Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the Cop27 summit at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
(Picture: PA Wire)Londoners need to be prepared for more death and destruction from extreme weather and sea-level rise following the disappointing outcome from COP27 in Egypt.
Countries promised last year at COP26 in Glasgow to submit more ambitious pledges for cuts in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases but they did not deliver at COP27. And as Just Stop Oil has warned, the UK, like other fossil fuel producers, is still planning to dig up more coal, oil and gas, even though burning existing global reserves would cause dangerous climate change.
We are on track for the global temperature to be 2.5C higher by the end of this century than it was before industrialisation began in the 18th century. That would mean a temperature that last occurred on Earth about three million years ago. The polar ice caps were smaller back then and global sea level was five to 25 metres higher than today.
We can and must cut our emissions to avoid a potentially catastrophic return to a prehistoric climate. But it now seems likely that the global temperature, which has already increased by 1C, will now rise at least another half a degree in the coming decades. This means we will need more protection against, and stronger responses to, our changing climate.
COP27 agreed that poor countries should receive financial help to deal with climate-related loss and damage.But rich countries will also need to deal with a more hostile climate.
In London, we are already counting the cost. This summer we suffered hundreds of deaths and suburban wildfires during the record-breaking heatwave. And in summer 2021, more than 1,500 properties were flooded across the capital when parts of the city received more than twice the average monthly rainfall in just two hours.
We now need a proper Londonwide strategy to make us climate-resilient. We must also invest more heavily in cooler buildings, bigger flood defences and better drainage. But we will also have to face up to more death and more damage as we pay the price for the world’s failure to react decisively when scientists warned us about where we were heading.
