Extreme heat and drought is a global climate challenge of concern to Silent Spring Consultants who since the heatwave of 2022 have been working in collaboration with a range of stakeholders the United Kingdom and Europe.  The world’s cities are heating up at twice the global average rate due to rapid urbanization and the urban heat island effect. By 2100, many cities across the world could warm as much as 4 degrees Celsius (°C) if GHG emissions continue at high levels – this is more than double the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature rise to no more than 1.5°C.

Silent Spring Consultants offers research and consultancy services within our fields of expertise to local, regional and national governments and their agencies working in areas such as the environment, nature-based solutions, decarbonisation, transitions to Net Zero, climate change mitigation and adaptation, sustainable development, risk and resilience (e.g. to extreme heat and cold), biodiversity, urban planning, governance, housing, communities, rural affairs, renewable energy, agriculture, food security, international development, public health, forestry, trade and industry, education, children and youth, science and technology, digitalisation, transport and infrastructure. 

From loss and damage to 1.5C goal and World Bank reform, the takeaways from Sharm el-Sheikh

With the world in the midst of the first global energy crisis – triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – the World Energy Outlook 2022 (WEO) provides indispensable analysis and insights on the implications of this profound and ongoing shock to energy systems across the globe.

Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, 6 November 2022 - The United Nations Climate Change Conference COP27 opened today with the key aim of ensuring full implementation of the Paris Agreement.

As growing climate change impacts are experienced across the globe, the message that greenhouse gas emissions must fall is unambiguous. Yet the Emissions Gap Report 2022: The Closing Window – Climate crisis calls for rapid transformation of societies finds that the international community is falling far short of the Paris goals, with no credible pathway to 1.5°C in place. Only an urgent system-wide transformation can avoid climate disaster. 

A new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nature-based Solutions: Opportunities and Challenges for Scaling Up, published in October 2022, outlines the developments on NbS with global, regional, and national commitments, key issues, and concerns.

While the UK Government’s ambitions for nature-based solutions are admirable, there is a clear and present danger that they will not be achieved, and this could undermine the target of net zero by 2050, as well as the agricultural sector, with a failed transition.

The latest article by our Research Director - Dr Andrea Armstrong - was published today in the academic journal Urban Geography. The title of the article is 'Border Troubles: Urban Nature and the Remaking of Private/Public Divides'. Read the abstract below and the article is open access (freely available) to download by following this link.