<
https://medium.com/the-new-climate/the-uks-warning-we-are-not-prepared-for-climate-change-db3299ee7dad>
"The race to Net Zero by 2050 is on. The recent IPCC report warned what’s at
stake. At a national level, the recent Skidmore Review laid out the economic
and societal benefits of getting to Net Zero as fast as possible (TL;DR: our
energy bills will be cheaper, and we’ll stop dying from polluted air). But what
of progress? If Net Zero were a marathon, have we just fired the starting
pistol, are we halfway, or are we collapsing from exhaustion in the final 5K? A
new report from the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC), ‘Progress in adapting
to climate change, 2023’ provides an answer. And it makes for uncomfortable
reading.
“The lack of urgency with which Government has approached this task over recent
years stands in sharp contrast to the experience of the damaging impacts on
people, ecosystems and infrastructure”, it states. It goes on to accuse the UK
Government of having “not adequately prepared the UK for climate change”, with
“very limited evidence of the implementation of adaptation at the scale needed
to fully prepare for climate risks facing the UK across cities, communities,
infrastructure, economy and ecosystems.”
In particular, the impacts from extreme weather in the UK over the last year
highlight the urgency of adapting to climate change. The record-breaking
temperatures seen in summer 2022, with temperatures exceeding 40ºC for the
first time here in human history, brought unprecedented numbers of heat-related
deaths, wildfire incidents and significant infrastructure disruption. These
impacts, say the CCC, “highlight the UK’s critical exposure and vulnerability
to extreme weather even today. Climate change means many weather extremes
driving these impacts will continue to get worse for several decades at
least.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
