UK requires urgent climate adaptations including air conditioning, report warns

The United Kingdom was built for a climate that no longer exists and requires urgent adaptation to survive global heating, the government’s climate advisers warned in a report issued Wednesday.

Air conditioning should be installed in all care homes and hospitals within the next 10 years, and in all schools within 25 years, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which published a major report on adapting to the impacts of global heating.

The advisers recommended the government set a maximum temperature for working, both indoors and outdoors. The UK should prepare for 2°C of global heating by 2050, as efforts to limit temperatures to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels under the Paris agreement appear likely to fail.

Heatwaves are expected to exceed 40°C in all parts of the UK by 2050. Periods of hot weather will be longer, potentially causing an additional 10,000 heat-related deaths annually. About nine in 10 UK homes are likely to overheat.

Julia King, chair of the CCC’s adaptation subcommittee, said of the many climate threats outlined in the report, extreme heat posed the most immediate risk to life. “Extreme heat is certainly the most deadly of the climate impacts on the UK, so we need to see cooling rolled out at scale,” she said.

“Sometimes this will mean shading, but sometimes it will mean air conditioning. And either way, we’ve got to get serious about protecting our most vulnerable people in hospitals, in care homes, and in schools.”

In 2022, when temperatures rose above 40°C, about 3,000 excess deaths were recorded. Periods of extreme heat are likely to become “the new normal.” The report suggested people could choose to have one cool room to use during heatwaves rather than installing cooling everywhere.

Air conditioning is energy-intensive, accounting for about 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. More efficient modern systems can use heat pumps, which are already subsidized by the government to replace gas boilers, but such installations remain rare.

Sam Alvis, head of energy security at the IPPR thinktank, called for more solar panels on roofs alongside air conditioning. “We are going to have to get used to being a hot country, which is quite a mindset shift for the UK,” he said. “Air conditioning is actually a great pair for solar from an energy system point of view because it matches supply and demand, and your aircon is only going to be needed above certain temperatures.”

Emma Howard Boyd, a professor in practice at the London School of Economics, said heat was already killing people but received too little attention. “Heat resilience cannot continue to be treated as an afterthought,” she said. “It belongs alongside flood preparedness and water security at the very top of the national resilience agenda and the wider prosperity of the UK.”

The climate crisis is costing the UK about £60 billion a year, or roughly 2% of GDP, including flood damages and crop losses for farmers. “The UK was built for a climate that no longer exists today and will be increasingly distant in years to come,” the report found.

The 7 million UK properties at risk of flooding could increase by 40% by 2050 without action, and peak river flow could rise 45%. Sea levels are expected to increase by 20 to 45 centimeters, threatening some coastal areas, while heavy rainfall intensity could increase by 60%. By the end of the century, if temperatures rise by 4°C, storm surges that currently occur once every 100 years would happen annually.

Natural flood defenses such as wetlands and “rewiggling” rivers will not suffice, and more concrete flood barriers will be required.

Droughts will also become far more frequent. River flows are likely to be about one-third lower in summer than 20 years ago, and by 2050 the shortfall in water supply could reach 5 billion liters daily – equivalent to about 2,000 Olympic swimming pools or a small reservoir. More reservoirs must be built to avoid the serious risk of taps running dry.

By 2100, summers as dry as 2018 and 1976 would become the norm. Even by 2050, the number of high-risk days for wildfires is likely to double, and the wildfire season will extend into early autumn.

Schools should consider the impact of heat on students taking exams, not only related to classroom temperature but also to students’ ability to sleep at night when temperatures remain above 20°C.

Domestic food production is under threat, and the government should take steps to ensure at least 60% of the UK’s food continues to be produced domestically. Food prices will rise due to reduced crop yields for UK farmers, with potential disasters overseas.

Protecting people and infrastructure would cost about £11 billion a year, the CCC estimated, with about half coming from the private sector. Every £1 spent would yield about £5 in benefits, and the UK invests 50 times that amount annually, some of it on infrastructure that exacerbates the climate crisis or vulnerability to it.

The cost of failure to act is rising, from about £60 billion a year, and could reach £260 billion a year in just over two decades.

None of the UK’s existing national adaptation plans – produced by each of the devolved governments – was fit for purpose, the CCC found. Preparing for the impact of the climate crisis and reducing greenhouse gas emissions should be treated as national security issues, King said.

“With the right decisions, we can protect the people and the places we love,” she said. “So, the strong message is that decline is a choice, it’s a political choice, it’s not inevitable. We can do something about it.”

Water supplies also require urgent action. “We are facing a potential world where in 2050 you could turn the tap on and nothing would come out,” King said. “We need more new reservoirs. We need to be able to move water around the country. We need to address leaks, and we need to address water efficiency.”

Emma Reynolds, secretary of state for the environment, made no new financial commitment after the CCC’s advice but said the government was already acting. “We have invested a record £2.65bn to repair and build flood defences, protecting tens of thousands of homes and businesses, and have deployed the largest nature-friendly farming budget in history to support sustainable food production and security,” she said.