.org/news/2023-07-uk-extreme-temperatureshere.html
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