Heat is a silent killer and summer heatwaves may become the norm due to climate change
EVERYONE has been affected by the extremely hot weather in the UK this summer.
Our parks, gardens and verges are scorched brown. Brooms Barn in Suffolk has gone for more than 50 days without any rain at all.
Wildfires have devastated Saddleworth Moor and Winter Hill, and fish have had to be moved by the Environment Agency from rivers as they dry up.
There have been hosepipe bans in the North-west of England, while Scotland may have recorded its highest ever temperature of 33.2ºC in Motherwell.
It’s not just the UK that is being affected. Japan has seen its highest ever temperatures, causing many deaths.
Meanwhile devastating fires with tragic consequences have been raging in Greece and California. The heat will undoubtedly have contributed to some deaths in the UK too.
Heat is a silent killer, and the old, frail and very young are the most vulnerable to it.
We won’t know for several months how many heat-related deaths there have been this summer, but in the exceptionally hot summer of 2003 there were 2,000 such deaths within 10 days.
And because of climate change, very hot summers may well be the norm by the 2040s.
This means heat-related deaths are set to increase from 2000 to 7000 per year unless further action is taken.
Climate change is making the weather we are seeing now more common and more intense.
Though some people continue to deny it, the vast majority of climate scientists (more than 97 per cent) agree that humans are causing climate change by burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating, travel and other uses. This calls for urgent action on two fronts.
Climate change stats
- Seventeen of the 18 hottest years on record globally have occurred since 2001.
- Of the top ten warmest years recorded for UK average surface temperature, eight have occurred since 2002.
- Since 1979, September sea-ice has declined by on average 13 per cent per decade. With less ice, less of the Sun’s energy is reflected back creating a feedback loop which leads to even more warming.
- Sea levels around the UK have risen at a rate of around 1.4 mm per year.
- CO2 levels in the atmosphere are at their highest level for at least 800,000 years, largely thanks to human activities.
We must reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases so that we keep future climate change in the second half of this century to a minimum, and we must prepare now for the impacts of climate change that are happening already.
The Government has an important role to play in helping us cope with the hot conditions we are experiencing now.
Buildings can be designed to be resilient to heat and cold, while being energy efficient and powered with clean sources of energy.
Somewhere between 20 and 40 per cent of existing buildings overheat, and new homes, care homes and hospitals are still being built that will continue to have a growing overheating problem in future years – with potentially fatal consequences.
This is because there are no regulations that require buildings to be resistant to overheating.
Other things can be done too.
Greening our urban environments with trees, hedges, grass, ponds, lakes, green roofs and green walls can all help to cool buildings considerably in summer while also raising winter temperatures.
This can cut energy consumption by a quarter – proving that acting on climate change can be a win-win.
There are many benefits to lowering our emissions of greenhouse gases too. Moving to electric vehicles will reduce the pollution that we breathe in our towns and cities, pollution that is even more damaging for vulnerable people when combined with the hot weather.
And switching to renewable forms of energy, such as wind power, means we don’t need to burn fossil fuels such as coal, another cause of polluted air.
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The UK has much to gain from addressing the risks of climate change. We can have a healthier and safer population, while growing low-carbon business and improving people’s prosperity.
Now that should give you a warm feeling.
- Baroness Brown of Cambridge is the deputy chair of the Committee on Climate Change – the official advisers to the UK Government on reducing emissions and preparing for climate change.