What’s the best response to the heatwave? Do something
Story 222: .. today
There are really only five things you need to know about this week’s heatwave.
Temperatures this week are unusually high
Extreme heat is dangerous
We have caused it
We can still reduce the risks of future heatwaves
Whether we do anything about it is now a choice
This article is about the fourth point.
Welcome to Barnes2050, a place-based futures project asking: how do we make sure Barnes - the place and its people - is thriving and climate-ready by 2050?
Hot, so hot
This was the second heatwave of 2026. Temperature records were broken. Then broken again. And then again.
In central London Greenpeace used a thermal camera to record pavements hitting 57ºC and the platform at Highbury & Islington train station 62ºC. They shared the thermographic images. They show a street can be far hotter than the official air temperature.
Heat is dangerous
Heat is not simply uncomfortable. It kills.
BBC London reported that London Ambulance Service experienced its busiest ever day for life-threatening emergencies on Wednesday. The record was broken again the following day. London Ambulance Service has published the figures.
Meanwhile The Guardian reported on schools, care homes and outdoor workers struggling to cope.
Why is this happening?
This is on us.
Not this individual heatwave, but the trend behind it.
First, the science.
The New York Times (free, gift link) explains,
Human-caused climate change made this month’s roasting heat in Western Europe much more likely than it would have been even just two decades ago
It continues,
Emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases have been raising temperatures worldwide for more than a century. All the extra heat at Earth’s surface allows summer weather patterns to deliver hotter days and more stifling nights than they once did
Then the framing.
Simon Clark, climate scientist, captured the same idea rather differently. He named the heatwave.
His point is that heatwaves are no longer simply acts of nature. They increasingly carry the fingerprints of the fossil-fuel economy that created them.
Finally, the consequence.
Friederike Otto, a professor of climate science at the Imperial College London and co-founder of the World Weather Attribution, put it starkly,
Simply put, we remain on a one-way trip towards a more dangerous future, and it’s time we hit the brakes.
So what to do?
The old saying still applies. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
That is why this week mattered politically as well as meteorologically.
On Wednesday 24 June 2026, MPs approved the UK’s Seventh Carbon Budget.
It may sound technical, but it is one of the country’s most important climate decisions. It will also shape decisions much closer to home: how we heat and cool our houses, how we travel, how we design streets and how places like Barnes adapt over the next twenty-five years.
The carbon budget and the Climate Change Committee’s recent Adaptation Progress Report should be thought of as two halves of the same climate strategy.
The carbon budget is about reducing future climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The adaptation report is about preparing for the climate change that is already unavoidable because additional warming is now locked in, as Emma Pinchbeck, CEO of CCC explained on BBC Radio 4.
The carbon budget tries to prevent the problem becoming worse.
The adaptation report starts from the reality that some climate change is now unavoidable
Taken together, they carry a clear message. Reducing emissions is no longer enough. Britain must also become better at living well in a hotter, wetter and less predictable climate.
The Seventh Carbon Budget sets a legally binding limit on UK greenhouse gas emissions between 2038 and 2042. It aims to reduce emissions by around 87% compared with 1990 levels, keeping the UK on course towards net zero by 2050.
MPs approved the measure by 330 votes to 93.
Most of the opposition came from the Conservative benches, where almost three-quarters of their MPs - 88 in total - voted against the measure.
Whether those targets are achieved remains to be seen.
But Parliament has now made its direction of travel clear.
And Barnes?
National policy matters. But climate change is experienced locally.
In Barnes it raises practical questions:
How do we keep our homes cooler without relying on air conditioning?
Where should we plant more trees to provide shade?
How do we make walking more comfortable during hotter summers?
How do we protect older residents during periods of extreme heat?
How do we make today’s streets fit for tomorrow’s climate?
Those are some of the questions Barnes2050 is interested in. Because every heatwave is a glimpse of the future.
Notes and thoughts
Governments carry the greatest responsibility. Businesses come next. Individuals come third.
But third does not mean unimportant.
The Climate Change Committee is clear that reaching net zero will require action from all three.
One place to start is transport.
Writing this week, Chris Boardman argued that replacing short car journeys with walking, wheeling or cycling is one of the quickest ways to reduce transport emissions while making places healthier, quieter and more affordable to live in.
The evidence is consistent: replacing short car journeys with walking, wheeling or cycling is one of the quickest ways to reduce transport emissions…
No one suggests active travel alone will decarbonise transport. It won’t. But there are remarkably few policies capable of delivering carbon reductions at this scale while simultaneously making places healthier, quieter and more affordable to live in.
If you’re wondering where to begin, here are three ideas where most of us can make a meaningful difference.
We cannot stop this week’s heat. But we can help shape the Barnes that lives with the next one.
Heat is already changing life in Barnes, and those changes are only beginning. Read this analysis of heat in Barnes to see what lies ahead. Alternatively, look at this bench. What do you see?