Europe is the fastest warming continent in the world, and climate risks are threatening its energy and food security, ecosystems, infrastructure, water resources, financial stability, and people’s health. According to the European Environment Agency’s (EEA) assessment, published today, many of these risks have already reached critical levels and could become catastrophic without urgent and decisive action. 

Today was the launch of the "Turning Up the Heat" report which was a collaboration between the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, the British Red Cross, the Place-Based Climate Action Network and Silent Spring Consultants. You can find the Press Release below.

Next Monday and Tuesday (19 and 20 February), Brussels will host the first edition of the Belgian Science for Climate Action conference, organised by the Belgian Climate Centre. For two full days, scientists, academics, decision makers and private sector representatives will discuss climate extremes and their causes and consequences. It is the first time an event of this scale will be organised in Belgium. A total of about 400 participants are expected.

Our latest academic paper entitled Everyday Digital Traces is now freely available! Published in Big Data and Society, our research responds to calls for more engagement with everyday personal data. We used a co-designed, fictional persona called Alex Smith to concretise and represent people's online information to help participants (through role-playing) reflect on data and digital traces. 

The urgency of addressing climate change has reached a milestone with the launch of the Global Cooling Pledge at the UN Climate Change Conference (CoP28) in Dubai. This initiative sheds light on the often-overlooked impact of the cooling sector on our climate and emphasizes the importance of sustainable cooling in both climate mitigation and adaptation efforts.

Now is the time for a global plan to rescue the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which are off-track halfway towards their 2030 deadline, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday in New York. 

Today we are in London for a policy insights and networking event at the London School of Economics and Political Science funded by the British Academy and co- organised by our Research Director, Dr Andrea Armstrong (Silent Spring Consultants), Dr Andrew Kythreotis (Lincoln University) and Dr Candice Howarth (PCAN, LSE).

The United Kingdom is known for its rich cultural heritage, spanning centuries of history. However, this heritage is facing an unprecedented threat - climate change. As temperatures rise, sea levels increase, and extreme weather events become more frequent, the UK's historic buildings, landscapes, and archaeological sites are at risk. In this article, we will explore the impact of climate change on the UK's heritage and look at the measures that can bee taken to protect it.

Earlier this week we were invited to visit the Bosco Verticale (vertical forest) and BAM public park in the Porta Nuova District of Milan, Italy. Bosco Verticale is a pair of innovative residential towers designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti and completed in 2014. The towers are covered with approximately 900 trees, 5,000 shrubs, and 11,000 floral plants, creating a lush and self-sustaining vertical forest. 

Earlier this week, the UK government unveiled its third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) which sets out a strategic five-year plan to boost resilience and protect people, homes, businesses and our cultural heritage against climate change risks such as flooding, drought and heatwaves.

World temperature records were broken earlier this week when the average global temperature hit 17.18C. Experts expect the record to be broken again very soon because data suggests, that this year’s warmest days are still to come – and with them the warmest days ever recorded. Until the start of this week, the hottest day on record was in 2016, during the last El Niño global weather event, when the global average temperature reached 16.92C.