UK ‘built for climate that no longer exists’

[SteamyTea]

UK ‘built for climate that no longer exists’ and needs urgent changes to survive global heating, report warns

Landmark report calls for widespread air conditioning and says UK temperatures forecast to exceed 40C by 2050

 

 

Fiona Harvey Environment editor

Wed 20 May 2026 00.01 BST

 

British homes will need air conditioning to survive predicted levels of global heating, the government’s climate advisers have warned in a report, as measures such as drawing curtains, opening windows and growing trees for shade are not likely to be enough.

Air conditioning should be installed in all care homes and hospitals within the next 10 years, and in all schools within 25 years, according to the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which published a major report on adapting to the impacts of global heating on Wednesday.

 

The government should also set a maximum temperature for working, indoors and outdoors, the advisers said. The UK should prepare for 2C of global heating by 2050, as attempts to limit temperatures to 1.5C above preindustrial levels under the Paris agreement appeared likely to fail.

Heatwaves are expected to exceed 40C in all parts of the UK by 2050. Periods of hot weather will be longer, which could lead to an additional 10,000 heat-related deaths a year. About nine in 10 UK homes are likely to overheat.

Julia King, the chair of the adaptation subcommittee of the CCC, said of the many climate threats laid out in the report, extreme heat posed the most immediate risk to life. “Extreme heat is certainly the most deadly of the climate impacts on the UK, so we need to see cooling rolled out at scale,” she said.

“Sometimes this will mean shading, but sometimes it will mean air conditioning. And either way, we’ve got to get serious about protecting our most vulnerable people in hospitals, in care homes, and in schools.”

Current air conditioning systems are seen as energy-intensive, accounting for about 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Photograph: mar-fre/Alamy

In 2022, when temperatures rose above 40C, it resulted in about 3,000 excess deaths, with periods of extreme heat likely to become “the new normal”. Rather than install cooling everywhere, people could choose to have one cool room to be used during heatwaves, the report said.

However, air conditioning is energy-intensive, accounting for about 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. More efficient modern systems can use heat pumps, which are already subsidised by the government to replace gas boilers, but these are rarely installed at present.

Sam Alvis, the head of energy security at the IPPR thinktank, called for more solar panels on roofs, alongside air conditioning. “We are going to have to get used to being a hot country, which is quite a mindset shift for the UK,” he said. “Air conditioning is actually a great pair for solar from an energy system point of view because it matches supply and demand, and your aircon is only going to be needed above certain temperatures.”

Emma Howard Boyd, a professor in practice at the London School of Economics, said heat was already killing people, but received too little attention. “Heat resilience cannot continue to be treated as an afterthought,” she said. “It belongs alongside flood preparedness and water security at the very top of the national resilience agenda and the wider prosperity of the UK.”

The climate crisis is costing the UK about £60bn a year, or about 2% of GDP, including flood damages and the loss of crops to farmers. “The UK was built for a climate that no longer exists today and will be increasingly distant in years to come,” the report found.

Low water levels at a reservoir in Longdendale, UK. The report suggests by 2050 the shortfall in the water supply could reach 5bn litres every day. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The committee also found:

The 7m UK properties at risk of flooding could increase by 40% by 2050, without action, and peak flow in rivers could be 45% higher. Sea levels will increase by 20cm to 45cm, putting some coastal areas at risk, and heavy rainfall intensity could increase by 60%. By the end of the century, if temperatures rise by 4C, the storm surges that currently occur once every 100 years would happen every year.

Natural flood defences, such as wetlands and “rewiggling” rivers, will not be enough, and more concrete flood barriers will be needed.

Droughts will also become much more frequent: river flows are likely to be about a third lower in summer than they were 20 years ago, and by 2050 the shortfall in the water supply could reach 5bn litres every day – the equivalent of about 2,000 Olympic swimming pools, or a small reservoir. More reservoirs must be built, to avoid the serious risk of the taps running dry.

By 2100, summers as dry as 2018 and 1976 would become the norm. Even by 2050, the number of high-risk days for wildfires are likely to double, and the wildfire season will extend into early autumn.

Schools should consider the impact of heat on pupils taking exams, not only related to classroom temperature but also to pupils’ ability to sleep at night when temperatures remain above 20C.

Domestic food production is under threat, and the government should take steps to ensure at least 60% of the UK’s food continues to be produced here. Food prices will rise under the impact of reduced crop yields for UK farmers, with potential disasters overseas.

Protecting people and infrastructure would cost about £11bn a year, the CCC estimated, with about half coming from the private sector. Every £1 spent would yield about £5 in benefits, however, and the UK invests 50 times this amount every year, some of it on infrastructure that exacerbates the climate crisis or vulnerability to it.

The cost of failure to act is rising, from about £60bn a year, and could reach £260bn a year in just over two decades.

None of the UK’s existing national adaptation plans – which are produced by each of the devolved governments – was fit for purpose, the CCC found. Preparing for the impact of the climate crisis, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions to lessen the impact, should be treated as national security issues, King said.

“With the right decisions, we can protect the people and the places we love,” she said. “So, the strong message is that decline is a choice, it’s a political choice, it’s not inevitable. We can do something about it.”

Water supplies also require urgent action. “We are facing a potential world where in 2050 you could turn the tap on and nothing would come out,” King said. “We need more new reservoirs. We need to be able to move water around the country. We need to address leaks, and we need to address water efficiency.”

Emma Reynolds, the secretary of state for the environment, made no new financial commitment after the CCC’s advice, but said the government was already acting. “We have invested a record £2.65bn to repair and build flood defences, protecting tens of thousands of homes and businesses, and have deployed the largest nature-friendly farming budget in history to support sustainable food production and security,” she said.

Edited yesterday at 05:46 by SteamyTea

[saveasteading]

 I think most of us on BH know and agree with this, but it is well written and deserves to be  distributed further.

Can you copy a link for it?

[Beelbeebub]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

British homes will need air conditioning to survive... 

If only there was a mass produced technology that could efficiently use electricity to heat and cool a space... 

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, Beelbeebub said:

If only there was a mass produced technology that could efficiently use electricity to heat and cool a space... 

Would need to be a tried and tested one.

 

[saveasteading]

I like the practical suggestion of one 'escape room'. That becomes a £1k per dwelling issue, and perhaps a balcony solar panel linked to it. 

Then can also be reversed for winter heat.

[Mike]

8 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

8 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

If only there was a mass produced technology that could efficiently use electricity to heat and cool a space... 

Would need to be a tried and tested one.

Aircon increases the heat island effect so, in urban areas, you'd ideally use ground source heat pumps.

 

That's already happening in some cities including Barcelona (in English), Munich (in English), Paris (in English), Lyon (in French) and Vienna, which plans to connect all buildings in the city by 2040 (detailed report, in English).

[Beelbeebub]

57 minutes ago, Mike said:

Aircon increases the heat island effect so, in urban areas, you'd ideally use ground source heat pumps.

 

That's an interesting idea, though is there any evidence?  I understand the theory but wouldn't the input (output?) of heat energy to the air mass be vansihngly small small vs the input from solar radiation and other energy use? 

 

By definition, if it measurably increaced the heat in the local atmosphere would t that start to rise and draw cooler air from surrounding land mass into the city? 

[Roger440]

14 hours ago, saveasteading said:

I like the practical suggestion of one 'escape room'. That becomes a £1k per dwelling issue, and perhaps a balcony solar panel linked to it. 

Then can also be reversed for winter heat.

 

My simple plan is an aircon unit in the main bedroom. Thats it. Downstairs living room, being 170 years old with 2 ft thick stone walls, tends not to be a problem anyway

 

Cooling a whole house is not a cheap undertaking.

[MikeSharp01]

We are just having a fan coil unit (FCU) in each bedroom run from the Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP), those and the cooling in the under floor heating (UFH) pipes should, I calculate, be enough although I can add a heat / cool battery in the mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system (MVHR) if I need to. 

[Dave Jones]

8 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said:

We are just having a fan coil unit (FCU) in each bedroom run from the Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP), those and the cooling in the under floor heating (UFH) pipes should, I calculate, be enough although I can add a heat / cool battery in the mechanical ventilation and heat recovery system (MVHR) if I need to. 

 

with the latest levels of insulation it will be plenty. we had days of 37c last summer. constant 20 in the house for free from the solar.

[sgt_woulds]

16 hours ago, Beelbeebub said:

That's an interesting idea, though is there any evidence?  I understand the theory but wouldn't the input (output?) of heat energy to the air mass be vansihngly small small vs the input from solar radiation and other energy use? 

 

By definition, if it measurably increaced the heat in the local atmosphere would t that start to rise and draw cooler air from surrounding land mass into the city? 

 

Heat islanding is real and was an issue we encountered when installing solar (we had maps for heat islands within London and would reduce our predicted generation accordingly.  We later made our own more accurate heat island maps based on actual generation figures.)  

 

Although each individual energy input is miniscule, collectively it has an exponential effect as Aircon has to work harder and harder to cool the same air. 

 

In a city there is no cool air to pull in due to all the Buildings / roads / concrete infrastructure transfering heat to it too  

 

Some studies suggest that large deployment of solar pv panels might actualy cool the air slighty, and it seems natural a no-brainer to install PV and Aircon together .

 

Frontiers | Solar panels reduce both global warming and urban heat island

 

[SteamyTea]

53 minutes ago, sgt_woulds said:

Some studies suggest that large deployment of solar pv panels might actualy cool the air slighty, and it seems natural a no-brainer to install PV and Aircon together .

 

Frontiers | Solar panels reduce both global warming and urban heat island

It also suggest that the French only need 32 litres of hot water.

Accounts for a lot.

Actually that is a good study. The counter intuitive "greater affect at night" is possibly the important part from a health perspective. By keeping the daytime temperatures as low as possible, more time below a critical temperature happens.

[sgt_woulds]

Add that to the increased use of woodfibre insulation in French cities (Biogenic insulation is required by new regulations), increasing decrement delay, and there is a chance that they can make city living (and sleeping) bearable during ever increasing heatwaves in the next 50 years.

 

Unfortunately, this won't happen in UK cities any time soon, and we all know that the next UK government will get rid of all the 'woke' crap.  Like saving energy and lives...

 

 

[sgt_woulds]

Our Building regs assume up to 125l hot water per person per day. 

 

Presumably because we will all be washing the sweat off more often... 🙂

 

[jack]

On 20/05/2026 at 06:45, SteamyTea said:

However, air conditioning is energy-intensive, accounting for about 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. More efficient modern systems can use heat pumps, which are already subsidised by the government to replace gas boilers, but these are rarely installed at present.

 

Non sequitur alert.

[Mike]

On 20/05/2026 at 18:40, Beelbeebub said:

On 20/05/2026 at 17:39, Mike said:

Aircon increases the heat island effect so, in urban areas, you'd ideally use ground source heat pumps.

That's an interesting idea, though is there any evidence?  I understand the theory but wouldn't the input (output?) of heat energy to the air mass be vansihngly small small vs the input from solar radiation and other energy use?

There's an evaluation for Paris for 2100 in English carried out in 2020. TLDR:

• If Paris growth continues through to 2100 based on current trends, and
• if optimistically efficient aircon is used to maintain 23 °C in all buildings, with the heat discharged into the air, and
• if other measures are taken to reduce temperatures (creation of parks, reflective roofs, etc.), then
• after day 9 of temperatures similar to the 2003 Paris heatwave (38°C maximum), the outside temperature 4 am would be up to 2.4 °C higher (2m above the ground), compared to using no aircon
• after day 9 of a 46°C maximum heatwave, the outside temperature 4 am would be up to 3.6 °C higher, on the same basis

On 20/05/2026 at 18:40, Beelbeebub said:

would t that start to rise and draw cooler air from surrounding land mass into the city?

The model used does take wind and land use into account, among many other factors.

[Mike]

9 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

It also suggest that the French only need 32 litres of hot water.

The French prefer showers?

9 hours ago, sgt_woulds said:

Our Building regs assume up to 125l hot water per person per day.

The British prefer baths?

 

Would be funny if true, but sadly it's not. The Regs actually say a maximum of 125L of potable water, rather than hot water :)