How should the UK tackle climate change? - BBC Newsnight

The year 2020 was the third warmest, fifth wettest and eighth sunniest on record, scientists said in the latest UK State of the Climate report.

The experts said that, in the space of 30 years, the UK has become 0.9C warmer and 6% wetter.

This year the UK hosts COP26, the United Nations’ Climate Change Conference, in Glasgow. So how does Boris Johnson plan to tackle climate change?

Newsnight’s political editor Nick Watt and economics editor Ben Chu report. Mark Urban is joined by Boris Johnson’s COP26 spokeswoman Allegra Stratton and shadow climate change minister Matthew Pennycook.

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Newsnight is the BBC's flagship news and current affairs TV programme - with analysis, debate, exclusives, and robust interviews.

[jebbo-cl]

regarding flooding, UK needs to give room for rivers to naturally flood on their floodplain like they do in the Netherlands, by restricting development. A wide scale reintroduction of beavers in suitable areas will also help slow down large amounts of water and is a cheaper solution than traditional flood defenses

[StratsRUs]

Use Boris and Priti as sandbags.Job done.

[albertross]

You could start by switching off the 4 giant unnecessary TV screens behind you. Imagine how much energy the BBC waste on a daily basis.

[LudiCrust.]

Of the UK government wants to see what happens when you build too many houses especially on flood plains they should look at what happened to Houston Texas a couple years ago when a hurricane hit and the water had nowhere to go.

[FHRider-om]

“ let’s face it, we all use a dishwasher” wow……..he’s pretty out of touch with many people in the U.K. Thank you MP Matthew Pennycock for noticing that!

[flashfm]

Too many houses were built on flood-risk areas. There seems to be a love affair in the UK with low-density housing in the countryside, but this needs to change. The government should make it easier for developers to construct high-density housing (apartment buildings) in urban centres which are not at risk of flooding and which are close to amenities.

[TheGlassman]

Easy. Clear the drains properly, update them from Victorian quality, dredge the rivers, streams and canals as they should be, stop building houses on the flood planes and take council workers off Furlough and we will be fine as we have been every other year

[BJPZINDABAD]

Building embakments along rivers, flood plains along river beds, raising the floor levels of houses. People need to adapt to the change in weather. conditions.

[thecfbutcher]

Why do we never hear about a global effort to plant more trees?

[jackmichaelpeter]

How to make a big change? End subsidies for animal agriculture. See how well the industry survives without constant governmental support.

[ShrunkedDude]

Funny that they ban electric scooters even for short distance routes but try and force them to use deiseal vehicles instead.

[TheWaveGoodbye-Music]

Have to say, here in Scotland I remember cold white winters, we'd have weeks off school, this was only just a decade ago.

Now we get no snow, the past 4 summers we've had basically no rain and soaring temperatures

[klokoloko]

We have 95% CO2 emissions from these 3 sectors:
1) heating in winter (coal, oil, gas, some wood) 30% CO2 emissions
2) transportation (almost all on oil) about 28% CO2 emissions
3) electricity usage (55% of EL is produced with, you guess, coal, oil and gas, some wood) 25% CO2 emissions

We also have animal agriculture about 14% CO2 emissions

[BoltonMaverickoutdoors]

Why don't you put graphs up of 500 years

[gentlegiraffe]

I think we need to distinguish clearly between climate change and pollution. The former cannot be "controlled" whereas the latter can be.
Practically speaking, there is no way we can prevent floods, hurricanes, tsunamis and tornadoes from happening. But there is a lot we can do to reduce pollution.
The sad fact is that, no matter how much activists protest and talk, there is always more plastic in the supermarket, always more paper in our mailboxes (loads of unsolicited ads), always more and more people buying new cars with all the latest features, more and more planes criss-crossing the skies.Always more and more people buying the latest smartphones, tablets and computers.
And few think about where all the old phones, Ipads and computers end up. They are NOT biodegradable.

We have an unsatiable appetite for unlimited travel - and all the latest that technology has to offer -- and we want it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Unless we - as a global community - are willing to make some serious changes to our lifestyles, I fear that any talk about climate change is not terribly meaningful.

[slaterdomain]

Just start preparing for the Grand Solar Minimum. Simple. Cold weather crop losses. Geoengineering too

[YourConscience]

It’s time to get corporations and bankers to pay for the damage they have done to humanity, better if government handles it otherwise people will rip them apart!!! We all had enough Tod this sons of Satan.

[lukeframpton]

They are building everywhere the water has no where to go it's not the climate

[lemdixon]

What is climate change, I've never heard of it

[h]

KEEP CUTTING THOSE TREE DOWN! WHO NEEDS A GREEN PLANET ANYWAY