Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Guardian.
Chapter 2: Why can't the UK cope with extreme heat?
Today, why can't the UK cope when it gets hot, hot, hot? If you're listening outside the UK, you might be forgiven the eye roll. The Brits. Obsessing over the weather? Tell us something new. But this week's heatwave across Britain and much of Europe doesn't feel like an ordinary event. Take it from Fiona Harvey, the Guardian's environment editor.
You know, we get heatwaves in this country, but they're usually in July or August. We're still only in May. And just a few weeks ago, people had their heating on. People were running around in jumpers and long trousers and so on, you know.
At its hottest, the country saw a record-breaking 35 degrees. Sweaty, maybe feeling unwell, unable to sleep.
We've been talking about these tropical nights, which is astonishing for the UK.
In short, I am allowed to be cranky because it's very, very hot. Absolutely. I'm not getting enough sleep. We should all be cranky.
We've become a nation of toddlers.
And this isn't just about the fact that we're not acclimatized to tropical nights. It's our entire infrastructure. Homes, schools, hospitals, office blocks, most of which weren't built for the climate we now have.
We've seen the heat records for May not just surpassed, but really shattered. You know, normally heat records are surpassed by, you know, a fraction of a degree, something like that. But this time we're talking about more like two degrees nearly. And that's a lot.
From The Guardian, I'm Nosheen Iqbal, today in Focus. If this is the new normal, how do we adapt? Fiona, it is hot. It was much hotter earlier this week, but it is still very warm today. You are The Guardian's environment editor, our cool, calm voice. Now, before I get to the big questions of climate change, how do you deal with a heatwave?
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Chapter 3: What are the basic measures to deal with a heatwave?
If you're in a very small flat, it can feel like a rabbit hutch.
Have building regulations adapted to climate change so that, you know, anything that's built now has to be fit really for hot temperatures?
We have this new future home standard which is coming in. A lot of that has focused on insulation for keeping homes warm so that you use less energy to heat homes. But you've got to provide means of cooling homes as well. And actually, that has been a bit of a blind spot in those regulations. And There's one solution which is probably going to become more popular is heat pumps.
Now, we're used to thinking of them as a replacement for gas boilers, but they can also be used the opposite way round. They can be used to cool rooms during hot weather. Insulating houses as well can help to keep heat out, but people have got to use it right. People have got to be taught, in a sense, how to use their own homes.
It's not just homes, is it, that potentially need this retrofitting with heat pumps and better insulation. It's also the places we work, shop and what have you.
Well, if the government were to say that, you know, people can't be expected to work in temperatures above a certain level... then that would mean that employers would have to ensure that all of their buildings were capable of being cooled to that kind of level. Workplaces have not taken this seriously because they haven't been regulated to do so.
For instance, in Spain, you know, the recommendation is that workers shouldn't work above 27 degrees. Here in the UK, where's the pressure for government to impose those new rules for working?
I think the pressure is coming from unions at the moment and from workers themselves. And I think we will see that pressure increasing because, you know, more and more this will impact on productivity. Workplace efficiency. Yeah. When it starts affecting the bottom line, companies will pay attention.
Fiona, what were the short-term fixes recommended in the report and how easy are they to implement?
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Chapter 4: What does the Climate Change Committee report reveal?
And we need to avoid that. At all costs. And the way to avoid that, the only way to avoid that, is by cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero. So suggesting that you can just kind of put that off, that's not really an urgent problem, is insane. This is not some kind of mad, faraway future that, you know, a few scientists think might happen anytime.
We're seeing the planet change in front of our eyes. The other thing that Tony Blair doesn't take account of is that wedding ourselves even more closely to gas in the short term doesn't make sense because we're in the midst of a global fossil fuel crisis where fossil fuel prices are going through the roof. Now, Tony Blair, very close to many petrostates, they want us to remain hitched to oil.
other voices in Tony Blair's ears from big tech and they want big these big data centers everywhere and they're worried you know that renewable energy can't be built fast enough for them to build them so they are agitating for more gas and so on is that really where you want to put your children's future gambling on a resource that is declining and that is killing us
And that is causing massive problems that will cause our planet to become unlivable within your children's lifetimes. Is that really where you want to be?
Fiona, do you think these heat waves are helping people re-engage with this urgent need to slow the climate crisis? Do you think, are they helping environmental campaigns? Or does that urgency seem to drop off as soon as the temperature goes down?
I think that people are seeing heat waves to such a degree that it is changing people's consciousness. A few years ago in London, we saw temperatures go over 40 degrees for the first time. And I think people find that quite a shock. I think people are very aware of the climate crisis to an extent that our politicians past and present do not understand.
From the discourse that our politicians have, you would have thought that it was a minority interest to care about the climate crisis. That's not true. The Reform Party keeps trying to tell us that people don't want net zero. Actually, two thirds of people in this country want us to meet our net zero targets. And that's a pretty big majority, you know, in anybody's book.
It's a problem that our politicians have and that our media have. has rather than a problem that ordinary people in this country have people are voting with their feet as well you know people are putting their own solar panels on people are buying electric cars so the public in the uk is way ahead of most of our politicians on this please please catch up
no better way to say it. Fiona, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. That was The Guardian's environment editor, Fiona Harvey. Do look up her analysis of that CCC report, follow her work, and much more at theguardian.com, where you can also read our coverage of that Tony Blair essay, if you're so inclined. And that's it for today. This episode was presented by me, Nosheen Iqbal.
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