Tackling climate change must be the number one health priority for politicians, says DAUK’s sustainability lead Dr Matt Lee.
Dr Lee said tackling climate change will bring health and economic benefits as he called on the Government to do more.
He was speaking as the Met Office released a new assessment of the UK’s climate.
The Met Office found record breaking and extreme weather has become increasingly commonplace over the last few decades.
Climate change
Dr Lee said: “Today’s report from the Met office highlights the dire climatic situation we are now in.
“Severe heatwaves and flash floods are a consequence of successive failures of governments to take action against climate change, and due to the fossil fuel industry’s repeated misinformation campaigns.
“We must not accept these catastrophic changes in our weather as the new normal. Doing so would encourage such environmentally harmful industries and politicians to advocate for business as usual.
Health priority
“It is clear that tackling climate change has to be the number one priority for politicians. We healthcare professionals, as trusted public figures, must be vocal in advocating for action for the sake of our patients and combat misinformation from fossil fuel lobbyists and climate denialist politicians.
“Tackling climate change brings multiple health and economic benefits and we urge the Government and Department of Health to increase their ambition, accelerate decarbonisation and nature restoration for climate change mitigation and adaptation.”
Visit the website Our Health, Our Planet which has been produced by DAUK and is full of information aimed at keeping people safe in a changing climate and during extreme weather events.
The Met Office’s latest assessment of the UK’s climate shows how baselines are shifting, records are becoming more frequent, and that temperature and rainfall extremes are becoming the norm.
The State of the UK Climate report, published by Wiley in the Royal Meteorological Society’s ‘International Journal of Climatology’, provides insight into the UK’s changing climate.
Temperature extremes
The report highlights how the UK’s climate has warmed steadily from the 1980s onwards, albeit with individual cooler years, with the greatest implications from the increasing frequency and intensity of daily temperature extremes.
Professor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said: “The report draws particular attention to the last decade that clearly shows how quickly our climate is evolving to inform policy, resilience planning, and adaptation.
“Perhaps most striking is the growing impact of extremes. While long-term averages are shifting, it is the extreme heat, intense rainfall and droughts that are having the most immediate and dramatic effects on people and nature.
Call to action
“This report is not just a record of change, but a call to action.”
Read more on the Met Office’s report.
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