The Guardian view on extreme weather: build national readiness – or let everyday life keep breaking down
Britain's four-day heatwave – made 100 times more likely by the climate crisis – is expected to claim about 600 lives. Researchers say high temperatures from Thursday to Sunday would lead to a sharp rise in excess mortality, especially among older people in cities such as London and Birmingham. They forecast the deadliest day as Saturday, with temperatures above 32C and about 266 deaths. These are not abstract figures, but lives cut short by a threat we understand, yet remain unprepared for.
Young people seem to grasp this. In a YouGov poll last week, roughly a quarter of 18- to 24-year-olds said they hoped there wouldn't be a heatwave – while more than two-fifths of older people welcomed the sunshine. That generational split isn't just cultural. It reflects an entirely rational anxiety: younger people face a future living in a climate emergency. The generation that caused and benefited from the conditions driving global heating will be gone long before the worst costs – financial, environmental, social – have to be paid.
The effects are already here. In 2022, almost a fifth of UK hospitals were forced to cancel operations during the three days when temperatures soared highest because NHS buildings could not cope with the heat. That was a summer of hosepipe bans and wildfires. A year later, floods caused by extreme rainfall contributed to a third of all UK train delays, according to campaigners at Round Our Way. From drought to downpour, climate chaos is driving up food prices – UK-farmed carrots and lettuce now cost a third more than two years ago. For Britons, climate breakdown is felt not in the disappearance of distant ice caps but postponed appointments, cancelled trains and bigger shopping bills.
Britain, warn the government's own advisers on the Climate Change Committee, is not institutionally ready. There's no national adaptation budget, no cross-government plan and no clear account of what's even being spent. The recent spending review proves the point. While there is a modest rise in flood defence funding to £1.4bn a year, the Treasury ignored calls, notably from experts at the London School of Economics' Grantham Institute, for a joined-up approach, leaving key risks – health, infrastructure, food security – unfunded and uncoordinated.
And the cost of doing nothing is mounting. The investigative campaigners Global Witness calculate that in 2025 UK households face a £3,000 bill in climate-related costs. But the solutions exist. The London Climate Resilience Review lays out the blueprint: heat plans, flood protection, NHS retrofits and early-warning systems. The review led to the capital conducting a disaster training exercise, Operation Helios, to test its readiness for extreme heat. Other metro mayors are looking at London as a model.
According to Labour's manifesto, preparing for the future means Britain adapting to big shifts in climate and nature. There has been some positive change. The government's infrastructure strategy talks about climate resilience for new capital stock. But plans need funding, not just fine words. The UK requires a national adaptation budget, drawn together by central government but managed and transparently delivered locally. The Office for Budget Responsibility recognised during the pandemic that emergency spending on the climate was affordable. It still is. What's coming is no mystery. What works is already known. What's missing is the willingness at the heart of government to act in a purposeful way.
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