The UK should be prepared to cope with weather extremes as a result of at least 2C of global warming by 2050, independent climate advisers have said.
The country was “not yet adapted” to worsening weather extremes already occurring at current levels of warming, “let alone” what was expected to come, the Climate Change Committee (CCC) wrote in a letter addressed to the government.
The committee said they would advise that the UK prepare for climate change beyond the long-term temperature goal set out in the Paris Agreement.
The letter came as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed that 2024 had seen a record rise of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.
CO2 is the gas mainly responsible for human-caused climate change and is released when fossil fuels are burnt, as well as other activities.
The CCC’s letter came after it had been asked to provide advice on a timeframe for setting adaption scenarios, based on “minimum climate scenarios”.
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The increase of CO2 in the atmosphere between 2023 and 2024 was the largest since modern measurements started in the late 1950s, the WMO said.
“The heat trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse gases is turbo-charging our climate and leading to more extreme weather,” said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett.
“Reducing emissions is therefore essential not just for our climate but also for our economic security and community well-being,” she added.
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If you felt like wildfires and their impacts were more extreme in the past year – you’re right. Our new report, a collaboration between scientists across continents, shows climate change supercharged the world’s wildfires in unpredictable and devastating ways.
Human-caused climate change increased the area burned by wildfires, called bushfires in Australia, by a magnitude of 30 in some regions in the world. Our snapshot offers important new evidence of how climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme fires. And it serves as a stark reminder of the urgent need to rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The evidence is clear – climate change is making fires worse.
A view of the Palisades fire zone in Los Angeles, where climate change fuelled the fires in January. Allen J. Schaben/Getty
Clear pattern
Our study used satellite observations and advanced modelling to find and investigate the causes of wildfires in the past year. The research team considered the role that climate and land use change played, and found a clear interrelationship between climate and extreme events.
Regional experts provided local input to capture events and impacts that satellites did not pick up. For Oceania, this role was played by Dr Sarah Harris from the Country Fire Authority and myself.
In the past year, a land area larger than India – about 3.7 million square kilometres – was burnt globally. More than 100 million people were affected by these fires, and US$215 billion worth of homes and infrastructure were at risk.
Not only does the heating climate mean more dangerous, fire-prone conditions, but it also affects how vegetation grows and dries out, creating fuel for fires to spread.
In Australia, bushfires did not reach the overall extent or impact of previous seasons, such as the Black Summer bushfires of 2019–20. Nonetheless, more than 1,000 large fires burned around 470,000 hectares in Western Australia, and more than 5 million hectares burned in central Australia. In Victoria, the Grampians National Park saw two-thirds of its area burned.
In the United States, our analysis showed the deadly Los Angeles wildfires in January were twice as likely and burned an area 25 times bigger than they would have in a world without global warming. Unusually wet weather in Los Angeles in the preceding 30 months contributed to strong vegetation growth and laid the foundations for wildfires during an unusually hot and dry January.
In South America, fires in the Pantanal-Chiquitano region, which straddles the border between Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, were 35 times larger due to climate change. Record-breaking fires ravaged parts of the Amazon and Congo, releasing billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Protestors march for climate justice and against wild fires affecting the entire country in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Faga Almeida/Getty
Not too late
It’s clear that if global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, more severe heatwaves and droughts will make landscape fires more frequent and intense worldwide.
But it’s not too late to act. We need stronger and faster climate action to cut fossil fuel emissions, protect nature and reduce land clearing.
And we can get better at responding to the risk of fires, from nuanced forest management to preparing households and short and long-term disaster recovery.
There are regional differences in fires, and so the response also need to be local. We should prioritise local and regional knowledge, and First Nations knowledge, in responding to bushfire.
Action at COP30
Fires emitted more than 8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2024–25, about 10% above the average since 2003. Emissions were more than triple the global average in South American dry forests and wetlands, and double the average in Canadian boreal forests. That’s a deeply concerning amount of greenhouse pollution. The excess emissions alone exceeded the national fossil fuel CO₂ emissions of more than 200 individual countries in 2024.
The single most powerful contribution developed nations can make to avoid the worst impacts of extreme wildfires is to commit to rapidly cutting greenhouse gas emissions this decade.
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Climate campaigners say the Rosebank oil field will be a ‘defining test’ of the government’s credibility on climate change. (Lucy North/PA)
Equinor, which owns the majority of the oil field, stressed it was committed to advancing the ‘Rosebank project’
Climate campaigners have challenged the UK Government to “do the right thing” and turn down plans for drilling in the Rosebank oil field.
The group Uplift – which wants to see a “rapid and fair transition away from oil and gas production in the UK” – said whether the green light is granted for the development would be the “defining test of this Government’s credibility on climate change”.
It came as it was confirmed Equinor, which owns an 80% majority stake in the oil field, confirmed it has submitted a scope 3 assessment – setting out all associated greenhouse gas emissions for the project, in compliance with new guidelines from UK authorities.
And the company said it is “fully committed” to working with all relevant bodies to “advance the Rosebank project”.
The Rosebank field, which is located some 80 miles west of Shetland, is the UK’s largest untapped oil field and is estimated to contain up to 300 million barrels of oil.
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Robin Wells, director of Fossil Free London, said: “In the face of this decision on the biggest undeveloped oil field in the North Sea, we must be crystal clear. Rosebank will be the defining test of this Government’s climate promise.”
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Flood waters surrounding houses in Wraysbury, Berkshire in January 2024. Greater London and Yorkshire and the Humber are two regions at particular risk in the coming years. Photograph: Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images
Every constituency projected to be at greater risk, with many areas likely to be uninsurable, Guardian investigation finds
Millions more homes in England, Scotland and Wales face devastating floods, and some towns may have to be abandoned as climate breakdown makes many areas uninsurable, a Guardian investigation has found.
New analysis from the insurance industry, seen by the Guardian, reveals the extent of concern in the sector, with bosses warning that large swathes of housing and commercial property in densely populated areas will be at greater risk.
Separately, experts have said that some towns may need to be abandoned as homes and businesses struggle to get insurance in areas repeatedly battered by storms and rising sea levels.
Densely populated areas including London, Manchester and parts of north-east England, are likely to be worst hit. Experts also say London’s flood defences need to be updated urgently to protect the capital from devastating floods.
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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaking in Aberdeen. Credit: Reform UK / YouTube
Nigel Farage’s party was told by Offshore Energies UK to rethink its plan to thwart clean energy.
LIVERPOOL – The UK’s largest oil and gas trade body has criticised Reform UK’s plans to “turn off the tap” on renewable energy.
Nigel Farage’s party has tried to present itself as the oil and gas industry’s closest ally, vowing to “drill, baby, drill” in the North Sea and scrap the windfall tax on excess profits, while meeting with oil executives, and courting donations from the sector.
However, on a panel at the Labour Party’s annual conference in Liverpool on Monday (29 September), a spokesperson for Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) criticised Reform’s plans to end state support for clean energy.
Natalie Coupar, communications and marketing director at OEUK – members of which include fossil fuel giants BP, Shell, ExxonMobil, TotalEnergies, and Equinor – said the group is “apolitical” but gives “hard truths to all parties”.
She said: “One of the things we’ve been saying to Reform very much is, you know, if you’re going to turn on the taps for oil and gas, there’s almost really no point if you’re just going to turn off the taps to renewables.
“That doesn’t help. We need to keep both those streams open.”
According to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the UK’s net zero economy grew by 10 percent in 2024, employing almost a million people in full-time jobs.
Coupar also said it was essential to “hold the consensus on tackling climate change and growing our energy future”.
A panel at 2025 Labour Party conference sponsored by Offshore Energies UK (OEUK). Credit: DeSmog
Reform’s Oil Campaign
Reform has vowed to stop all government subsidies for renewable energy, and has pledged to block solar and onshore wind farms in the local authorities it controls.
In May, the party’s deputy leader Richard Ticesaid: “Whether it’s planning blockages, whether it’s judicial reviews, whether it’s lawsuits, whether it’s health and safety notices, we will use every available legal measure to an extreme way in order to frustrate these people.”
Tice – who has said “there’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change the climate” – met with senior oil executives in May and promised to approve new drilling licences “on day one” of a Reform government.
Last month, he pledged to overturn the UK’s ban on fracking for shale gas, which he calls “treasure beneath our feet”, and told the industry to “get ready”.
In April, Reform party treasurer and a billionaire property developer Nick Candy said he was trying to secure donations from oil and gas executives, claiming to have raised £100,000 from one, though this has yet to appear on Reform’s donations register.
As DeSmog has reported, 92 percent of Reform’s funding between the 2019 and 2024 general elections came from climate science deniers or those with highly polluting interests – a total of £2.3 million.
Since his election as an MP last year, Farage has spoken at a string of events in the U.S. organised by radical groups backing U.S. President Donald Trump’s pro-fossil fuel agenda. Last December, Farage launched the UK-EU branch of the Heartland Institute, a U.S. climate denial think tank.
Speaking at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London in February, Farage claimed it was “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered to a pollutant. However, he added: “I’m not a scientist. I can’t tell you whether CO2 is leading to warming or not, but there are so many other massive factors.”
Climate scientists at the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate science body, have stressed that “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.
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