\n<\/p>\n
B<\/span>ritain\u2019s four-day heatwave \u2013 made 100 times more likely by the climate crisis \u2013 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t be a heatwave \u2013 while more than two-fifths of older people welcomed the sunshine. That generational split isn\u2019t 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 \u2013 financial, environmental, social \u2013 have to be paid.<\/p>\n The effects are already here. In 2022, almost a fifth of\u00a0UK 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\u00a0contributed\u00a0to 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 \u2013 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.<\/p>\n Britain, warn the government\u2019s own advisers on\u00a0the Climate Change Committee, is not institutionally ready. There\u2019s no national adaptation budget, no cross-government plan and no clear account of what\u2019s even being spent. The recent spending review proves the point. While there is a modest rise in flood defence funding to \u00a31.4bn a year, the Treasury ignored calls, notably from experts at the London School of Economics\u2019 Grantham Institute, for a joined-up approach, leaving key risks \u2013 health, infrastructure, food security \u2013 unfunded and uncoordinated.<\/p>\n And the cost of doing nothing is mounting. The investigative campaigners Global Witness calculate\u00a0that in 2025 UK households face a \u00a33,000\u00a0bill in climate-related costs. But the solutions\u00a0exist. 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.<\/p>\n According to Labour\u2019s manifesto, preparing for the future means Britain adapting to big shifts in climate and nature. There has been some positive change. The government\u2019s 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\u2019s coming is no mystery. What works is already known. What\u2019s missing is the willingness at the heart of government to act in a purposeful way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Britain\u2019s four-day heatwave \u2013 made 100 times more likely by the climate crisis \u2013 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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9347,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[1515,1512,1516,1514,587,1510,337,120,1513,1511,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-9346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-breaking","9":"tag-build","10":"tag-editorial","11":"tag-everyday","12":"tag-extreme","13":"tag-guardian","14":"tag-life","15":"tag-national","16":"tag-readiness","17":"tag-view","18":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}