Liverpool has just experienced its worst summer for the impact of climate change, with multiple large wildfires and record-breaking temperatures bringing the reality of global warming to the city. The warning is that things will only get worse in the years to come.
Liverpool's Green Party leader, Cllr Tom Crone, has issued a major warning that the city must now prepare for increasingly difficult and dangerous conditions in the future, while calling for more urgent action to reach net zero as quickly as possible.
Scarred landscapes across the region
The ECHO met with Cllr Crone in Sefton Park this week. Liverpool's most popular park is still scarred in multiple places after several separate wildfires took hold during the heatwaves of this summer. Sefton Park was far from the only part of the region that went up in flames. The ECHO reported on wildfires in Garston, Melling and at Formby Beach, where drone footage showed the devastating damage wreaked by a blaze in the famous beauty spot's sand dunes.
For Cllr Crone, who has been speaking out about the threat of a warming climate and the use of fossil fuels for decades, this summer brought home the real impact of the ensuing climate crisis. He told the ECHO: "It's been an absolutely stark summer. The figures and all the statistics about this summer have been unbelievable, really."
Record heat and its consequences
"Obviously, I've been in the Green Party 20 years, I've been talking about the climate crisis all this time. It's been a priority for me - but even I'm pretty taken aback by how quickly things are accelerating and how these last few years have just seen hotter and hotter summers, culminating in this, which is set to be the hottest summer on record."
"It's been different to any summer we've ever had before. This summer, it's gone over 35 degrees in four consecutive months. That used to be a rarity if it even happened in a decade, let alone four consecutive months in one year. So, it's really arrived. Global warming is happening. We've often spoken about it as something to think about in the future, but it's clearly a now issue, and it is going to have impacts."
Pointing to the scarred landscapes in the famous city park, Cllr Crone added: "We've been looking at the sites of multiple fires that have taken place this summer in Sefton Park. We also had the devastating fires on the dunes in Formby, and then we had the city engulfed in smoke from fires from North Wales and Greater Manchester."
Long-term effects and calls for preparation
"So, yes, it's definitely affecting people locally, but there are going to be longer-term effects as well. For example, farmers are reporting reduced crop yields. Apparently, it's going to be the worst cereal harvest for 40 years. That's going to filter through into higher prices. So, families here in Liverpool who have been struggling to make ends meet, that could make things get more difficult for those families."
Earlier in the summer, Cllr Crone and his Green Party colleagues put forward a motion to Liverpool Council's full council meeting, which called for the city's leaders to look at emergency measures that they say will be required to keep people safe in the sweltering summers to come. Newly elected Aigburth Green councillor Paul Ruddick presented the motion, which called for the city council to look at the feasibility of creating a network of 'cool spaces' around the city, where residents can take shelter during dangerous extreme temperatures.
Cllr Crone said that as well as the city needing to "rapidly increase its efforts to get to net zero" it is now time to look urgently at crisis planning for the inevitable dangers to come. He said: "We really do need to prepare. We need to put in place crisis planning. We need to help families prepare, to make sure we've got food and water available for people because it's very difficult to predict the impacts. But we saw those impacts this summer with the fires, with 2,900 people in the UK estimated to have perished as a result of the extreme heat. So, these impacts are happening now."
"It's shocking, and we just have to hope we take the right kind of action. Make sure we do get to net zero as quickly as possible. Make sure we prepare, put in an adequate response." He added: "I can't emphasize enough that we absolutely need to get to net zero as quickly as possible. Because the longer we carry on emitting CO2 into the atmosphere, the worse these summers are going to become. And even if we cut them rapidly, they'll probably continue getting hotter for a few years."
"We've warmed the planet by around about 1.5 degrees. Every single additional ton of carbon we put into the atmosphere means that temperature will go up further. So, the quicker we get to net zero, the quicker we convert into clean energy, clean transport, and those things, the quicker we can stop that temperature getting any higher."
