City Futures – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog

Reducing the reliance of traditional fuels in informal settlements

Posted on November 15, 2024November 19, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The pilot of a community kitchen in Portee-Rokupa, Freetown, Sierra Leone

There is political controversary around the total population of Freetown, Sierra Leone. The 2021 mid-term Population and Housing census noted a significant decrease in Freetown’s population which has subsequently been challenged by the mayor and other leading stakeholders. Statistics vary from 600,000 to 1.35million. Regardless, it is estimated that 36% of the city’s population live within densely populated informal settlements scattered across Freetown’s eastern peninsula. These communities, not too dissimilar to other low-income settlements across the city, and indeed other densely populated urban centres, are often located in geographically vulnerable areas and prone to increased hazards, risks and disasters.

It is in the informal settlement of Portee Rokupa where researchers from the University of Bristol have been working since 2021 (Figure 1). The ESRC funded ‘Beyond the Networked City’ project (grant number: ES/T007656/1) is a collaboration between the University of Bristol, Loughborough University, Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre (SLURC), Makerere University, and the University of Cape Town that seeks to further understand urban service delivery of key infrastructure such as water, sanitation and energy in Freetown and Kampala. In close partnership with SLURC, over 360 households in Portee Rokupa were surveyed on their energy services such as electricity and cooking.

Figure 1: Map of Portee Rokupa, Freetown

In Portee Rokupa, like most of these communities, their residents, mainly women and young girls, carry out the daily task of cooking. Cooking, whether for personal consumption or income generating purposes, is usually prepared using traditional biomass fuels such as charcoal with basic, inefficient metal stoves called coal pots (Figure 2). The use of traditional coal pot stoves are contributors to air pollution and environmental degradation affecting health of users and local forest cover.

Figure 2: A stereotypical charcoal coal pot used in Freetown

Working closely with the residents and community actors in Portee Rokupa, there is an overwhelming desire to transition to cleaner cooking solutions, but there are challenges around accessibility, availability, finance, and imposed knowledge that hinders the sustainable uptake of ‘clean’ cookstoves. Whilst trying to further understand what could be done to improve their cooking service delivery, the idea for a communal cooking space, which offers a range of cooking technologies, to be used on a pay-as-you basis, was both desirable and aspirational for the community.

SLURC project managed the community kitchen project whilst also facilitating community dialogue to ensure that residents themselves were part of the design and construction, and management of the kitchen. They also fostered new and existing partnerships with key stakeholders including the Government Technical Institute (GTI), the Electricity Generation and Transmission Company (EGTC), and Afrigas, a national LPG supplier. What started as ad-hoc discussions around the need to improve cooking service delivery within informal settlements, turned into the creation of the Platform for Energy Safety, innovation, and Access Consortium (PESIA), a call to action for stakeholders to further understand the cooking needs of residents living in informal settlements.

To ensure long-term sustainability of the kitchen, community members were selected to become community Energy Champions and were trained by the above stakeholders on the use, maintenance, finance and safety of different cooking technologies that would enable them to provide tailored support in the community kitchen as well as broader advice around energy choices within the community. The community were involved at every stage of the project from kitchen design, choice of location, selection of preferred stoves and fuels as well as overall kitchen management. For example, because Portee Rokupa is predominantly a fishing community, the desire for larger stoves and ovens that would help smoke, preserve and process fish was something residents regularly communicated. The community kitchen does not only provide access to improved cooking facilities, but also serves as a hub for broader community interaction, something that is of importance to the community.

So, what has the Community Kitchen achieved? Since it’s official launch in May 2024 (Figure 4), the pilot has received significant attention within Freetown, especially on social media channels and within local news outlets. Management of the kitchen has been fully handed over to the community and energy champions who have elected a chairwoman and a chairman who will oversee the use of the kitchen and be responsible for financial accountability. Residents of Portee Rokupa are now regularly using the kitchen facilities, not only for their mealtime cooking, but for community events such as parties and weddings, and local entrepreneurs are using the kitchen for productive uses such as food preparation, fish smoking and soap making.

The broader impact of this initiative extends beyond the immediate benefits of access to cleaner, more efficient cooking solutions. The kitchen is now an official vendor of Afrigas bottles, bringing a consistent supply of LPG to the community for the first time. Community buy-in, consistent dialogue, co-creation of kitchen design and the training of energy champions has fostered a sense of ownership and responsibility, encouraging them to advocate for and implement sustainable practices within their communities. This grassroots approach has also extended into other informal communities such as Susan’s Bay and Dwazark where energy champions are spreading their knowledge to ensure households are more aware of different cooking options available rather than solely relying on traditional ways of cooking. The Portee-Rokupa community kitchen was a pilot initiative driven by a community desire to have access to alternative cooking services. It is now forging its way as a beacon of knowledge, empowerment and sustainability. It demonstrates how targeted training and community engagement can drive significant changes, paving the way for a more sustainable and resilient future for all. As these Energy Champions continue their work, they are not just transforming kitchens; they are transforming lives and building a brighter, greener future for their communities.

Figure 4: Cooking in the community kitchen on launch day, May 2024

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This blog is written by Amadu Kamara Labor and Dora Vangahun from Sierra Leone Urban Research Centre, Freetown, Sierra Leone; and Charlotte Ray and Sam Williamson from the School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Energy Management Research Group, University of Bristol.

The background research behind this work was funded by the ESRC through grant ES/T007656/1, Beyond the Networked City: Building innovative delivery systems for water, sanitation and energy in urban Africa. The Community Kitchen was funded by a joint EPSRC/ESRC Impact Acceleration Account Award, grant numbers EP/X525674/1 ES/X004392/1.

What Works – Co-devising a place-based green skills plan in Bristol

Posted on November 4, 2024November 4, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Young man fixing solar panels to a roof

The UK Green Jobs Taskforce has called for new policies to build pathways into “good, green careers” for young people and a just transition for workers in carbon-heavy jobs. Skills development is central to this: providing school leavers with new opportunities and supporting older workers to find an off-ramp from jobs that may be phased out in the future.

‘Green skills gaps’ hinder climate action: more workers are needed to retrofit buildings and build green infrastructure . UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves, in the 2024 autumn budget, pledged £3.4bn for the warm homes plan to upgrade buildings and lower energy bills alongside building new homes, the creation of Great British Energy and investing in EVs. Workers are needed to do so.

Beyond specific new roles and skillsets, one in five jobs in the UK will experience some change to the skills required. Such ‘green’ skills can be understood as ‘future’ or ‘resilient’ skills: training that allows people to have long-term job security rooted in policies to achieve net zero by 2050.

As the Local Government Association has argued, while the role of local authorities remains unclear, devolved decision-making for green skills allows provision to be place-based and locally driven, responding to the needs and opportunities in different communities.

In our recent work, supported by the Cabot Institute for the Environment and Policy Bristol through What Works funding from Research England, we have worked to foreground these national discussions of green skills in the context of Bristol and the neighbourhood of Lawrence Weston.

Why green skills matter in (Bristol and) Lawrence Weston In 2022, Bristol City Council launched the 20 year Bristol City Leap programme, partnering with Ameresco to accelerate city decarbonisation. One of the initiative’s ambitions is to create at least 1000 local jobs. This creates an opportunity: to both create new green jobs and to ensure they are shared equitably across Bristol – benefiting those who need them most.

We focus here on Lawrence Weston, a post-war housing estate and home to 7,000 people on the north-west outskirts of Bristol, where deprivation levels are some of the highest in Bristol and the UK. The area is home to Ambition Lawrence Weston (ALW) a resident-led group formed in 2012 working to make the neighbourhood a better place to live, and achieving national fame with their building of a community-owned onshore wind turbine in 2022.

Lawrence Weston has primary and secondary schools but further education colleges offering skills, trade or vocational training require residents to travel across the city or beyond. ALW have recently moved into a new community hub ‘Ambition House’ and hope to, among many other services, host new green skills opportunities for the local community, providing many in the area with a local opportunity for new skills and qualifications and helping address current barriers to post-secondary education in the community.

Co-devising green skills approaches

Community spaces and organisations can be a key space for green skills development. They can provide launchpad sites for skills offerings, taster sessions, or short courses. Whilst employers may re-skill workers in the workplace, localised skills offering can reach those who may otherwise struggle to engage: increasing accessibility by bringing new opportunities directly to the community.

Over the past year, we have worked with Ambition Lawrence Weston and other partners to understand green skills needs in Bristol, and the barriers to gaining those skills and accessing new jobs – particularly in the context of Lawrence Weston. To do so, we teamed up with the Civic University Agreement team to bring together key stakeholders in local and regional government, further and higher education, and ‘green’ sectors to understand what should happen in this space – and how to make it happen.

We held two workshops – in June and October 2024 – to co-develop new green skills approaches in Bristol and, with it, to position Lawrence Weston as a key space in which to pilot and develop such initiatives.

What we found and why it matters

Place-based approaches are important as they allow us to meet people where they are and understand how different circumstances define potential take-up and engagement. Jobs and skills policy will need to engage various groups in different ways, these include school-leavers, those not in education, employment or training (who would benefit from new, resilient career pathways), and people already working, who may need to update professional skills.

These people are characterised by diverse experiences and needs but many shared barriers can be found. These include:

Physical accessibility, linked to travel distances and costs and lack of affordable public transport.
Lack of confidence to engage due to language and other barriers
Financial factors, with a cost-of-living crisis creating pressing, significant financial pressures that create an ‘earn or learn’ equation.
Lack of awareness of local opportunities – and how this varies in different neighbourhoods.
Overlapping with the above, the time required to train – linked to travel distances, the timing of sessions, caring responsibilities, and the need to continue earning.

To overcome these barriers, a place-based green skills approach must:

Understand how these factors interact with more subjective barriers – such as a lack of aspiration or confidence in working in emergent sectors and careers or in learning new skills. Key here is engaging with young people early – even as early as primary school – to signal what these new jobs are and how they are available to all.
Be guided by employers of all sizes to identify the skills pathways required: people need to be able to enrol in a course safe in the knowledge that these skills learned will be needed and valued for many years into the future.
Provide financial support: a key solution is in funded training schemes where workers are ‘paid to learn’: be it through reimbursement for lost work, paying travel costs, and/or providing meals. In Wales, the Personal Learning Accounts scheme provides financial support to study new skills and qualifications, including skills in net zero and green technologies.
Include ‘softer’ skills to support business development and growth. This is to support those working for or managing smaller businesses to link into established supply chains, bid for certain ‘green’ work, and build confidence in these new industries and trades. Ideas here include providing mentors and career champions, hosting job fairs and information sessions, and working with Skills Connect careers guidance materials.

Labour’s budget may give clarity on what skills will be required yet certainty is needed locally: through both financial support and clearer direction on how these skills can be accessed.

Green skills gaps require locally-led solutions. In our work, we are getting closer. Our next steps included working with schools and careers advisors to create materials that move beyond boosting awareness and towards showing young people routes into new green jobs and continuing to work to get green skills into Lawrence Weston soon.

Doing so ensures that the future of ‘green’ education can empower people as much as it can decarbonise the city around them.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members Drs Ed Atkins (Geographical Sciences) and Caroline Bird (Computer Science).

On track for change: how to travel more sustainably to European conferences

Posted on June 24, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Train station at Bonn — Train station on the journey to Bonn

A significant part of the University’s carbon footprint comes from business travel and the Sustainability Team has published a Business Travel Toolkit to help staff choose the most appropriate and low carbon option. That’s why we were thrilled to hear about Alix Dietzel’s recent trip to Bonn Climate Conference, where she opted to travel by rail over flying. We caught up with her to find out how it went, and hopefully inspire more of our research community to do the same!

Can you share your reasons for going to the conference?

“I went to Bonn to observe the climate change negotiations ahead of the next Conference of the Parties (COP29) in Azerbaijan. These ‘intersessional’ negotiations mark the halfway point between COPs and it is a good chance to see what is on the table at the next COP, where we are after COP28 and what the major sticking points are. In addition, this year Dr Alice Venn, Dr Katharina Richter and myself, got the chance to present a ‘side-event’, which was selected from over 400 applications by the UNFCCC. We teamed up with C40 cities, Green Africa Youth Organization and the Youth Climate Change Council Alliance to discuss how to pursue inclusive urban climate policies.”

Why did you decide to travel by rail?

“My main consideration was the emissions. Bonn is 8-10 hours away by train – about the same amount of time it took me to get to Dubai by plane for COP28. I avoid flying when I can, but sometimes it is unavoidable due to practicalities. In this case, I was able to add two travel days to my itinerary by only attending the conference for four days. I don’t like to leave my four-year-old daughter for longer than a week – she needs me. I’m privileged to have her in full-time nursery and am married to a very involved father, which made it possible to leave for this long.”

Can you tell us about the journey?

“I did a four-leg journey. Bristol to London (1.5 hours), London to Brussels (2 hours), Brussels to Cologne (2 hours) and finally Cologne to Bonn (half an hour).

In terms of comfort, I preferred the train journey to flying! I’m quite tall and train seats are roomier, especially the Eurostar and ICE trains in Germany. There’s also free Wi-Fi, multiple plugs for charging, plenty of room for a laptop, and it’s easier to get up and buy snacks or stretch your legs on the train than on a plane.

The changes between trains were great for getting fresh air and trying foods from different countries. I haven’t been to three countries in one day before, and that is a perk – having lunch in London, a coffee break in Brussels and then dinner in Germany was a culinary treat!

I missed one connection due to a delayed train from London to Brussels, which meant I queued for 20 minutes to get a special ticket from the Eurostar counter. I was only delayed by an hour and it didn’t cost me any more money.”

Alix Dietzel at the Bonn climate change conference

How was your experience at the conference?

“I really enjoyed watching the intersessional negotiations because they felt more relaxed, honest, and open compared to the COPs where there is a lot of pressure to find agreement. It’s also a space where you can approach negotiators more easily, because things are less hectic. For example, I was able to have a chat with a UK negotiator and share a bit about my research with him between negotiations.

It’s much smaller than a COP. COP28 had 100k people present and sprawled over a huge venue that has not only the negotiations, but ‘exhibition spaces’ which have events, meaning at times there are about 400 talks at once you could attend! SB60 had 8,600 people and was contained in a single building. This makes it much easier to navigate and focus on the negotiations, with only 5-10 events overlapping at any one time.”

What would you say to colleagues considering land-based business travel instead of flying?

“Try it! Speak to the University’s business travel booking team at Clarity and consider your options. Even doing half of the journey by rail would have huge emissions savings and enable them to compare. I am mindful of equality and inclusion issues, such as caring responsibilities, and would reassure them that sometimes, you do have to fly, and that this is understandable.”

We estimate that Alix’s journey by rail saved 159kg of CO2 – the equivalent to heating an average home for nearly two months.

If you’d like to explore routes travelling over land rather than flying visit https://routezero.world/.

If you’re a member of staff considering how to take low impact business travel, visit the Business Travel Toolkit or contact the University of Bristol Business Travel Team.

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This blog has been written by Hannah Morgans, Sustainability Communications Project Officer and Dr Alix Dietzel, Senior Lecturer in Climate Justice in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies and Associate Director for Impact and Innovation at the Cabot Institute for the Environment. This blog has been reposted with kind permission from the University of Bristol’s Sustainability Team. View the original blog.

Environmental keywords: understanding ‘vulnerability’

Posted on April 16, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Fresh morning, new sights

Interconnected beauty

Time to scratch below[1]

When do we really give ourselves time to reflect? Deeply. As academics we think a great deal, but how often do we immerse ourselves in our immediate environment and open ourselves to the profound possibilities of interdisciplinary exchange?

A rare opportunity to do just that was offered via a Cabot Institute for the Environment workshop earlier this year. Run in conjunction with the ‘Environmental Keywords’ project team (PI: Dr Paul Merchant, Modern Languages, Co-I: Professor Daniela Schmidt, Earth Sciences and Senior Research Associate: Dr Claire Cox, English Literature), the session sought to unpack how terms commonly-used used in communications on climate change are variously perceived, and what they might be understood to mean.

As academics engaged in urgent environmental challenges, our interdisciplinary communications can too often stall on discipline-specific definitions across, for example, the humanities and hard sciences. Our half-day workshop sought to open a shared space for interdisciplinary exchange by focussing on the word ‘vulnerability’ as a starting point towards co-created understandings that have the potential to catalyse new interdisciplinary collaborations, and, more widely, to inform local policy makers’ thinking.

Environmental Keywords: Phase 1 Community Workshops

The Cabot workshop marked the launch of the second phase of the Environmental Keywords project (also supported by Research England’s Policy Support Fund). The first phase, funded by NERC (Natural Environment Research Council), took place in 2021-22 and comprised a series of three Bristol-based community workshops which explored how a creative facilitation methodology grounded in key terms in environmental research and activism (such as ‘resilience’, ‘justice’ and ‘transitions’) might enhance community engagement with contemporary environmental challenges. These workshops were held across the city with community partner organisations including Heart of BS13 and Eastside Community Trust, and included colleagues from a range of disciplinary backgrounds from the University of Bristol.

Key to the co-creation approach was an introductory ‘Walk and Talk’ activity around the community groups’ localities. Crucially, the walks not only acknowledged the group members’ as leaders and experts on their own terms, but also provided shared points of reference for later round-table discussions. From these free-flowing discussions it became clear that for many of the community participants survival considerations, such as the cost of living and physical safety, were more pressing than, what were perceived as, the distant and abstract threats of climate change.

The Cabot ‘Walk and Talk’

The group walks and talks through Bristol. Photo: D. Schmidt.

As Robert Macfarlane observed: ‘walking is not the action by which one arrives at knowledge; it is itself the means of knowing.’[2]. For the Cabot workshop we again employed the walking methodology; and with ‘vulnerability’ in mind, took a route from Royal Fort House to King Square, returning past the Bristol hospitals via Marlborough Street. This gave us ample opportunity to chat, as well as to observe our surroundings, make notes and take photographs of things that exemplified ‘vulnerability’ to us or sparked our interest.

Round table reflections

Emergent themes from the discussion that followed our walk were as insightful as they were wide-ranging. Much of the consideration centred around vulnerabilities arising from poverty and socio-economic disparities locally and globally; and the associated issues of power and power structures, agency, lack of choice and who decides on the choices we have.

Physical vulnerabilities, as prompted by Bristol’s steep topography from sea level to hilltop, were also deliberated, as were ideas about differing perceptions of our own vulnerability, often based on gender, health or age. We noted that people can also refuse to recognize their own vulnerability for many reasons.

As we had walked though Bristol’s Clean Air Zone issues including pollution, policy, public health, equity and political transparency quickly came to the fore. The shifting dynamics between vulnerability and reliance were also discussed, as was loss of the commons and of green spaces globally.
The complexity of the climate crisis was framed in terms of Rob Nixon’s concept of ‘slow violence’ and difficulties of responding to such an incremental set of environmental threats [3]. There was also a sense that as a concerned group of individuals, we need to understand vulnerability in order to achieve social justice; and that interdisciplinarity can open us to new ways of perceiving and understanding the world beyond the limitations of our personal inclinations and disciplinary boundaries.

Saying it with syllables

To round off the session, and as a creative counterpoint to the intensity of the workshop, there was an invitation to describe a ‘moment of delight’ from the walk and to express it in the form of a haiku: an ancient and very short poetic form synonymous with Japan, based on a pattern of syllables over three lines.

Almost immediately another, unexpected, vulnerability was highlighted – that of language. Several of the group’s English-as-an-additional-language speakers encountered issues around thinking ‘poetically’ in another language. Here, writing in one’s birth language came more easily, with the poem then being translated into English. Environmental Keywords’ exploration into the relationship between the words we use and the thoughts we seek to express suddenly became very tangible indeed.

Voy adelante
ciudad nueva, cielo gris
me pierdo – no soy

I walk on
new city, grey skies
I get lost – I am not [4]

[1] Haiku from Cabot workshop.

[2] Robert Macfarlane, The Old Ways (London: Penguin Books Ltd, 2013), p. 27.

[3] Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2011).

[4] Portuguese/English haiku from workshop.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment member Dr Claire Cox at the University of Bristol.

Labour scaling back its £28 billion green pledge will impact UK housing – and public health

Posted on February 19, 2024 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The UK Labour party has announced its intention to reduce its £28 billion green investment pledge to less than £15 billion if elected this year. The political fallout has been been largely focused on the party’s fiscal credibility and leader of the opposition Keir Starmer’s seeming proclivity for U-turns.

A crucial question so far overlooked is what impact the cut would have on public health. The initial pledge included a key home-insulation plan to upgrade 72% – 19m homes – of the UK’s housing stock.

The revised plan, however, replaces that ambitious target with the more ambiguous statement that “millions of homes” will be refurbished. Research has long shown that uninsulated homes have consequences for health, especially for those living in poverty and in poor quality housing. This in turn places an extra burden on an already over-stretched health service.

A constructionn site. — Labour plans to build 1.5 million homes.
Shutterstock

Existing government failure

The wider societal cost of poor-quality housing in the UK is estimated at £18.6 billion a year. Such costs, however, are often ignored when housing policy is being developed and implemented.

Labour promises to deliver 1.5 million homes by “blitzing” the planning system, but it has so far ignored the potential consequences for public health.

Of course, the failure to factor in health is by no means unique to Labour policy. It is already embedded in the government’s approach. A recent academic review of government housing and transport policy found that health is notably absent, despite well-established evidence that urban spaces are making us ill. This shows that on the occasions where health is included, it is lower in a hierarchy of priorities compared to other agendas such as growing the economy.

For many years, government housing policy has been shaped by the numeric gap between supply and demand, rather than the type or quality of the housing stock. The mechanisms for delivering have been based on land release and planning reform. Successive housing policies have mentioned involving communities and supporting their health, social, and cultural wellbeing. But there have been no clear targets for ensuring house retrofit and house building positively impact public health.

In his 2010 independent review on how to reduce health inequalities in England, epidemiologist Michael Marmot showed that prioritising health in urban policies, like housing and transport, can have significant health benefits for local populations.

Our research project has shown that health should be made a central factor in all national policy and guidance that shapes urban spaces. The World Health Organization recommends explicitly including health in housing policy – and tracking its impact with recognised metrics. UK politicians have largely failed to respond.

Promising developments

In addition to positive developments in government, such as the Build Back Beautiful Commission, the opposition also has some promising ambitions. Labour is pledging to deliver a “prevention-first revolution”, in which it envisions a pro-active role for government in ensuring that everybody has the building blocks for a healthy life.

In its mission document for health policy, Labour says that retrofitting of millions of homes will “keep families warm rather than living in damp, mouldy conditions that give their children asthma”. The fact that the party is making explicit this link between housing and health signal is a potentially very positive step forward.

However, in all the furore about Labour scrapping its £28 billion pledge, this crucial link to public health has been entirely forgotten. Indeed, while Labour’s environmental policy has been carefully updated to revise and remove various targets, the preventative health agenda retains the now defunct promise to “oversee retrofitting of 19 million homes”. This is perhaps indicative of the extent to which policymakers just don’t think about health when they think about housing.

While the Conservative pledges for the next parliament remain unclear, analysis of their existing policies in government has found a failure to think about or measure the way housing and urban development policis impact health. Instead, it is merely assumed that housing policies will have positive health outcomes. Rather than making such assumptions, policymakers should be putting public health considerations at the centre of all their decision making.

To ensure that the impact any given policy has on public health is measured and acted upon, health needs to be an explicit urban planning policy outcome. It needs to be clearly defined, measurable, and built into policy implementation and political discourse.

It is also important that different government ministries and relevant stakeholders focused on public health, planning and the environment work together more effectively. Unhealthy homes should be a priority for both the housing minister and the health minister.

Healthier people are more economically productive. They have a smaller financial footprint on the NHS. In the long term, better preventative health is a key part of solving some of the UK’s biggest economic challenges, from labour shortages and sluggish productivity growth to stretched public finances.

Too often government policy is not often designed with the long-term in mind. Instead, short-term economic outcomes and political gains are prioritised – to the detriment of public health.

The best way for the government to protect public health is for every department to consider how their work impacts on it. If political and economic calculations about creating, scrapping and rescaling major projects continue to ignore health, however, politicians are likely to continue coming up with the wrong answers.

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This blog is written by Dr Jack Newman, Research Fellow, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol and Dr Geoff Bates, Lecturer in Social Policy, Research Fellow, University of Bath.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Are you a journalist looking for climate experts for COP28? We’ve got you covered

Posted on October 30, 2023November 28, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

We’ve got lots of media trained climate change experts. If you need an expert for an interview, here is a list of our experts you can approach. All media enquiries should be made via Victoria Tagg, our dedicated Media and PR Manager at the University of Bristol.

Email victoria.tagg@bristol.ac.uk or call +44 (0)117 428 2489.

Climate change / climate emergency / climate science / climate-induced disasters

Dr Eunice Lo – expert in changes in extreme weather events such as heatwaves and cold spells, and how these changes translate to negative health outcomes including illnesses and deaths. Follow on Twitter/X @EuniceLoClimate.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports.

Dr Katerina Michalides – expert in drylands, drought and desertification and helping East African rural communities to adapt to droughts and future climate change. Follow on Twitter/X @_kmichaelides.

Professor Dann Mitchell – expert in how climate change alters the atmospheric circulation, extreme events, and impacts on human health. Dann is also a Met Office Chair. Follow on Twitter/X @ClimateDann.

Professor Dan Lunt – expert on past climate change, with a focus on understanding how and why climate has changed in the past and what we can learn about the future from the past. Dan is also a Lead Author on IPCC AR6. Follow on Twitter/X @ClimateSamwell.

Professor Jonathan Bamber – expert on the impact of melting land ice on sea level rise (SLR) and the response of the ocean to changes in freshwater forcing. Follow on Twitter/X @jlbamber

Professor Paul Bates CBE – expert in the science of flooding, risk and reducing threats to life and economic losses worldwide. Follow on Twitter/X @paul_d_bates

Dr Matt Palmer – expert in sea level and ocean heat content at the Met Office Hadley Centre and University of Bristol. Follow on Twitter/X @mpclimate.

Professor Guy Howard – expertise in building resilience and supporting adaptation in water systems, sanitation, health care facilities, and housing. Expert in wider infrastructure resilience assessment.

Net Zero / Energy / Renewables

Dr Caitlin Robinson – expert on energy poverty and energy justice and also in mapping ambient vulnerabilities in UK cities. Caitlin will be virtually attending COP28. Follow on Twitter/X @CaitHRobin.

Professor Philip Taylor – Expert in net zero, energy systems, energy storage, utilities, electric power distribution. Also Pro-Vice Chancellor at the University of Bristol. Follow on Twitter/X @rolyatlihp.

Dr Colin Nolden – expert in sustainable energy policy, regulation and business models and interactions with secondary markets such as carbon markets and other sectors such as mobility. Colin will be in attendance in the Blue Zone at COP28 during week 2.

Professor Charl Faul – expert in novel functional materials for sustainable energy applications e.g. in CO2 capture and conversion and energy storage devices. Follow on Twitter/X @Charl_FJ_Faul.

Climate finance / Loss and damage

Dr Rachel James – Expert in climate finance, damage, loss and decision making. Also has expertise in African climate systems and contemporary and future climate change. Follow on Twitter/X @_RachelJames.

Dr Katharina Richter – expert in decolonial environmental politics and equitable development in times of climate crises. Also an expert on degrowth and Buen Vivir, two alternatives to growth-based development from the Global North and South. Katarina will be virtually attending COP28. @DrKatRichter.

Climate justice

Dr Alix Dietzel – climate justice and climate policy expert. Focusing on the global and local scale and interested in how just the response to climate change is and how we can ensure a just transition. Alix will be in attendance in the Blue Zone at COP28 during week 1. Follow on Twitter/X @alixdietzel.

Dr Ed Atkins – expert on environmental and energy policy, politics and governance and how they must be equitable and inclusive. Also interested in local politics of climate change policies and energy generation and consumption. Follow on Twitter/X @edatkins_.

Dr Karen Tucker – expert on colonial politics of knowledge that shape encounters with indigenous knowledges, bodies and natures, and the decolonial practices that can reveal and remake them. Karen will be in attending the Blue Zone of COP28 in week 2.

Climate change and health

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety and educational psychologist. Follow on Twitter/X @edpsydan.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in influence of climate change on infectious water-related disease, including waterborne disease and vector-borne disease.

Professor Rachael Gooberman-Hill – expert in health research, including long-term health conditions and design of ways to support and improve health. @EBIBristol (this account is only monitored in office hours).

Youth, children, education and skills

Dr Dan O’Hare – expert in climate anxiety in children and educational psychologist. Follow on Twitter/X @edpsydan.

Dr Camilla Morelli – expert in how children and young people imagine the future, asking what are the key challenges they face towards the adulthoods they desire and implementing impact strategies to make these desires attainable. Follow on Twitter/X @DrCamiMorelli.

Dr Helen Thomas-Hughes – expert in engaging, empowering, and inspiring diverse student bodies as collaborative environmental change makers. Also Lead of the Cabot Institute’s MScR in Global Environmental Challenges. Follow on Twitter/X @Researchhelen.

Professor Daniela Schmidt – expert in the causes and effects of climate change on marine systems. Dani is also a Lead Author on the IPCC reports. Also part of the Waves of Change project with Dr Camilla Morelli, looking at the intersection of social, economic and climatic impacts on young people’s lives and futures around the world.

Climate activism / Extinction Rebellion

Dr Oscar Berglund – expert on climate change activism and particularly Extinction Rebellion (XR) and the use of civil disobedience. Follow on Twitter @berglund_oscar.

Land / Nature / Food

Dr Jo House – expert on land and climate interactions, including emissions of carbon dioxide from land use change (e.g. deforestation), climate mitigation potential from the land (e.g. afforestation, bioenergy), and implications of science for policy. Previously Government Office for Science’s Head of Climate Advice. Follow on Twitter @Drjohouse.

Professor Steve Simpson – expert marine biology and fish ecology, with particular interests in the behaviour of coral reef fishes, bioacoustics, effects of climate change on marine ecosystems, conservation and management. Follow on Twitter/X @DrSteveSimpson.

Dr Taro Takahashi – expert on farming, livestock production systems as well as programme evaluation and general equilibrium modelling of pasture and livestock-based economies.

Dr Maria Paula Escobar-Tello – expert on tensions and intersections between livestock farming and the environment.

Air pollution / Greenhouse gases

Dr Aoife Grant – expert in greenhouse gases and methane. Set up a monitoring station at Glasgow for COP26 to record emissions.

Professor Matt Rigby – expert on sources and sinks of greenhouse gases and ozone depleting substances. Follow on Twitter @TheOtherMRigby.

Professor Guy Howard – expert in contribution of waste and wastewater systems to methane emissions in low- and middle-income countries

Plastic and the environment

Dr Charlotte Lloyd – expert on the fate of chemicals in the terrestrial environment, including plastics, bioplastics and agricultural wastes. Follow on Twitter @DrCharlLloyd.

Cabot Institute for the Environment at COP28

We will have three media trained academics in attendance at the Blue Zone at COP28. These are: Dr Alix Dietzel (week 1), Dr Colin Nolden (week 2) and Dr Karen Tucker (week 2). We will also have two academics attending virtually: Dr Caitlin Robinson and Dr Katharina Richter.

Read more about COP on our website at https://bristol.ac.uk/cabot/what-we-do/projects/cop/
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This blog was written by Amanda Woodman-Hardy, Communications and Engagement Officer at the Cabot Institute for the Environment. Follow on Twitter @Enviro_Mand and @cabotinstitute.

Watch our Cabot Conversations – 10 conversations between 2 experts on a climate change issue, all whilst an artist listens in the background and interprets the conversation into a beautiful piece of art in real time. Find out more at bristol.ac.uk/cabot/conversations.

Is climate change really a reason not to have children? Here’s four reasons why it’s not that simple

Posted on August 21, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Should we consider having children to be the same as overconsumption?
Piyaset/Shutterstock

In 2009, statistician Paul Murtaugh and climate scientist Michael Schlax calculated that having just one child in a high-emitting country such as the United States will add around 10,000 tonnes of CO₂ to the atmosphere. That’s five times the emissions an average parent produces in their entire lifetime.

The reason this number is so large is because offspring are likely to have children themselves, perpetuating emissions for many generations to come.

According to one prominent argument from 2002, we should think of procreation in analogy to overconsumption. Just like overconsumption, procreation is an act in which you knowingly bring about more carbon emissions than is ethical. If we condemn overconsumption, then we should be consistent and raise an eyebrow at procreation too.

Given the potential climate impact of having even a single child, some ethicists argue that there are ethical boundaries on how big our families should be. Typically, they propose that we ought to have no more than two children per couple, or perhaps no more than one. Others have even argued that, in the current circumstances, it may be best not to have any children at all.

These ideas have gained traction through the efforts of activist groups such as the BirthStrike movement and UK charity Population Matters.

Climate ethicists broadly agree that the climate crisis is unprecedented and requires us to rethink what can be ethically demanded of individuals. But proposing ethical limits on family size has struck many as unpalatable due to a number of concerns.

Parents playing with their daughter in a park. — Some ethicists propose limits on family size.
Liderina/Shutterstock

1. Blaming certain groups

Philosopher Quill Kukla has warned of the danger of stigmatisation. Affirming a duty to have fewer children might suggest that certain groups, which have or are perceived to have more children than average, are to blame for climate change. These groups tend to be ethnic minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged people.

Kukla has also expressed concern that if we start talking about limiting how many kids we have, the burden might end falling disproportionately on women’s shoulders. Women are already pressured to live up to society’s idea of how many children they should or shouldn’t have.

These worries do not directly concern what actual moral obligations to reduce emissions we have. However, they do highlight the fraught nature of talking about ethical limits to procreation.

2. Who’s really responsible?

A philosophical worry we’ve raised in the past challenges the conception of responsibility that underlies arguments for limits to procreation. We usually only think that people are responsible for what they do themselves, and not what others do, including their adult children.

From this perspective, parents might have some responsibility for the emissions generated by their underage children. It’s conceivable that they might also bear some responsibility for the emissions their adult children cannot avoid. But they’re not responsible for their children’s luxury emissions, or for the emissions of their grandchildren and beyond.

When broken down like this, the carbon footprint of having a child is much less drastic and no longer stands out compared to other consumption choices. According to one estimate that follows this logic, each parent bears responsibility for about 45 tonnes of additional CO₂ emissions. This is the same as taking one transatlantic return flight every four years of one’s lifetime.

A plane taking off. — A plane departing from Manchester Airport, UK.
Plane Photography/Shutterstock

3. Simply too slow

We are already seeing signs of climate breakdown. The ice is melting, oceans are warming and many climate records have tumbled already this summer.

To avoid the escalating impacts of climate change, climate scientists are in agreement that we must urgently reach net zero emissions. The most commonly proposed targets for this goal are by 2050 or 2070. In many countries, these targets have been written into law.

But, given the pressing need for urgent emissions reductions, limiting procreation is a woefully inadequate response. This is because the resulting emissions reductions will come into effect only over a much longer period. It is simply the wrong place to look for the emissions savings that we need to make now.

4. Path to net zero

Since limiting procreation does not reduce emissions quickly enough, per capita emissions need to drop – and fast. But that is not solely in the power of individual consumers or would-be parents.

What we are facing is a collective action problem. The ethical responsibility for reducing emissions rests on the shoulders of not just individuals, but also with societies, their institutions and businesses.

In fact, if we collectively manage to reduce our per capita emissions to net zero by 2050, then having a child today leads to only a small amount of emissions. After 2050, they and their descendants would cease to add to net emissions.

However, despite political commitments to achieve this target, the jury is still out on whether this target will be met. More than US$1.7 (£1.3) trillion is expected to be invested in clean energy technologies globally this year – by far the most ever spent on clean energy in a year. Yet, the UK continues to grapple with how to fund its net zero transition – a predicament they’re unlikely to be alone in.

Philosophical arguments that we should have fewer children challenge our understanding of what morality can demand in an age of climate change. They also call into question whether the most meaningful choices we can make as individuals are simple consumption choices (for example, between meat and plant-based alternatives). But the philosophical debate about whether there is a duty to have fewer children is complex – and remains open.

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This blog is written by Dr Martin Sticker, Lecturer in Ethics, University of Bristol and Dr Felix Pinkert, Tenure-track Assistant Professor, Universität Wien. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Bats are avoiding solar farms and scientists aren’t sure why

Posted on August 10, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

The common pipistrelle. Rudmer Zwerver/Shutterstock

As our planet continues to warm, the need for renewable energy is becoming increasingly urgent. Almost half of the UK’s electricity now comes from renewable sources. And solar accounts for one-fifth of the energy capacity installed since 2019.

Solar farms are now a striking feature of the British landscape. But despite their growth, we’re still largely in the dark about how solar farms impact biodiversity.

This was the focus of a recent study that I co-authored alongside colleagues from the University of Bristol. We found that bat activity is reduced at solar farms compared to neighbouring sites without solar panels.

This discovery is concerning. Bats are top predators of nighttime insects and are sensitive to changes in their habitats, so they are important indicators of ecosystem health. Bats also provide valuable services such as suppressing populations of insect pests.

Nonetheless, our results should not hinder the transition to renewable energy. Instead, they should help to craft strategies that not only encourage bat activity but also support the necessary expansion of clean energy sources.

An aerial shot of a solar farm in south Wales. — Solar farms are now a striking feature of the British landscape. steved_np3/Shutterstock

Reduced activity

We measured bat activity by recording their ultrasonic echolocation calls on bat detectors. Many bat species have distinctive echolocation calls, so we could identify call sequences for each species in many cases. Some species show similar calls, so we lumped them together in species groups.

We placed bat detectors in a solar farm field and a similar neighbouring field without solar panels (called the control site). The fields were matched in size, land use and boundary features (such as having similar hedges) as far as possible. The only major difference was whether they contained solar panels.

We monitored 19 pairs of these sites, each for a week, observing bat activity within the fields’ centre and along their boundaries. Field boundaries are used by bats for navigation and feeding.

Six of the eight bat species or groups studied were less active in the fields with solar panels compared to the fields without them. Common pipistrelles, which made up almost half of all bat activity, showed a decrease of 40% at the edges of solar panel fields and 86% in their centre. Other bat species or groups like soprano pipistrelles, noctules, serotines, myotis bats and long-eared bats also saw their activity drop.

Total bat activity was almost halved at the boundaries of solar panel fields compared to that of control sites. And at the centre of solar panel fields, bat activity dropped by two-thirds.

Why are bats avoiding solar farms?

Conflict between clean energy production and biodiversity isn’t just limited to solar farms; it’s an issue at wind farms too. Large numbers of bats are killed by colliding with the blades of wind turbines. In 2012, for example, one academic estimated that around 888,000 bats may have been killed at wind energy facilities in the United States.

The way solar farms affect bats is probably more indirect than this. Solar panels could, in theory, inadvertently reduce the abundance of insects by lowering the availability of the plants they feed on. We’re currently investigating whether there’s a difference in insect numbers at the solar farm sites compared to the control sites.

Solar panels may also reflect a bats’ echolocation calls, making insect detection more difficult. Reduced feeding success around the panels may result in fewer bats using the surrounding hedgerows for commuting, potentially explaining our findings.

However, bats are also known to collide with smooth vertical flat surfaces because they reflect echolocation calls away from bats and hence appear as empty space. Research has also found that bats sometimes attempt to drink from horizontal smooth surfaces because they interpret the perpendicular echoes as coming from still water. But, given the sloped orientation of solar panels, these potential direct effects may not be of primary concern.

Improving habitats

An important lesson from the development of wind energy is that win-win solutions exist. Ultrasonic acoustic deterrents can keep bats away from wind turbines, while slightly reducing the wind speed that turbines become operational at (known as “cut-in speeds”) has reduced bat fatality rates with minimal losses to energy production. Research suggests that increasing turbine cut-in speeds by 1.5 metres per second can reduce bat fatalities by at least 50%, with an annual loss to power output below 1%.

A slightly different approach could be applied to solar farms. Improving habitats by planting native trees along the boundaries of solar farm fields could potentially increase the availability of insects for bats to feed on.

Research that I have co-authored in recent years supports this theory. We found that the presence of landscape features such as tall hedgerows and even isolated trees on farmland has a positive effect on bat activity.

Carefully selecting solar sites is also important. Prior to construction, conducting environmental impact assessments could indicate the value of proposed sites to bat populations.

More radically, rethinking the siting of these sites so that most are placed on buildings or in areas that are rarely visited by bats, could limit their impact on bat populations.

Solar power is the fastest-growing source of renewable energy worldwide. Its capacity is projected to overtake natural gas by 2026 and coal by 2027. Ensuring that its ecological footprint remains minimal is now particularly important.

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This blog is written by Gareth Jones, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Britain’s next election could be a climate change culture war

Posted on August 1, 2023August 1, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Signs indicating Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) on a street in London, UK.

A byelection in a London suburb has placed environmental policy at the centre of political debate in the UK, and could make it a key battleground in the next general election.

The Conservative party narrowly held former prime minister Boris Johnson’s seat in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, vacated after his resignation from parliament. The win has been cast as a victory driven by popular anger against climate policy, particularly London’s ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) – an area where drivers of the highest-polluting vehicles must pay a fee.

The winning candidate positioned himself as the anti-Ulez choice, tapping into local anger at the policy. But as comments from media and politicians show, the Uxbridge story signals a new stage of national politics that demonises environmental policies. And my research suggests this could develop into an important new front in the culture war, with the power to help determine the next election.

The Ulez, created by Boris Johnson as mayor of London in 2015, is a restricted area covering central London, where vehicles must meet emissions standards or pay £12.50 to enter. Most petrol cars registered after 2005 and diesel cars registered after 2015 meet the standards. It’s primarily a public health policy, with the goal to reduce air pollution and encourage the use of low-emission vehicles.

It is due to expand into London’s outer boroughs in August 2023 – an area 18 times larger than the original zone. Legal battles and public protests have blamed London’s Labour mayor, Sadiq Khan, for the expansion of the policy.

The opposition to Ulez is highly partisan. Nationally, 59% of Conservatives oppose Ulez schemes compared to 23% of Labour voters. In London, 72% of those who voted Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum opposed the Ulez expansion. Former Remain voters are evenly split, with 44% in support and 44% against the policy.

The Conservative prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has now distanced the government from green policies that could contribute to household expenses. Labour leader Keir Starmer acknowledged the role that Ulez played in the loss, saying that “policy matters” in elections. He also called on Khan to “reflect” on the Ulez expansion.

Climate change culture wars

My research shows net-zero policies are the next target of right-wing populism and culture wars in the UK. Narratives are emerging that tie complaints about climate policies being undemocratic or expensive to issues of Brexit, energy security and a “green elite”.

Last year, Nigel Farage called for a referendum on net-zero, policies that, in his words, had “been imposed upon people without any public discussion.”

This narrative is evident in the opposition to Ulez, despite evidence for the scheme. Air pollution has dropped dramatically one year into the Ulez expansion across inner London, and most cars in London’s outer boroughs fulfil the Ulez standards and would be unaffected by the expansion.

Yet videos of anti-Ulez protests show placards reading “Stop the toxic air lie”, a cardboard coffin with “democracy” written across it and protesters complaining about a lack of fairness and transparency in the policy.

Climate and public health measures are now linked in broader ideological battles about political and economic priorities. These policies have become fertile ground for anybody seeking to rally new supporters. Those supporters will come from groups whose day-to-day lives are impacted by these policies.

Green policies

The Ulez is not the first environmental policy to face public opposition. In 2009, the UK saw a popular campaign against the replacement of incandescent lightbulbs with LEDs.

More recently, bollards that designate low-traffic neighbourhoods have been set on fire. Opposition to these schemes has also been co-opted by conspiracy theorists arguing that climate policies are an attempt to take away personal freedoms.

We have seen the consequences of such debates before. A decade before Sunak, Conservative prime minister David Cameron stepped back from environmental policies, calling for ministers to “ditch the green crap”. This arguably led to a “lost decade” in climate policy, as well as the slowing of policies that would have reduced vulnerability in the recent energy crisis.

There is reason to hope that the coming election will be different. Public concern about the climate remains high: 67% of British people surveyed worried about climate breakdown.

And people are more likely to think that the government should do more, not less, in climate policy. New polling shows that climate concern is likely to pay off for Labour.

As I’ve argued, green policies can transform neighbourhoods. But governments must also recognise how such policies affect people’s everyday struggles, like cost of living, which are likely to dominate the next electoral cycle.

Policies must minimise impacts that disproportionately impact some groups over others. People living in London’s outer suburbs, without wide access to public transport, are more likely to own a car – driving local opposition to the Ulez in places like Uxbridge.

Ways to address this include paying people to scrap older vehicles. This is something Khan has put in place for Londoners, but has not had the government support to expand it to people living around London who would be affected when they drive into the capital.

Khan has spoken about opposition to the Ulez expansion as an “orchestrated campaign” that has moved beyond many Londoners’ “genuine concerns”. But concerns about Ulez aren’t limited to those engaging in conspiracy theories. They include residents worried about the getting to work, the school run, or caring for elderly relatives. These are problems that should be ironed out by comprehensive and sensitive policies that maximise the benefits of any change.

The coming election

The fact that a candidate can win on an anti-Ulez platform shows the effectiveness of simplifying climate action and its outcomes into what people can lose, and failing to emphasise the benefits.

The current debates miss a key point of climate action: it is never just about emissions. Opposition to the Ulez is not exclusively resistance to climate policy. It is dissent over who it impacts, and how.

The Labour party must decide whether to retreat from or double down on climate action. If the latter, the next general election will be fought as a climate change culture war.

On one side will be a group seeking to portray climate action as a costly, undemocratic and unfair exercise. On the other must be a call for climate policy that is about cleaner air, warmer homes and healthier neighbourhoods, without disproportionately impacting certain groups of people.

This blog is written by Dr Ed Atkins, Senior Lecturer, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Why 40°C is bearable in a desert but lethal in the tropics

Posted on June 2, 2023 by amanda.woodman-hardy

Phew: heat plus humidity can make Bangkok an uncomfortable place in a heatwave.
Pavel V.Khon/SHutterstock

This year, even before the northern hemisphere hot season began, temperature records were being shattered. Spain for instance saw temperatures in April (38.8°C) that would be out of the ordinary even at the peak of summer. South and south-east Asia in particular were hammered by a very persistent heatwave, and all-time record temperatures were experienced in countries such as Vietnam and Thailand (44°C and 45°C respectively). In Singapore, the more modest record was also broken, as temperatures hit 37°C. And in China, Shanghai just recorded its highest May temperature for over a century at 36.7°C.

We know that climate change makes these temperatures more likely, but also that heatwaves of similar magnitudes can have very different impacts depending on factors like humidity or how prepared an area is for extreme heat. So, how does a humid country like Vietnam cope with a 44°C heatwave, and how does it compare with dry heat, or a less hot heatwave in even-more-humid Singapore?

Weather and physiology

The recent heatwave in south-east Asia may well be remembered for its level of heat-induced stress on the body. Heat stress is mostly caused by temperature, but other weather-related factors such as humidity, radiation and wind are also important.

Our bodies gain heat from the air around us, from the sun, or from our own internal processes such as digestion and exercise. In response to this, our bodies must lose some heat. Some of this we lose directly to the air around us and some through breathing. But most heat is lost through sweating, as when the sweat on the surface of our skin evaporates it takes in energy from our skin and the air around us in the form of latent heat.

annotated diagram of person — How humans heat up and cool down.
Take from Buzan and Huber (2020) Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Author provided

Meteorological factors affect all this. For example, being deprived of shade exposes the body to heat from direct sunlight, while higher humidity means that the rate of evaporation from our skin will decrease.

It’s this humidity that meant the recent heatwave in south-east Asia was so dangerous, as it’s already an extremely humid part of the world.

The limit of heat stress

Underlying health conditions and other personal circumstances can lead to some people being more vulnerable to heat stress. Yet heat stress can reach a limit above which all humans, even those who are not obviously vulnerable to heat risk – that is, people who are fit, healthy and well acclimatised – simply cannot survive even at a moderate level of exertion.

One way to assess heat stress is the so-called Wet Bulb Globe Temperature. In full sun conditions, that is approximately equivalent to 39°C in temperature combined with 50% relative humidity. This limit will likely have been exceeded in some places in the recent heatwave across south-east Asia.

In less humid places far from the tropics, the humidity and thus the wet bulb temperature and danger will be much lower. Spain’s heatwave in April with maximum temperatures of 38.8°C had WBGT values of “only” around 30°C, the 2022 heatwave in the UK, when temperatures exceeded 40°C, had a humidity of less than 20% and WBGT values of around 32°C.

Two of us (Eunice and Dann) were part of a team who recently used climate data to map heat stress around the world. The research highlighted regions most at risk of exceeding these thresholds, with literal hotspots including India and Pakistan, south-east Asia, the Arabian peninsula, equatorial Africa, equatorial South America and Australia. In these regions, heat stress thresholds are exceeded with increased frequency with greater global warming.

In reality, most people are already vulnerable well below the survivability thresholds, which is why we can see large death tolls in significantly cooler heat waves. Furthermore, these global analyses often do not capture some very localised extremes caused by microclimate processes. For example a certain neighbourhood in a city might trap heat more efficiently than its surroundings, or might be ventilated by a cool sea breeze, or be in the “rain shadow” of a local hill, making it less humid.

Variability and acclimatisation

The tropics typically have less variable temperatures. For example, Singapore sits almost on the equator and its daily maximum is about 32°C year round, while a typical maximum in London in mid summer is just 24°C. Yet London has a higher record temperature (40°C vs 37°C in Singapore).

Given that regions such as south-east Asia consistently have high heat stress already, perhaps that suggests that people will be well acclimatised to deal with heat. Initial reporting suggests the intense heat stress of the recent heatwave lead to surprisingly few direct deaths – but accurate reporting of deaths from indirect causes is not yet available.

On the other hand, due to the relative stability in year-round warmth, perhaps there is less preparedness for the large swings in temperature associated with the recent heatwave. Given that it is not unreasonable, even in the absence of climate change, that natural weather variability can produce significant heatwaves that break local records by several degrees Celsius, even nearing a physiological limit might be a very risky line to tread.

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This blog is written by Cabot Institute for the Environment members: Dr Alan Thomas Kennedy-Asser, Research Associate in Climate Science; Professor Dann Mitchell, Professor of Climate Science, and Dr Eunice Lo, Research Fellow in Climate Change and Health, University of Bristol. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.