Extreme heat has forced the cancellation of a climate event on extreme heat, due to be held in London and attended by leading climate adaptation experts
Extreme heat has forced the cancellation of a climate event focused on the “critical need to improve extreme heat governance”.
The event was due to take place on Wednesday at the Shaw Library at the London School of Economics (LSE) as part of Climate Action Week.
Titled “Extreme Heat: Improving Governance and Strengthening Action Around the World”, the conference was being hosted by LSE’s world-leading Grantham Research Institute alongside partners including the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance.
However, it was cancelled after the Met Office issued a red weather warning for extreme heat covering a swathe of southern England, including London, from 9am on Wednesday to 9pm on Thursday.
A “heat-dome” settling over western Europe could bring temperatures of nearly 40C by Wednesday, with this latest heatwave expected to surpass the UK record for June – 35.6C set in Hampshire in 1976.
In a tragic irony, the event said it sought to explore the “critical need to improve extreme heat governance globally” before being cancelled due to extreme heat and London’s lack of preparedness for it.
“The event venue, like most buildings in London, does not have any cooling mechanisms in place, and we cannot risk the wellbeing of speakers or guests by subjecting everyone to very unpleasant indoor conditions in addition to hot journeys to the venue,” wrote the Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance in a post on social media on Tuesday.
“Our apologies to everyone who was planning to attend the event. Thank you for your understanding – and if you are in London, please stay safe.”
It comes after Professor Fredi Otto, professor of climate science at Imperial College London, told a media briefing that heatwaves will occur more often and with even higher temperatures “as long as emissions continue”.
She said “our homes, infrastructure, and economy are not built to cope with these conditions”, adding: “The UK has been built for a climate that just doesn’t exist.”
Prof Otto added: “Temperatures above 35 degrees used to be extremely rare in the UK. They have now occurred in seven out of the last 12 years, and this sustained surge in extreme heat would not have happened without human-caused climate change.”
Dr David Dawson, associate professor in sustainable and resilient cities at the University of Leeds, said heatwaves are going to become “more frequent and longer”, adding that 92 per cent of UK homes could overheat by the 2050s.
A Met Office report published in May found that there is an 86 per cent chance that at least one year between 2026 and 2030 will be hotter than 2024, currently the planet’s warmest year on record.
It also found that there is a 91 per cent chance that global temperatures will temporarily exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels in at least one of the next five years.
The climate crisis is also making other extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and storms increasingly common across the world.
If global warming exceeds 1.5C – the target limit set by the Paris Agreement – the risk of severe climate impacts rises sharply, including ecosystem damage, species extinction, more extreme weather, food and water insecurity, heat-related deaths, and the loss of ancient ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, which would cause sea levels to rise dramatically.