Climate Jury Session Two

Understanding Climate Change and its impacts

The second session of Preston People's Climate Jury took place on Wednesday 7 February.

The focus was understanding climate change and its impacts. We invited two academics from the North west, Professors Kevin Andersen and John Whitton, and the former Chief Executive of the Environment, Professor John Curtin, to provide an overview of these complex topics. We asked them to draw on local information and context to make their presentations relevant to the jury who all live in the Preston district.

Professors Kevin Andersen

Kevin began by covering the basic science of climate change and how rapidly increasing amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG) caused by human activity in the last 200 years are trapping extra warmth in the atmosphere and destabilising the earth's climate which has been stable for hundreds of thousands of years.

Seventy per cent of this extra warmth comes from burning fossil fuels. Kevin explained that all countries in the world committed at the Paris Climate Summit in 2015 to stay well below 2°C of warming, and ideally no more than 1.5°C, by rapidly cutting GHG emissions, guided by the science. This shows that to stay below 2°C, all fossil use must end by 2040, and even earlier, by 2030, to stay below 1.5°C.

How things might look in Preston if we don't meet the Paris commitments was the focus of the rest of the evening.

John Whitton

John Whitton provided dramatic photos of major incidents linked to climate change which are already happening in the region, including flooding in Croston and along the West Lancashire Coast, and the partial collapse of the Toddbrook Reservoir at Whaley Bridge in 2019 which nearly led to a major disaster.

His photos of flooded agricultural land in Tarleton highlighted the damage to food supplies and to the livelihoods of our local farmers which is already occurring. John explained that these effects will intensify over the coming years, bringing with them increasing disruption to our daily lives as the breakdown in food supplies, and damage to transport and other critical infrastructure, occurs with greater frequency.

Professor John Curtin

John Curtin explained more about flood risk, emphasising that climate change increases the risk of three types of flooding - from the sea, from rivers and from surface water when the drainage system is overloaded by torrential rain. As a result, one in every six households in England is now at risk of flooding.

The Environment Agency has been investing billions in flood protection in recent decades to protect communities, including a major project today in Preston. However, as the risk of flooding rises very rapidly with accelerating climate change, it will become harder and harder to match this with more spending. Rather than believing we can build our way out of the problem, John suggested we need to change our thinking to address the causes of climate change and adapt to the challenges ahead.

Jury Members

After hearing from the speakers, jury members had time to discuss what they had heard in groups and then come together to ask questions. These focussed on further clarification on the basic science of climate change, understanding flood risk and how what we eat contributes to greenhouse gas emissions.