As the UK starts to clear up after the lashing from Storm Darragh and its 90mph winds, the new head of the Climate Change Committee says we’re not ready for weather events like this.
Emma Pinchbeck told the BBC that the nation is not equipped to deal with the increasing severity of extreme weather such as storms and flooding, which many say is being driven by climate warming actions. She said infrastructure being built today should have climate change proof properties.
She told the BBC: “We’re off track against where we should be – and that’s things like flood defences, or are our houses built on flood plains? In the summer are our cities ready for extreme heat? These basic things.”
“We have to prepare our infrastructure for it. We have to prepare the economy for it. We have to prepare our homes for it.”
The Johnson government published a climate risk assessment in 2022, which warned the impacts of a changing environment could cost the UK billions of pounds a year.
