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The Climate Change Committee published its latest stock take of climate preparedness, painting a stark picture of floods, heat risks and possible water shortages in the UK – while emphasising how much can still be done to support, protect and prepare communities.
‘A Well-Adapted UK’ highlights that 92% of the country’s homes are likely to ‘overheat’ by the middle of the century – while peak river floods could be 45% higher, and water shortfalls could exceed five billion litres per day. Inaction could cost anywhere between £60-£260 billion per year.
A citizens’ panel, published alongside this report, found that people people want to see adaptation happening now and for it to be done ‘properly’, with long-lasting preventative solutions that limit harm to no more than what is already being experienced.
The stocktake points towards a range of key policy measures needed to improve UK resilience to rising climate impacts, including:
The paper illustrates that effective heat adaptation requires multifaceted action that goes beyond public warnings – including the ways overheating risk needs to be improved in planning, building design, regulation and delivery.
UK building regulations can support adaptation to increasing overheating risk – however, there are several key issues associated with ‘Part O’ of the regulations in particular – including:
A survey of 1,500 UK households carried out in 2023 has found that 19% of households reported using AC, compared with figures of around 3% in 2011 and approximately 5% of UK homes in 2018 reported in other sources. This suggests a substantial shift in domestic cooling practices over the past decade.
The timing of AC purchases was particularly interesting: 81% of AC users reported purchasing their AC between 2022 and 2023, while only 19% had purchased it before 2022. This suggests that the experience of recent extreme heat (such as the record breaking 40C heatwave of 2022) and overheating may be contributing to a rapid increase in demand for domestic cooling.
The findings point to a changing UK debate around domestic cooling, with households increasingly turning to mechanical cooling as they experience more frequent and severe heat. The authors note that:
“If summer warming trends continue, our survey suggests, AC adoption is likely to increase, placing both a significant burden on electricity grid peak demand, and leading to economic inequalities, particularly among lower socioeconomic groups.”
According to Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) latest carbon budget, a range of low-carbon choices will form part of a “balanced pathway” towards net zero – with food and diet changes making “smaller, but important contributions” to this transition. Household low-carbon choices contribute to one-third of emissions reduction in 2040, while a shift in average meat and dairy consumption are anticipated to make up 6% of these household emissions reductions. The CCC note that:
“By 2040, 25% of meat (30% of red meat) and 20% of dairy is replaced with lower-carbon foods, compared to 2019 consumption levels”
Drawing on evidence from a Citizens’ Panel, which was convened as part of the report, the CCC found that:
Interestingly, much of the news coverage of the Carbon Budget focused on diet shifts, despite a greater emphasis on other measures. (Electrification and low-carbon electricity supply make up the largest share of emissions reductions in the CCC’s pathway – 60% by 2040).
Several key barriers around changing food policy in the UK have been highlighted in a report drawing on interviews with former prime ministers, health secretaries and other senior ministers. While the piece focuses largely on the obesity crisis, its implications are relevant in the context of the climate crisis.
In terms of barriers to widespread dietary changes, the high profile interviewees argue that:
The report goes on to offer practical advice on how today’s politicians can drive meaningful change in food policy:
In the face of rising climate impacts, UK-based researchers are calling for more measures that simultaneously tackle the root causes of climate change, while enabling society to adapt.
Efforts to tackle climate change have tended to prioritise mitigation (reducing emissions) over adaptation efforts (reducing vulnerabilities), and these two broad types of measures are often split across government departments, such as Defra and DESNZ in the UK.
But new research, using the UK’s record-breaking 40C heatwave in 2022 as a case study, has found clear demands for national and local governments to roll out measures that combine mitigation and adaptation.
Policy-makers, climate organisations, and those working in emergency response felt that approaches – such as creating climate-resilient neighbourhoods, tree-planting and other nature-based solutions – should be a priority, given their dual benefits. They felt efforts to combine emissions reductions and adaptation have challenges, but were feasible, with better coordination.
The new analysis also suggests that framing these efforts as part of working towards a ‘climate resilient net zero’ can be a useful way of engaging a range of relevant audiences and decision-makers – building on existing support for net zero.
The study findings are supported by Climate Barometer tracker insights, which shows that both the public and MPs feel mitigation and adaptation are equally important. It also echoes previous work which found that the public view mitigation and adaptation as “two sides of the same coin”.
In a reversal of the government’s decision to grant planning permission for a new coal mine near Whitehaven in Cumbria, the High Court ruled that the greenhouse gas emissions of the coal to be burned at the mine had not been taken into account when the decision had been made.
Instead, and echoing the claims of ‘net zero’ airports which don’t include the emissions from flights, consideration had only been given to the emissions released in building and operating the facility.
The High court decision came during the same month that the last of the UK’s coal-fired power stations was closed.
In a widely anticipated move, the new Labour government announced reforms to the planning system which make the development of onshore wind farms easier (the previous Conservative government had a def-facto ‘ban’ in place).
Onshore wind is a very popular form of energy, which people across the political spectrum support. Whilst reforms of the planning system remove an important barrier to the development of onshore wind farms, early (and inclusive) community engagement is also a critical piece of the puzzle.
YouGov carried out polling just after the July 4th General Election, focused on the planning reforms Labour had announced. Whilst building houses on the ‘green belt’ provoked across-the-board opposition, building green infrastructure was widely popular:
Six in ten (60%) Britons favour ending the current ban in England on building new onshore wind farms, with more strongly supporting such an overturn (30%) than opposing it to any degree (23%). Not only can this policy count on the support of at least half of all groups, it is the most popular of Labour’s proposed reforms among Conservative voters, with 54% in favour of scrapping the ban.
Carbon Brief has published an interactive tool which allows different aspects of climate and energy policies to be searched (and compared) for the five most popular political parties at the 2024 General Election:
“With the exception of climate-sceptic Reform, all major political parties continue to back the UK’s net-zero climate goal. Heading into the election, however, they have talked about the target in very different ways, with the Conservatives focusing on costs and Labour on benefits.
Following 14 years of Conservative government, which included the Covid-19 pandemic, the global energy crisis and Brexit, the polls overwhelmingly suggest that the opposition Labour party will take power in July.
In the interactive grid below, Carbon Brief tracks the commitments made by major political parties in their latest election manifestos. The grid covers a range of issues connected to energy and climate change.
Each entry in the grid represents a direct quote from one or more of these documents. The grid will be updated as each party publishes their manifesto.”
Following sharp criticism from the Climate Change Committee (which said the Scottish government was failing to deliver on its net zero goals and had no credible delivery strategy), a target to reduce the country’s emissions by 75% by 2030 was dropped.
The Scottish Net Zero Cabinet Secretary Màiri McAllan said she “accepted” the target was no longer achievable.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) seemed reluctant to concede the target they had set was now impossible to achieve. This stands in contrast to the rhetoric deployed by Rishi Sunak in September 2023 when he announced delays to some UK-level net zero goals, positioning them as a ‘burden’ that the government would protect voters from.
The fallout from the SNP’s announcement was immediate and significant.
The SNP’s power-sharing coalition with the Scottish Green Party was dissolved days later, with disagreement over the decision to scrap the 2030 target cited as one of the reasons for the breakdown of the agreement. Humza Yousaf subsequently resigned as First Minister.
Some commentary suggested that the disagreement over the climate targets reflected the divisiveness of net zero in Scotland, but a poll conducted whilst all of this was unfolding underscored the support among Scottish voters for the country’s net zero ambition.
The Green Alliance Net Zero policy tracker has monitored government policies since 2020. The March 2024 update compares progress against the emissions pathways set out in the Net Zero Strategy, last updated in 2023. The report concludes that across the whole economy, and for many individual sectors, there is a continued lack of progress on decarbonisation, and adds that ‘strong leadership is missing across the political spectrum’.
Beyond the material threat to decarbonisation this lack of leadership poses, Climate Barometer tracker data is clear that voters want and expect leadership on climate change.
Its absence therefore also undermines policies which require buy-in and acquiescence from the public, including the transition from gas boilers to electrified heat pumps.
The Spring 2024 budget was extremely light on green spending announcements – making it one of the “least green budgets” of recent years according to reporting in The Guardian.
Given that the net zero economy is booming across the country – and that both voters and MPs see clean energy as the sector most likely to generate further growth – the absence of additional green investment is perhaps the most striking climate takeaway.
There were a smattering of ‘green tinged’ announcements (rounded up by Carbon Brief) which included:
The budget did not include any measures to reduce the cost of charging electric vehicles (EVs) – something that the former Top Gear journalist Quentin Wilson’s FairCharge campaign had been calling for. In fact, by extending the freeze on duty charged on petrol and diesel fuels, the budget prioritised petrol and diesel motoring over EVs.
Research on the UK’s response to the record breaking 2022 summer heatwaves has found that decision- makers, first responders and community feel England is “not prepared” to manage future extreme heat events – particularly if these were to occur more frequently.
Reflecting on the 2022 heatwave response across England as a whole, as well as specific regions (London, Manchester and Yorkshire and Humber), research participants expressed concerns about a lack of preparedness for the heat, a lack of specific resources and funding, as well as the need for better communication, public engagement and education.
In a related policy note, the authors highlight that:
“The heatwave season of 2022 serves as a warning that England and the rest of the UK are not ready to respond adequately to such extreme heat events. Yet events like this are likely to become more common and severe, thus preparedness needs to be improved to reduce avoidable deaths, minimise the economic impacts of future heatwaves, and shield the most vulnerable from the worst of the effects.”
The campaign groups Greenpeace and Uplift launched a legal challenge against Government plans to develop the Rosebank oilfield in the North Sea.
The development is at odds with guidance from the Climate Change Committee, which has cautioned against the development of new oil and gas fields in the North Sea as inconsistent with the country’s net zero targets.
The COP28 conference ended with a call for a transition away from fossil fuels – although stopped short of calling for a phase out (or even phase down) of oil and gas. In the space between global net zero goals, and the continuing need for fossil fuels in the short term, politicians and campaigners are shaping the pace and ambition of the shift away from oil and gas. Find out what the UK public thinks about transitioning away from fossil fuels here.
The Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s 2023 autumn statement was presented as a plan for growing the UK economy, and addressing cost of living pressures through tax cuts and other measures.
Analysis carried out by Carbon Brief found that Hunt used climate-related keywords less in his latest speech than in his first autumn statement in 2022, or in the spring statement earlier this year, and that he did not specifically mention “climate” at all.
The graph tells a story of the prominence and salience of climate change set against economic considerations at different moments in the past decade-and-a-half.
In the Chancellor Jeremy Hunnt’s Autumn Statement, it was confirmed that households living near proposed new electricity transmission infrastructure (i.e. the pylons and power lines required to transmit electricity from offshore wind and other renewable sources, to households) would be offered discounts on their electricity bills. The Chancellor said:
‘Following consultation earlier this year, we confirm that we are currently minded to provide both an electricity bill discount for properties located closest to transmission network infrastructure and a wider community benefit. The wider community benefit will be co-developed by the project developer and local community to best reflect community preferences. Our response to the consultation has been published alongside this document. We intend to publish guidance on wider community benefits in 2024. This guidance will be voluntary whilst we explore options for a mandatory approach. We will provide further information on the overall community benefits policy, including bill discounts and options for developing a mandatory approach, in 2024.’