Britain's red hot future

Climate change is usually spoken of as a contingent phenomenon: if we don't take this kind of action, then that is the disaster we face. But what if we accept, as increasing numbers of scientists do, that it may be too late to avoid global temperature increases: how do we adapt to the changed world ahead? This is what Marek Kohn tries to imagine for the UK.

If you exclude catastrophic scenarios such as world wars over water and energy, Britain's climatic future over the next century is surprisingly positive, thinks Kohn. Parts of the world that are already hot, notably most of Africa, face real disaster; places that are poor as well as hot will suffer especially severely. Yet parts that are temperate and rich, like us, may get off relatively lightly.

There are many different scenarios for climate change, depending on how fast we cut emissions. Kohn assumes some action will be taken although not quickly enough, leading to average global temperatures rising by three to four degrees by the end of this century. That means average summer temperatures in southern England going up by five degrees.

Kohn makes many predictions for the UK, but his most interesting ones are for London. The capital will, he predicts, regularly suffer summer temperatures in the 40s. Parks will become more central to the city's life than at present, oases which cool more quickly than the surrounding concrete in the evening, leading to a Spanish-style paseo in St James's Park and elsewhere.

London will be more densely settled. Britain will become a more attractive place to live, work or visit as other parts of the world become more inhospitable. There will be large numbers of immigrants in the capital from parched southern Europe, part of a national fragmentation of the middle classes' ethnic identity.

From the air, London will be light: its roads will be pale coloured to reflect heat; roofs will be painted white or grassed over. Not that many people will take to the air, flying having been severely restricted. New technology will provide some solutions, using solar power, porous materials for pavements and roads (to conserve water) and nanomaterials such as household paints that insulate. Other problems will need more expensive solutions — such as a second Thames barrier to cope with rising seas.

In some ways it's not an unattractive view of the future. But it's hard to see the political will ever being there to enforce measures such as the ban on air conditioning or the restrictions on private car use that he implies. We may just be more selfish than that. And even if we're not, as Kohn warns, the picture beyond 2100 looks less certain still. Better stock up on sun cream.