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Background: Climate change is one of the greatest threats to public health in this century. The UK is one of six countries that has enshrined in law a commitment to become net zero by 2050. However, there is a lack of guidance and structure for local government in the UK, which has responsibility for public health, to reach this goal and help their communities mitigate and adapt to the health and health inequality impacts of climate change. This study aimed to identify common barriers and facilitators related to addressing the health and health inequality impacts of climate change in local governments. Methods: Using Normalisation Process Theory, we developed a two-round survey for people working in local authorities to identify the barriers and facilitators to including the health and health inequality impact of climate change in their climate action plans. The survey was delivered online via Qualtrics software. In the first-round respondents were able to express their views on barriers and facilitators and in the second round they ranked common themes identified from the first round. Two hundred and fifty people working in local government were invited to take part and n = 28 (11.2%) completed the first round of the survey and n = 14 completed the second round. Thematic analysis was used in Round 1 to identify common themes and weighted rankings were used to assess key barriers and facilitators in Round 2. Results: Key facilitators were the need to save money on energy, and successful partnership working already in place including across local government, with local communities and external stakeholders. Key barriers were insufficient staff, resources and lack of support from management/leaders, and lack of local evidence. Conclusion: To mitigate and adapt to the health impacts of climate change, local government must nurture a culture of innovation and collaboration to ensure that different departments work together This means not just working with external partners, but also collaborating and co-producing with communities to achieve health equity and mitigate the debilitating effect of climate change on public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how personal experience of extreme weather events raises awareness and concern about climate change has important policy implications. It has repeatedly been argued that proximising climate change through extreme weather events holds a promising strategy to increase engagement with the issue and encourage climate change action. In this paper, we exploit geo-referenced panel data on climate change attitudes as well as natural variation in flood and heatwave exposure in England and Wales to estimate the causal effect of extreme weather events on climate change attitudes and environmental behaviours using a difference-in-differences matching approach. Our findings suggest that personal experience with both flooding and heatwaves significantly increases risk perception towards climate change impacts but has no effect on climate change concern or pro-environmental behaviour, on average. Moreover, the findings indicate that the effect of flooding on risk perception is highly localised and diminishes at greater distances. For heatwaves, we find that the effect on risk perception is driven by the recent salient summer heatwaves of 2018 and 2019. Having experienced both events also significantly increases climate change concern and pro-environmental behaviour, in addition to risk perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thousands of significant archaeological and heritage sites line the coasts of every continent, threatened by loss and damage from rising sea levels and other cascading impacts, such as flooding, landslides, increased salination, erosion, or even the shift from being land-based heritage to being submerged or underwater heritage. There is a need for a sustainable initiative across the national, regional, and local levels to manage this degenerative process. To date, however, measures for mitigating climate change impacts remain insufficient. There is also the need for a further push in thinking about how coastal archaeology and culturally submerged sites may be remembered or, if on the cards, protected. The Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network (CITiZAN), a national project working across coastal sites in England, works with communities to support and empower them in identifying and understanding their immediate environment and the relevance of the heritage therein. In this article, the CITiZAN team presents the range of vulnerable coastal heritage found across England, discusses why there is limited capacity or resources to protect these sites, and highlights the communities that have either reactively or proactively responded to changing climate conditions and, in so doing, provide examples of resourcefulness and resilience. The article concludes by highlighting the importance of communities in understanding intertidal-zone and coastal heritage, and the relevance of water heritage to understanding climate change impacts terrestrially. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The depth and breadth of the climate crisis is well known, all sectors, industry, government and the individual have the potential to reduce emissions to slow or stop catastrophic climate change. To determine and evaluate the (revealed) preferences of the public in reducing their personal carbon emissions, a conjoint analysis survey, using the PAPRIKA (Potentially All Pairwise RanKings of all possible Alternatives) method, was distributed to the public in a city in the south of England (Southampton). Knowledge of the deep-seated preferences of the public makes a fundamental contribution to future climate actions because it enables publicly acceptable system change to be developed. Results showed the public were unwilling to make large-scale lifestyle changes, even if they would cause large emission reductions. There was a clear preference for making relatively easy, convenient changes to behaviour rather than making more difficult personal lifestyle changes involving diet and transportation. A significant value-action gap is evident, with the public showing high awareness of the seriousness of climate change but showing an unwillingness to make deep cuts to their personal emissions. Demography and personal factors had a relatively low influence over preferences with trends generally staying the same across demographic groups, aside from income brackets. Participants believed that reductions in emissions should come from a 'group effort' from all levels of government, business, environmental groups and individuals. Few participants placed themselves as individual drivers of carbon emission reduction. In order to reduce emissions some form of intervention needs to be made, as the public are not personally willing to make large-scale reductions in carbon emissions, regardless of their environmental awareness or demography. • Public's views on approaches to carbon reduction investigated via conjoint analysis. • Preference for low intensity, 'easy' behaviours not challenging lifestyle changes. • Demographic & personal factors have low influence on carbon reduction preferences. • High awareness of severity of climate change, impacts/priority; also high anxiety. • Desire to consume & "carry on as normal" outweighs self-reported concerns/attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • A 4.5% increase in risk of dementia admission per 1°C increase above 17°C. • Emergency admissions may increase by 300% in 2040 under high emissions scenario. • Identifying people with dementia as high-risk population over summer is advocated. The impacts of a changing climate on current and future dementia burdens have not been widely explored. Time-series negative binomial regression analysis was used to assess acute associations between daily ambient temperature and counts of emergency admissions for dementia in each Government region of England, adjusting for season and day-of-week. Using the latest climate and dementia projections data, we then estimate future heat-related dementia burdens under a high emission scenario (Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP8.5), where global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to rise, and a low emissions scenario (RCP2.6), where GHG emissions are sizeably reduced under a strong global mitigation policy. A raised risk associated with high temperatures was observed in all regions. Nationally, a 4.5% (95% Confidence interval (CI) 2.9%–6.1%) increase in risk of dementia admission was observed for every 1 °C increase in temperature above 17 °C associated with current climate. Under a high emissions scenario, heat-related admissions are projected to increase by almost 300% by 2040 compared to baseline levels. People living with dementia should be considered a high-risk group during hot weather. Our results support arguments for more stringent climate change mitigation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: A computer based building simulation model was developed to examine the energy load and environmental management in The National Archives Q1 repository building in Kew, UK to optimise environmental management and examine the impacts of climate change. The need to accurately simulate the hygrothermal environment inside the archive building which houses mainly paper-based records led to the choice of EnergyPlus as the modelling software. The study presents the simulation results of five environmental strategies which predict energy saving potential as high as 43% without significantly affecting the quality of the preservation environment. The effect of climate change is predicted to have little impact on the archive environment due to the filtering effect of the air conditioning system. On the other hand, an increase in total energy load by 15% and 24% is predicted under the worst case climate change scenario in 2050 and 2080, respectively, if the current environmental management practice is continued into the future. However, the identified energy saving strategies could represent possible mitigative solutions in reducing future energy load against the impact of climate change. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Results from the UK were reviewed to quantify the impact on climate change mitigation of soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks as a result of (1) a change from conventional to less intensive tillage and (2) addition of organic materials including farm manures, digested biosolids, cereal straw, green manure and paper crumble. The average annual increase in SOC deriving from reduced tillage was 310kg C±180kgCha−1 yr−1. Even this accumulation of C is unlikely to be achieved in the UK and northwest Europe because farmers practice rotational tillage. N2O emissions may increase under reduced tillage, counteracting increases in SOC. Addition of biosolids increased SOC (inkgCha−1 yr−1 t−1 dry solids added) by on average 60±20 (farm manures), 180±24 (digested biosolids), 50±15 (cereal straw), 60±10 (green compost) and an estimated 60 (paper crumble). SOC accumulation declines in long-term experiments (>50 yr) with farm manure applications as a new equilibrium is approached. Biosolids are typically already applied to soil, so increases in SOC cannot be regarded as mitigation. Large increases in SOC were deduced for paper crumble (>6tCha−1 yr−1) but outweighed by N2O emissions deriving from additional fertiliser. Compost offers genuine potential for mitigation because application replaces disposal to landfill; it also decreases N2O emission. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Networks are a well-established feature in contemporary tourism governance and management. The aim of this article is to examine the extent to which there are differences among members and non-members of tourism networks in their efforts to introduce measures to mitigate the effects of climate change in their operations. Among accommodation providers in the South West of England, there is no significant difference between members and non-members of networks in the modest levels of innovation they have introduced. Possible reasons for the lack of difference are identified including the nature of the networks and the way in which knowledge is exchanged and retained among businesses. The article argues that, while formal networks still represent an important platform to promote climate change mitigation, their importance may also be in knowledge spillovers and boundary spanning behaviours ‘beyond the network’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 2009, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK) launched its Breathing Planet Programme. This 10 year programme seeks to re-align Kew's work to develop plant-based solutions to the challenges of climate change. Further to the development of the Programme, Kew has undertaken a review of its science projects with relevance to mitigating the impacts of climate change on plant diversity and people. The review has allowed Kew to better understand its current strengths and weaknesses in this area in order to plan for the future. The findings of the review could be relevant for science programmes in other botanic gardens. Botanic gardens play a fundamental role in the conservation of biodiversity to mitigate climate change impacts. Knowledge and data on plant systematics, distribution and physiology is vital for modelling and monitoring the impacts of climate change, to help to identify plant species and habitats most at risk of losing their wild diversity. Kew's Millennium Seed Bank Project will safeguard 25% of plant species by 2020, while in situ projects are improving the conservation of threatened habitats. One challenge is to make such activities relevant and useful to other scientists, conservation groups and policy makers working to address climate change. However, botanic gardens must also develop working practices and projects that specifically address the challenges of climate change. Kew and a global network of partners are doing this in a variety of ways, and examples will be presented in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]