The extreme high temperatures widely experienced across England this week has given us an insight into our future.  Even if global CO2 emissions were to cease tomorrow, which they won’t, the world is locked into a warming climate that will produce local extremes more frequently and widely.  While our country is a world leader in reducing emissions, other countries, including the two with by far the biggest populations on the planet, are still increasing theirs.

The reality, while not a great thing to put across, is that our commendable efforts in the UK to reduce emissions are about trying to limit the damage as best we can, rather than stopping the warming trend.  We need other countries to follow our lead and some solid progress in commitments was made at last year’s COP26 conference.

Adapting to and living with more frequent extreme high temperatures will become increasingly important.  More air con is far from ideal for obvious reasons, although more air con on public transport and in workplaces is likely to be needed to be available in hot conditions.  Requiring less heating in spring and autumn may help offset that to some degree.

What I’m keen to promote is the planting of more trees in urban areas which are always hotter due than rural areas due to the heat island effect.  Since 2019, the Conservative Government has been running the Urban Tree Challenge Fund, and then additionally from last year, the Local Authority Treescapes Fund.  While the schemes are different, both aim to provide funding to increase tree cover in urban areas which has many benefits, including of course the shading effect and temperature cooling during heatwaves.

Healthy urban trees are known to have a cooling benefit.  As well as shading, they do this through the release of water vapour during the process of evapotranspiration.  Trees also help with cooling because they reflect more solar radiation and store less energy than artificial concrete and asphalt surfaces.  As well as looking to see if these schemes could benefit us locally, we should be aiming for more tree planting in Crawley regardless.

Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group

20th July 2022