Comment on European State of the Climate 2023

"We’ll see more years like 2023 until we stop burning fossil fuels and pouring more emissions into the atmosphere. Net zero is the only solution we have to avoid even worse extremes. New evidence just last week showed the costs of climate impacts already built-in are six times higher than the price-tag for cutting emissions [2] - which could avoid a further trebling of those climate change costs by the end of the century.

"Impacts include food security. We import half our food into the UK; a quarter of those imports from the Mediterranean region that was hit hard by last year’s heat. [3] Extreme heat there has shown in price rises here - more than doubling the cost of olive oil in a year, for example. And whilst we didn’t see the same intense heat here, UK farmers have also been hit, with an unusually wet winter likely to cut yields of cooking oil crops by nearly two fifths. [4] Whether facing extreme drought or flooded fields, famers at home and abroad need help to adapt. In the UK, that means long-term support to improve soil health as well as to plant more hedgerows and trees that protect land from flooding. Without it, and without net zero by mid-century, we risk rising prices and growing food insecurity." [5]