Climate Resilience Roadmap - published today

Today's Guardian has a report on the launch of a new report on the UK's Climate Resilience (or lack of).

It outlines the likely increase in days which will be over 28 degrees within the next decade.

This will cause real problems for schools, care homes and people's homes in general, which have not been built with these temperatures in mind.

There needs to be some rapid adaptation to buildings and behaviours.

The report sets out a Climate Resilience Roadmap.

It can be downloaded from here as a 70 page PDF, which has a huge amount of information and advice.

Five key threats are examined by the roadmap: overheating, wildfires, flooding, drought and storms.

The modelling says modern buildings are more vulnerable to overheating than older ones because they have larger areas of glass and are of a more lightweight construction.

Adaptation measures for buildings could include the use of solar shading and replacing regular glass with solar glass. So-called passive adaptation is recommended before things such as air conditioning, which increase energy usage and emissions.

“It is within our power to design buildings and cities that are safer, more comfortable and resilient to the impacts of the changing climate, and it is vitally important that we act now to do so,” the roadmap says.

The report calls for:

• The appointment of a minister for resilience within the Cabinet Office
• A new legal objective to ensure all planning decisions deliver climate safety.
• A more ambitious future homes standard to protect against increasing climate hazards – overheating, flooding and water scarcity.
• A comprehensive retrofit strategy to make homes and buildings climate safe.
• The protection of all communities with trees, parks and ponds.