If we learn nothing else from watching Greece burn this summer, it is the urgent need for adaptation. Even if all countries deliver their emission reduction pledges set under the Paris agreement we are still on course for 2.5C of warming. While the UK has escaped the heat this year, climate change projections indicate a future with wetter winters and hotter, drier summers, where 40C temperatures like those we experienced last summer could become the norm.
So what do we need to do to prepare? Last month, the UK government unveiled its third national adaptation programme, but it has been heavily criticised for promising much and delivering little. Many of the UK’s buildings were not designed with heatwaves in mind. Research published in Nature Sustainability in July estimated that there are more than half a million homes and other key buildings, such as hospitals, that will be unable to deal with the projected 30% increase in cooling need.
Luckily some cities have been thinking ahead and we can turn to them for inspiration. An analysis of adaptation plans for European cities identified Sofia, Bulgaria, and Galway and Dublin in Ireland as places that are leading the way, with a particular focus on the most vulnerable members of the population.
