The climate crisis is here – why are we still so reluctant to pay up and fix the problem?

Not only has the British government failed to develop a coherent plan for adapting the nation’s infrastructure, it doesn’t even know what the bill will be, writes Anna Isaac

Climate activists including Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future stage a protest in July demanding more action on the climate crisis (Reuters)

As we watch the fires rage and hear the climate crisis warnings crank up several notches, there’s a question being overlooked: do we have any fire extinguishers?

The answer, according to officials within the Civil Contingency Secretariat, the segment of the Cabinet Office built to manage disaster, or at the Environment Agency, which prepares for floods, is: not enough, not nearly enough. From working out food security plans, to temperature testing on houses, to flood defences and medical supplies, the list of how to get ready is long.

Last month, the UK’s capital saw its streets and Tube stations turn to rivers. Germany and China are both reeling from more severe, and fatal, floods. This week, we have seen images of Greek citizens fleeing from burning homes.

Yet, not only has the British government failed to develop a coherent plan for adapting the nation’s infrastructure, emergency planning and housing, in order to mitigate the climate crisis, it doesn’t even know what the bill will be. After years of academics and the Climate Change Committee, an independent statutory body, asking for proper research into the cost of readying the UK for the climate crisis, the government finally allocated a small sum to the task last week.

The failure not to do this sooner is stark when one considers that the Treasury is already having to spend £5.2bn on flood defences over the next six years compared to £4.8bn on its flagship economic policy of levelling up.

Already, canny investors, the kind of people who decide whether or not to buy millions if not billions of pounds of government debt, are starting to profile countries based on their ability to cope with the climate crisis. Industry standard calculations on the climate sustainability of sovereign debt, including UK gilts, are on the way. That means settling the question of how the UK will prepare itself for extreme weather – even if you’re motivated more by fiscal prudence than the welfare of the planet.

In short: spending money on emergency planning and national insurance for the climate crisis is not a “nice to have”. One way or another it will become priced in. Lower borrowing costs and fewer dead citizens await a government that puts money where it’s needed into flood defences and safe housing now. Yet government – be it national, devolved or local – is not only woefully underfunding climate adaptation, it’s pretending climate risk doesn’t exist. Planning permission is still being granted for building on flood plains.

At the same time, government also lets property developers and contractors get away with leaving homes clad in material that isn’t even fire safe, let alone adequate for reducing energy consumption. And this is a country where fast-and-loose efforts to try and upgrade housing stock for net-zero targets (not even climate crisis adaptation) have left, officials admit, many homes too hot and over-insulated in the face of extreme heat, already a major cause of excess deaths.

There is no universal insurance product that could allow an ordinary individual to shoulder the risk of the climate crisis to a property, business or possessions. Problems of this scale can’t be fixed by personal responsibility.

The political conversation about insuring the country against some of the worst ravages of the climate crisis will be awkward in the extreme. The current debate over who will pay to get us to net zero is already raging on the Tory backbenches with the likes of Steve Baker MP asking – not unfairly – who’s going to pay for the changes the government believes we need. But so far that row has focused on the future, boilers and some selective data on household incomes.

Talking about changing homes and lifestyles can be put off – but only for so long. The weather is getting more extreme, come what may. No one will thank their MP for having a row about who pays to replace the boiler if their home is already underwater.

It’s a tough sell, though. It’s hard to accept that no matter what you do with your car or loft in the coming years, the cost of the climate crisis is already starting to seep in. The pressing questions will soon be: what do we do with communities that will be underwater within a few years, or how many residents in care homes will die this year without air-conditioning?

Still, no matter how ugly the rows that a politician may face about readying the UK for a changing climate, they are abandoning those they claim to represent if they do not have it. If they want a short career, one that shows disregard for future generations, economic growth and children, then fine; ignore adaptation and leave it as a Cinderella issue. But they better hope they have good lawyers for the waves of climate-linked public inquiries to come.

It will cost billions, if not trillions, over the coming decades to protect the UK from the worst effects of the climate crisis, even if the world’s leaders find a way to limit it. Of course, some climate defences will have to be built, bankrolled and might not ultimately be used. Some cities might be spared the worst of rising sea levels or inland flooding. The political question for the government is ultimately very simple: what do you think will have more “cut-through” with the public; the lifeboats that never got used or the people that were left to drown?