7th October 2025
Last year was the hottest year on record; this year will be amongst the top two or three, and each year we see more intense and dangerous impacts harming people’s lives and livelihoods as global temperatures rise. In recent days, scientists have found evidence of mosquito species which can carry yellow fever, dengue, and Zika, amongst other diseases, making their home in the UK. In recent months, analysis of this summer’s intense heatwaves showed they caused 16,500 deaths across hundreds of European cities. And recent years have seen the average British household food bill rising by several hundred pounds as climate impacts hit the crops we rely on for two fifths of this country’s food, which we import from overseas.
As well as driving climate change, the UK’s fossil fuel dependency makes local communities vulnerable to highly fluctuating energy prices, forcing people into fuel poverty and undermining the socioeconomic and environmental conditions on which good health depends. More than a third of UK households are at risk of fuel poverty, living in poorly insulated homes they cannot afford to heat, which costs billions a year through increased costs to the NHS, higher caring costs, lost productivity, and carbon emissions.
These obvious and worsening impacts are why most people in this country are concerned about climate change, and the majority expect their government to act to protect them and their homes from even more dangerous threats and prolonged uncertainty into the future. Threats like failing harvests risk our food security, making healthy foods more expensive. That is both here, where very wet winters and summer droughts have made it harder for farmers to plant and grow staple grains and vegetables, and in parts of Southern Europe which have seen heatwaves and droughts damage fresh fruit and vegetable crops.
As United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said to G20 leaders, “You cannot claim to be green while your plans and projects undermine the 2050 net zero target and ignore the major emissions cuts that must occur this decade.”
It is vital that the UK has a clear and credible plan for reducing its emissions, with a just transition that ensures that both the costs and benefits of net zero are fairly shared, with the poorest protected by well-designed policies. The Climate Change Act establishes a target for the UK to achieve net zero emissions and the mechanisms for delivery. It also presents a journey to a healthier society with cleaner air, warmer homes, better diets, more active travel, and greater energy security that serve to improve the health of the nation.
Chair of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change, Hugh Montgomery said, “Climate change, and its impacts on atmospheric systems and weather, are spiralling out of control. The world’s scientists have warned that ‘we are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster’ with ‘a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a livable future’. Direct impacts on human health and survival (such as altered temperatures and disease patterns, extreme weather) will be dwarfed by those mediated by socioeconomic routes (failing food supply, failing economies, and mass migration). The argument that ‘it is down to others to act, not us’ is foolish and morally weak, and any suggestion that Britain is too small to show such leadership is not in keeping with our nation’s history or character.”
Scrapping the world-leading framework the Climate Change Act provides would be a failure to deliver a healthier, fairer society for our children and instead condemn them and future generations to lasting harm. By contrast, the clean transition provides jobs for people in all parts of the country. And renewable energy solutions are better for British people’s health – like cleaner air as we shift away from petrol and diesel to electric vehicles, and better heart health as more people walk and cycle more in our cities.