Do you remember way back when a storm like Eowyn was something of a freak event? It was , in fact, so unusual that a certain weatherman blithely denied the threat back in October 1987. Storms did not even get names until 2015, when the Met Office and Met Eireann started a joint initiative to name storms in order to raise public awareness of severe weather and, in most cases, it’s the threat of dangerously-strong winds that determine whether a storm gets a name or not.
I am afraid that we can expect a whole lot more of this – and getting progressively worse – if urgent action is not taken to end our use of fossil fuels. Climate deniers and those downplaying the risks will say we have always had ‘weather’ and this is all it is, but that’s just head-in-the-sand stuff. This is from the Met Office’s website, May 2024:
“A new study has found climate change has influenced how much rain falls during autumn and winter storms.
Human-induced climate change made the heavy storm downpours and total rainfall across the UK and Ireland between October 2023 and March 2024 more frequent and intense, according to a rapid attribution analysis by an international team of leading climate scientists.
The 2023-24 storm season has been very active across the UK and Ireland. The countries were affected by numerous storms, 11 of which were named by the Western Europe storm naming group. With the naming of Storm Kathleen, in April, it was just the second time the letter K had been reached since the group was established in 2015.”
The relentless rain makes us all pretty miserable, but for some it has a huge financial and/or practical impact – if homes and businesses are flooded, for example, or if you are a farmer trying to raise livestock or grow food.
“The scientists estimate that climate change contributed to increasing the amount of total rainfall by about 15 per cent. If global warming reaches 2°C, similar periods of rainfall that can saturate soils and cause large agricultural losses will become much more common, expected to occur about once every 13 years.”
Met Office May 2024
That means a fall in food output and a rise in food costs, to put it at its most simple. I have heard people say that the UK’s low domestic food security is not a problem because we can just import more than we do already, but that seems to assume that we suffer in isolation! And it is a sobering reflection that food shortages do not make for happy, peaceful societies.
Here’s Hayley Fowler, Professor of Climate Change Impacts in the Centre for Earth Systems Engineering Research, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences at Newcastle University:
“Another red warning for the UK, another violent wind storm accompanied by extreme rainfall and probable flooding. Our work using high-resolution climate models from the UK Met Office shows that climate change is making storms like Eowyn more frequent, with more intense wind speeds and much higher rainfall amounts. Risks are changing rapidly: we are living in a much warmer world, with temperatures breaching the 1.5 degree warming threshold in 2024 for the first time. As the climate gets warmer we can expect these storms to become even more intense, with greater damages.
Recent storms show that society has not adapted to worsening climate conditions. Countries must build more resilient infrastructure to adapt to a more turbulent climate. This will be costly, but far less costly than doing nothing. Ultimately, only reducing greenhouse gas emissions will mitigate risks from extreme weather. But emissions are still rising year on year, committing the world to more warming and with it, more intense flooding and storm damage.”
Followers of the passage of the Climate and Nature Bill will be aware that its progress has been arrested in what looked suspiciously like a backroom deal to smother the Bill and appease (potentially) rebellious supporters within Labour’s ranks. Let’s hope that is just how it ‘looks’.
Zero Hour, the main campaign for this bill, said:
‘Thank you to the tens of thousands of Climate and Nature Bill campaigners across the nations who have made the UK government sit up and listen. That ministers are now listening to climate and nature heroes in parliament is progress. But talk is cheap, and the provisions of the CAN Bill itself were – and are – the best path to strengthen climate resilience and boost nature’s recovery.
‘Everyone will now be watching and waiting to see if Ed Milliband [Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero] and the rest of the government come good on their promises to the planet.‘Importantly, Mary Creagh [Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] assured MPs in the House of Commons [24 January 2025] that next steps would include “binding commitments”.
“As Ed Milliband says, we now need to “set to work, in dialogue” on our proposals – “including for legislation” – so that we can make a “meaningful difference for climate and nature”.
Zero Hour
Behind the scenes there is going to be a lot of pressure from campaigners to hold the government’s feet to the fire.
The fossil fuel giants have known for decades (and hidden the evidence) about the scale and scope of the damage they have been doing to the planet. They also know exactly how to exert political power to suit their ends; there is nothing they would like more than to see this bill kicked into the long, dry grass. They appear to be getting their way in Trump’s America. We can’t let that happen here.
With nature warning us almost constantly that we are headed for our own destruction unless we act, will government really want to turn round and say that jeopardising the future of the planet is a necessary price to pay for the sake of short term party political expediency?
And what can YOU do? Keep the pressure up! Don’t let the bill and its aims be forgotten. Keep writing to your MP. Keep it on the agenda in your social networks. Let’s hold government to their promises. They’ve promised that debate will recommence on July 11. Put that date on your diary! Let’s make sure it does! Our government does not/should not work for big oil. They work for us.
