Britain must prepare for at least 2C of warming within just 25 years, the government has been advised by its top climate advisers.
That limit is hotter and sooner than most of the previous official advice, and is worse than the 1.5C level most of the world has been trying to stick to.
What is the 1.5C temperature threshold?
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to try to limit warming to “well below” 2C – and ideally 1.5C.
But with global average temperatures already nearing 1.4C, warnings that we may have blown our chances of staying at 1.5C have been growing.
This new warning from the government’s top advisers, the independent Climate Change Committee (CCC), spells out the risk to the UK in the starkest terms yet.
In a letter today, the CCC said ministers should “at a minimum, prepare the country for the weather extremes that will be experienced if global warming levels reach 2C above pre-industrial levels by 2050”.
It is the first time the committee has recommended such a target, in the hopes of kickstarting efforts to make everything from flooded train tracks to sweltering classrooms more resilient in a hotter world – after years of warnings the country is woefully unprepared.
How climate change affects the UK
The UK is already struggling to cope with the drought, flooding, and heat brought by the current 1.4C – “let alone” what is to come, the advisers said.
Just this year, the country battled the second-worst harvest on record and hottest summer ever, which saw an extra 300 Londoners die.
“Though the change from 1.5C and 2C may sound small, the difference in impacts would be substantial,” CCC adviser Professor Richard Betts told Sky News.
It would mean twice as many people at risk of flooding in some…
