We are not prepared for the climate crisis to hit the UK

Letters to the editor: our readers share their views. Please send your letters to letters@independent.co.uk

We still have dirty air that politicians are more inclined to trade for a few votes (AP)

The policies of government for at least 40 years, and the inaction on carbon emissions and energy efficiency to avoid devastating climate effects are finally starting to bite.

Instead of promoting energy efficiency along with decent air quality, our government has shied away from action and relied upon technological miracles and “business” to bring cheap solutions.

Well, it hasn’t happened. We still have dirty air that politicians are more inclined to trade for a few votes. We still have the poorest quality buildings in Europe that waste energy on an epic scale, and there are no effective plans to do anything about it.

Now we hear that poor living standards and wages for about 10 million people mean that they need up to £1,000 a year in government support paid for by taxpayers.

We need a national emergency plan to bring the homes of the poorest up to standard (which means a 75 per cent cut in energy used for heating and generating hot water) and a national finance scheme to allow others to adopt interest free loans to do the work necessary on the 25 million buildings that need upgrading in the next 15 years.

The result will be higher taxes, cost of living, poverty, and skills crises.

If the climate crisis starts to hit the UK, the results do not bear thinking about.

Michael Mann

Shrewsbury

It’s the Tories who are ‘unacceptable’, not asylum-seekers

Prime minister Rishi Sunak has declared the £3.97bn spent on asylum-seekers this year as “unacceptable” and warns the system is under “unsustainable pressure”.

Sunak’s comments come just a few days after the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) praised the King’s Arm Project – a Home Office-funded scheme in Bedfordshire – for treating asylum-seekers with civility, integrating them into the host community and giving them legal and welfare support.

The UNHCR argued the scheme is a “more humane” way of treating asylum-seekers and migrants than the policies pursued by the government, which won’t even tolerate cartoon characters painted on the walls of refugee centres as they’re considered “too welcoming” to asylum-children.

The King’s Arm Project also costs half of that spent treating asylum-seekers as criminals. Yet home secretary Suella Braverman has rejected the call to roll the scheme out nationally.

The fact is that the Tories prefer to treat asylum-seekers with cruelty and inhumanity irrespective of the extra costs involved.

It’s the Tories who are “unacceptable”, not asylum-seekers.

Sasha Simic

London

It will always be ‘Twitter’ to me

I am utterly sick of hearing or reading the phrase, “X, formerly known as Twitter”. If Elon Musk wishes to destroy a well-known brand name that is surely his prerogative.

It is not the responsibility of the media to attempt to rescue it on his behalf.

Neil Lewis

Address supplied

Climate collapse will only speed up immigration

While parts of our planet are literally burning the usual suspects keep themselves busy denying the statistics and urging everyone to continue as per normal. Some or possibly all developing nations thus will, sooner than we think, become unliveable.

Therefore, a huge swathe of humanity will travel mainly north into cooler regions such as Europe and North America. Parallel to this, various people in the UK will demand that foreign aid is stopped and used on these shores for various projects, which in reality they care little about other than tub-thumping.

If we ceased such aid this may then be copied by other rich nations which will hit some developing nations very hard: governmental collapse, civil unrest, criminality, and even civil war. Resulting once again in huge numbers of refugees. The anti-refugee brigade can then perpetuate their hateful rhetoric ad infinitum. A disaster they have partially enabled with their warped or even zero logic.

These people have no interest whatsoever in helping humanity – they just wish to remain in the headlines until a young clone can take up their deranged mantle. Let us hope that the average citizen works this out before we reach the point of no return.

Robert Boston

Kent