The temperature statistics for Tuesday 26 May 2026 are staggering: 35°C at Heathrow Airport and Kew Gardens; this has surpassed the previous May high of 32.8°C, recorded at Regents Park in 1944, by a massive 2.2°C.
Tropical night
Parts of London experienced a ‘tropical’ night on 25/26 May, with a minimum temperature of 21.3°C at Kenley Airfield. And we’ve just had the earliest ever amber heat-health alert across parts of the UK. Something isn’t right.
And it’s not just the UK
More than 350 French towns have broken their May temperature record. Europe is warming even faster than the global trend; a July 2025 heatwave saw temperatures near to and within the Arctic Circle exceeding 30°C. In 2025, seas around Europe recorded their highest average surface temperature on record, the fourth year in a row to set a new high.
…or just Europe
Over the past few days, cities in India have been vying for the title of ‘hottest city on earth’. Banda in Uttar Pradesh, reached 48.2°C on 20 May, with night-time temperatures not falling below 30°C for days on end. India’s capital, Delhi, has experienced a series of daily highs of 45°C, a temperature at which human life is barely sustainable. In a city of 11 million people, many of them in dire poverty, there’s no escape for a lot of people. Death Valley and the Sahara Desert can’t compete with northern India right now, and it’s not even summer yet.
On the other side of the pond
They make everything big in Texas. But hailstones the size of pineapples? You better believe it. The good news for Texans is that Tornado Alley is shifting away from the state. The bad news is that it’s shifting towards places such as Mississippi and Alabama. Meanwhile, Western North America had its first heatwave of 2026 in March, when it was still, technically, winter.
El Niño
An immense marine heatwave off the US west coast would accompany the formation of El Niño in the Pacific Ocean. Here’s Simon King of BBC Weather warning about the formation of a ‘super’ El Niño later this year. The average temperature in the Pacific could reach 3°C above average. This would mean floods, droughts and wildfire throughout the northern hemisphere. The strongest El Niño on record saw Pacific temperatures of only 2.7°C above average.
Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation
But there’s another climate emergency, which is affecting ALL of the seas and oceans. The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is a vast system of ocean currents that helps to distribute heat around the world. But the AMOC is in trouble, under threat from human-caused global heating, as warming seas, melting ice and increased rainfall upset the temperature and salt balance of the North Atlantic.
A global problem
The potential collapse of the AMOC is a global problem. The AMOC connects into a broader circuit of slow-moving currents – the global thermohaline circulation – that transports heat and nutrients around the world. This system is sometimes described as the “ocean conveyor belt”. Within the next couple of decades, we could be approaching a ‘tipping point’, a self-amplifying feedback at which the conveyor belt breaks down irreversibly.
A local problem
Back in the UK, scientists are warning that sea levels are rising faster than the global average. Storm surges along the North East coast, similar to the one caused by Cyclone Xaver in 2013, are becoming more likely. The map below shows the effect of a storm surge of 3.6 metres, similar to that experienced in 2013, with much of Teesside inundated.
map courtesy of https://coastal.climatecentral.org/
It bites
Here’s Prof Emily Shuckburgh, Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), warning, among other things, of the spread of mosquitos that carry infectious diseases due to global heating. Whilst species such as Yellow fever mosquitos (Aedes aegypti) are not endemic to the UK their increased sightings are a public health concern due to importing dengue and other arboviral diseases. But Emily is optimistic that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help tackle the threat of global heating. This seems counterintuitive. AI-linked data centres are causing more damage than anything else right now.
Yellow fever mosquito (Aedes aegypti), Wikimedia commons
Climate endgame
Researchers at Emily Shuckburgh’s Alma Mater, Cambridge University, warn that the world needs to start preparing for the possibility of a “climate endgame”, noting that global heating has played a role in every mass extinction event.
So, what can we do?
So, first of all, a few measures to deal with the impact of heatwaves.
Introduce maximum workplace temperatures
Although guidelines suggest a minimum working temperature of 16ºC, there’s no guidance for a maximum temperature limit. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) states that no meaningful upper limit can be imposed because in many indoor workplaces high temperatures are not seasonal but created by work activity, for example in bakeries or foundries. However, as extreme heat events are becoming more common, this guidance should be revised. Some European countries have a mandatory maximum temperature for indoor work. The HSE guidance also doesn’t mention outdoor temperatures. We need to start thinking about this also. Perhaps a maximum outdoor working temperature of 30ºC could be considered. In 2023, Spain introduced legislation to forbid some outdoor tasks during a status amber, or above, weather alert.
Heat refuges
We need local authorities to provide air conditioned refuges for people who can’t afford to keep their own home cool. Also known as ‘cooling centers’, these are relatively common in the United States. We need them now in the UK. There needs to be a wider strategy around supporting elderly and vulnerable people to survive heatwaves; eventually they will no longer be heatwaves, and will amalgamate into our actual long term climate. If this doesn’t happen the NHS will become completely overwhelmed. For the increasing number of people that need them, medical fridges will need to be safeguarded against heatwaves.
How to stop global heating
In addition to mitigating the effects of heatwaves, we need to rapidly decarbonise human activity. Here are a few suggestions regarding this:
Stop listening to climate deniers
We need to ignore millionaire client journalists, such as Allison Pearson, funded by the fossil fuel billionaires. Similarly, Nigel Farage’s Reform Company derives two thirds of its income from fossil fuel interests. Farage’s opinions on climate are, therefore, mostly worthless. GB News’ climate denial borders on obsession. Former Sky News editor Adam Boulton has suggested, correctly, that the channel should lose its broadcasting licence.
Build renewables as fast as possible
This means a lot of solar panels and wind farms. Solar panels on buildings and above car parks, but we need solar farms too. Offshore wind farms are also coming on stream, particularly in the North Sea, but we need onshore wind farms as well. David Cameron’s de facto ban on these in 2015 led to a lost decade of progress. The ban has now been lifted, but NIMBY activities are grinding projects to a halt. For example, in the North Pennines, a vociferous but misguided campaign is being waged against the proposed Hope Moor Wind Farm.
Upgrade the electricity grid
We need to update electricity networks, and build more interconnectors and battery energy storage systems.
…and avoid dead-ends
There are half a dozen futile and expensive dead-ends on the road to decarbonisation that we need to avoid: Carbon capture, ‘clean’ hydrogen, biofuels, sustainable aviation fuel, nuclear power and nuclear fusion.
Insulate our buildings
The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) scheme is coming to an end. ECO places obligations on energy suppliers to deliver measures that help households reduce energy consumption and lower heating costs. ECO4, the latest version of the scheme, was due to end in March 2026. The scheme was extended to December 2026 in the last budget, but the Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS) ended on 31 March 2026. The GBIS faced criticism for being poorly targeted. We’ll probably have a new Chancellor soon. They need to urgently revisit home insulation, and come up with a far more ambitious version of the GBIS.
Stop building fossil fuel infrastructure
On a day when temperatures at Heathrow Airport reached levels never seen before in spring, some people were salivating about the prospect of a third runway being built there. In Doncaster, they’re about to reopen a failed regional airport, using a vast amount of public funding. We shouldn’t even be contemplating building new runways or airports.
Watch a film
Why not attend a screening of the National Emergency Briefing on climate? Listings can be found here.
You might also want to sign this petition from Greenpeace.
