National Emergencies Trust at the Extreme Weather Conference: Mhairi’s headlines

I spent the whole of last Friday talking about the weather. But not in the typical “British” way.

Co-chairing the conversations at the Westminster Insight Extreme Weather conference with my colleague Vijay was eye-opening.

Here’s six hours of conversation in six bullet points...

Some of the challenges:

• Our weather will become more extreme, in part due to climate change. The UK is increasingly likely to see the kind of large-scale weather events that we traditionally associate with other countries - Dr Will Lang, Met Office
• “It will become increasingly less viable for the Government to play saviour in emergencies” which is why empowering local communities to mobilise is vital - Richard Smith-Bingham, National Preparedness Commission
• “But while we need to recognise the role of community groups, it’s hard to hard-wire them into emergency planning, as we can’t predict how they’ll be affected - Jim Savege, Aberdeenshire Council

Some solutions and suggestions:

• The UK Health Security Agency and Met Office are encouraging more people to sign up to Heat Health alerts so they can make decisions that keep them safe
• It would be helpful to be able to implement bans on people having BBQs in their gardens during extreme heat events to prevent fires – LSE
• We need to crack structures that enable us to share knowledge and collaborate ahead of and during disasters, at a local and national level - everyone!

The National Emergencies Trust expects to respond to a growing number of weather-related UK disasters in the coming years. It's why we are busy making friends withclimate experts and local and national emergency response partners before we need them.

If this is you, do get in touch (opens in a new tab).