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A climate change expert has warned the government must get better prepared for the kind of severe conditions that Storm Darragh brought to the country.
The UK is “off track” and has to do more to deal with extreme heat and flooding, said Emma Pinchbeck, the new chief executive of the independent advisory Climate Change Committee.
Storm Darragh brought gusts of 93mph to some parts of the country on Saturday as millions of people were warned to stay indoors. The powerful winds led to hundreds of thousands of people left without power, while transport services, including trains and flights, were impacted.
Two men were killed on Saturday by falling trees hitting their vehicles.
Strong winds continued to hamper most of the UK following the widespread disruption.
The Energy Networks Association said about 200,000 customers were without power at 9am on Sunday following the impact of the storm, but added that 88 per cent of affected customers had been reconnected.
Storm Darragh came at a time experts warned the rate of extreme weather events will continue rise as the planet warms. The UK government has pledged to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
However, Ms Pinchbeck warned adaptations to homes and communities were needed immediately “regardless of what you think we should do in terms of reducing emissions”.
Speaking to BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, she said: “We’re off track against where we should be – and that’s things like flood defences, or are our houses built on flood plains?
“In the summer are our cities ready for extreme heat? These basic things.”
She added that the country must be better prepared for extreme weather events. “We have to prepare our infrastructure for it,” she said.
“We have to prepare the economy for it. We have to prepare our homes for it.”
Ms Pinchbeck continued: “There are risks to our food yields, there are risks to where we can build safe homes for people, and risks to our towns and cities which are built on coastlines.
“These things are very obvious and we should be acting now to tackle them.”
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