Climate change

Climate change is a hot topic in the news this week.

Last Thursday the Government published its first climate change risk assessment for the UK (UKCCRA), highlighting concerns for the natural and built environment, agriculture, forestry, business, transport and other sectors. Today the Public Accounts Committee published a report on flood risk management in England.

We tend to think about climate change as a global issue – the 'double injustice' of the industrialised West burning carbon and the global South suffering the consequences. But do similar climate injustices occur within countries such as the UK? Are we equally responsible for and equally affected by climate change? Not according to our two reports published today, which highlight that the people who emit the least carbon in the UK are most likely to suffer from the consequences of climate change.

Flooding is probably the most significant natural hazard we face in the UK, and there is more to the issue than just coastal and river flooding. Around 2 million people are at risk from pluvial, or rain related, flooding, so we need a better understanding of who's vulnerable.

Explaining pluvial flooding

Pluvial flooding occurs when an extremely heavy downpour of rain saturates the urban drainage system and the excess water cannot be absorbed.

Somewhere between 4 and 5.5 million people in the UK live in fuel poverty – defined broadly as a situation where a household spends more than 10% of its income on fuel costs. Will existing fuel poverty policies reduce this number and, if not, what are the alternatives?

It promises to be 'a supercharged national occasion that offers an annual renewal of our ambition and confidence to combat climate change.'

Unfortunately, the headlines generated around the launch of Climate Week have been largely negative. Focus has been given to the ill-judged choice of corporate sponsors and the boycotts of several well-established environmental groups.

The deliberations at Copenhagen last week were hailed as the opportunity for the international community to respond to climate change. But the summit has disappointed many, with its failure to reach a legally binding agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.