More than 2,700 excess deaths estimated during May and June heatwaves
Responding to a new report on heat-related deaths in England and Wales this year, published today (Monday 13 July), by Imperial College London, the Met Office and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Friends of the Earth senior campaigner, Denis Fernando, said:
“The climate crisis is not some distant threat - it’s unfolding before our eyes. Hundreds of heat-related deaths across England and Wales this year are estimated to have been caused by climate change. This is a stark warning of what lies ahead if we fail to act.
“It’s a national scandal that the UK remains so dangerously unprepared for the extreme weather that climate change is making more frequent and more intense, with children, older people and disabled people particularly at risk.
“The government must urgently overhaul its failing climate adaptation plans to protect people from deadly heatwaves and escalating extreme weather. It must also cut the emissions fuelling the crisis and make fossil fuel companies and major polluters pay their fair share for the damage they cause.
“If we fail to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis, thousands of lives will be lost, and our environment and economy will suffer - all because successive governments failed to follow the science.”
Ends
Notes
1. Friends of the Earth is calling on ministers to urgently strengthen the UK government’s climate adaptation plan (The National Adaptation Programme) to ensure it properly reflects the growing risks posed by the accelerating climate crisis. In 2025, the government’s independent advisers, the Climate Change Committee, warned that the UK is not prepared for the impacts of climate change.
2. Last year Friends of the Earth, and two people whose lives have been impacted by the climate crisis, asked the European Court of Human Rights to hear their complaint over the UK government’s inadequate climate adaptation programme. This sets out government plans and policies for protecting communities from the impacts of climate change, such as extreme heat, flooding and coastal erosion.