Tackling climate change must be the number one health priority for politicians, says DAUK\u2019s sustainability lead Dr Matt Lee.\r\n\r\nDr Lee said tackling climate change will bring health and economic benefits as he called on the Government to do more.\r\n\r\nHe was speaking as the Met Office released a new assessment of the UK\u2019s climate.\r\n\r\nThe Met Office found record breaking and extreme weather has become increasingly commonplace over the last few decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Lee said: \u201cToday’s report from the Met office highlights the dire climatic situation we are now in.\r\n\r\n\u201cSevere heatwaves and flash floods are a consequence of successive failures of governments to take action against climate change, and due to the fossil fuel industry’s repeated misinformation campaigns.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe must not accept these catastrophic changes in our weather as the new normal. Doing so would encourage such environmentally harmful industries and politicians to advocate for business as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt is clear that tackling climate change has to be the number one priority for politicians. We healthcare professionals, as trusted public figures, must be vocal in advocating for action for the sake of our patients and combat misinformation from fossil fuel lobbyists and climate denialist politicians.\r\n\r\n\u201cTackling climate change brings multiple health and economic benefits and we urge the Government and Department of Health to increase their ambition, accelerate decarbonisation and nature restoration for climate change mitigation and adaptation.\u201d\r\n\r\nVisit the website Our Health, Our Planet<\/a> which has been produced by DAUK and is full of information aimed at keeping people safe in a changing climate and during extreme weather events.\r\n\r\nThe Met Office\u2019s latest assessment of the UK\u2019s climate shows how baselines are shifting, records are becoming more frequent, and that temperature and rainfall extremes are becoming the norm.\r\n\r\nThe State of the UK Climate report<\/a>, published by Wiley in the Royal Meteorological Society\u2019s \u2018International Journal of Climatology\u2019, provides insight into the UK\u2019s changing climate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The report highlights how the UK\u2019s climate has warmed steadily from the 1980s onwards, albeit with individual cooler years, with the greatest implications from the increasing frequency and intensity of daily temperature extremes.\r\n\r\nProfessor Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said: \u201cThe report draws particular attention to the last decade that clearly shows how quickly our climate is evolving to inform policy, resilience planning, and adaptation.\r\n\r\n“Perhaps most striking is the growing impact of extremes. While long-term averages are shifting, it is the extreme heat, intense rainfall and droughts that are having the most immediate and dramatic effects on people and nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This report is not just a record of change, but a call to action.\u201d\r\n\r\nRead more on the Met Office\u2019s report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Please support our work by joining DAUK<\/a> or donating to our GoFundMe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tackling climate change must be the number one health priority for politicians, says DAUK\u2019s sustainability lead Dr Matt Lee. Dr Lee said tackling climate change…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[650,65],"tags":[651,652,680,698],"class_list":["post-1404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate-crisis","category-dauk-news","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-crisis","tag-dr-matt-lee","tag-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Temperature extremes<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Call to action<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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