Politics
Polanski: Burnham ‘negligent’ over refusal to call COBRA meeting
Green Party leader, Zack Polanski, has called out the government’s “gross negligence” on X over plans to press ahead with more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
In 2026, the UK has experienced record-breaking temperatures and droughts. These weather conditions have resulted in water shortages, wildfires and crop failures. Given this, you’d expect Andy Burnham to have prioritised the matter. Instead, he’s given a thumbs up for more oil drilling and gone on holiday.
The Labour Government have refused Green Party calls for a COBR meeting saying "supply chains are resilient."
This is gross negligence. We need to act now.https://t.co/v1D4mifqgF
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) August 9, 2026
Polanski unhappy with government’s inaction
The Sky News piece Polanski is responding to opens:
For all the talk of immigration and prisoner releases ending Andy Burnham’s honeymoon, there’s another row looming for the new prime minister.
Climate conscious Labour MPs are concerned there is a lack of urgency from the government as the UK battles extreme heatwaves, drought and wildfires.
While being reluctant to outwardly criticise their new boss, three backbenchers told Sky News this could spill into a “revolt” if he presses ahead with more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
At this point, it’s becoming very difficult for people to deny that something unprecedented is happening with the climate.
UK has become a giant desert without rain in less than 2 months. https://t.co/KT2cgcRu8w
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) August 9, 2026
People around the country are facing extreme localised impacts, whether it be water shortages, wildfires or crop failures.
Yes, as climate change progresses, yes this will become a big a threat as world war 2 https://t.co/h6xgZ1BYpv
— Matthew Todd
The French media is increasingly, and correctly, linking wildfires to climate change – but sadly the British media generally still fails to do so. Poor journalism, I fear, apart from anything else….https://t.co/g2g5mS3Urb
— Geoffrey Lean (@GeoffreyLean) August 9, 2026
A 90% loss of corn for animal feed, with the situation repeated across much of northern Europe, will inevitably lead to food price spikes later in the year. UK also importing green veg from Spain at the height of growing season due to massive crop failure https://t.co/8ahyyXbaTI
— Nate Bear (@NateB_Panic) August 8, 2026
Given all this, it’s no wonder people, including Polanski, are demanding that Burnham afford this issue the respect it deserves.
as we gear up for our fifth heatwave of the summer has @andyburnham said a single thing about the rolling wild fires, thousands of deaths, droughts and devastation resulting from them? where is the leadership? where is the action?
— Ben Smoke (@bencsmoke) August 9, 2026
Climate change is a global emergency
If it feels like climate change has sped up recently, that’s not your brain tricking you; it has.
Global Warming Has Kicked Into Overdrive, Scientists Warn
No, it’s not “just summer.” Or people spraying shit into the sky. Nor is it naturally getting warmer. https://t.co/edPhZmeKFg
— Atlanta Rey
It’s been a particularly apocalyptic summer. Relentless, record-shattering heatwaves, untamable wildfires, and deadly floods are just some of the disasters that have made global headlines in the past few months. In a warming world, these extreme events are beginning to feel commonplace. But according to a staggering analysis, it’s probably going to get much worse very soon.
Reportedly, research shows “with 98% statistical certainty” that the pace of global warming sped up in the past decade. Even worse, it hasn’t just accelerated; it’s continuing to accelerate. While we don’t fully understand why, it seems unlikely that burning more fossil fuels will improve the situation.
You can see this extreme new trend in the data:
The ocean just keeps getting hotter and hotter — GO GREEN (@ECOWARRIORSS) August 9, 2026
A hotter ocean is a death sentence not just for marine life but for all life on this planet
Why is this not headline news
This is a climate emergency
We are running out of time
Yet Economic growth is still the main priority of… https://t.co/biT8A2EyL6
While the climate has undergone extreme changes in the distant past, the important thing to remember is that we weren’t around to suffer such conditions. The same is not true today, obviously, as Dr JJ González Alemán noted:
Because the key detail lies in the scale. The last ~100 thousand to 2 million years—the glacial cycles—mark the temperature band within which the world as we know it has existed. And now we’re starting to step out of that band from above; if the trend holds, we’ll clearly exceed it.
And here’s what really matters: it took just ~10 thousand years of exceptionally stable climate—the Holocene—to build our entire way of organizing ourselves: agriculture, cities, the whole civilization. A blink on the graph.
Everything we are was built within that narrow and stable margin. And it’s exactly that margin we’re abandoning.
‘Unprecedented’
Last month, the Canary’s Grace wrote about the human cost of the changing weather:
The heatwaves in the UK over May and June are estimated to have caused over 2,700 excess deaths. Around 42% of those deaths are thought to be a consequence of climate change, which increased maximum temperatures by 3-4°C.
The UK is now bracing itself for a fifth heatwave. As commenter Ben Smoke wrote, we’re heading for a future in which this sort of extreme weather may be the baseline, not the extreme:
at what point does this become precedented (and thus extremely worrying?) pic.twitter.com/40XeY5Lju7
— Ben Smoke (@bencsmoke) August 8, 2026
This problem will require far more than a COBRA meeting to solve it. At the same time, it would be reassuring to see the government acknowledge the reality of what we’re facing.
Featured image via Getty/ Reuters/ Grant Falvey
By Willem Moore
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