UK ‘dangerously unprepared’ for cooling demands of climate crisis

In a new paper published in Nature Sustainability, the researchers mapped the cooling demand required around the world as global temperatures move from 1.5 to 2 degrees of warming – a scenario the Oxford team deems increasingly likely given current trends. While central African countries will suffer the most extreme temperatures, parts of northern Europe such as the UK, Ireland, Switzerland and Scandinavia will suffer the biggest relative shift, enduring a greater percentage increase in ‘uncomfortably hot days’ than elsewhere. What’s more, these countries are extremely unprepared for the cooling demands that the shift will bring, according to the Oxford team.

“Right now, for example, sustainable cooling barely has a mention in the UK’s net zero strategy,” said study co-author Dr Radhika Khosla, Associate Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment and leader of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Cooling.