Landmark science warns Britain faces dangerous climate change

Cutting-edge scientific projections, launched today by British Environment Secretary Hilary Benn, provide the most detailed picture to date of the threat facing Britain from soaring summer temperatures, more extreme weather and rising sea levels.

The UK Climate Projections 2009 illustrate the extent of the changes the UK might face in the absence of global action to cut greenhouse gas emissions – warmer and wetter winters, hotter and drier summers, increased risk of coastal erosion and more severe weather.  The maps and findings are available online at http://www.defra.gov.uk/                                    

The Projections are based on three global emissions scenarios outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – high, based on a fossil fuel reliant economy; medium, based on a mix of fossil fuel reliance and new lower carbon technologies; and low, based on increased use of new technologies. The UK’s Committee on Climate Change suggests that the world’s emissions are currently equivalent to a medium emissions scenario.

"The science is pushing us harder than ever towards an ambitious global deal in Copenhagen this December," said British Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband.

A consortium of organisations developed the UK Climate Projections 2009 using Met Office climate modelling in conjunction with the UK Climate Impacts Programme, Newcastle University, University of East Anglia, British Atmospheric Data Centre, Tyndall Centre, Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Environment Agency and Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership.