Climate change

UK weather this week has been hot. Too hot. 40°C weather in the UK is now 10 times more likely because of climate change. The extreme temperatures across much of the UK are a stark reminder that climate change is already having an impact on us and our wildlife.

Wild fire at Snettisham Coastal Park, 19 July 2022 by RSPB Volunteer Les Bunyan.

Rising to the challenge

However, as temperatures rise, people like you are…

On Sept 9th 2020, the RSPB hosted a webinar entitled ‘UK Nature-based Solutions in Action’ in which we delved into the practical delivery of nature-based solutions (NbS) across UK landscapes. We had three speakers from RSPB reserves or pa...

England needs a peat strategy.  The widespread recognition of the importance of our peatlands for nature, for climate control and for livelihoods, does not match the parlous state of much of our peat soils.  Clear direction and commitment from Government is needed to turn this around, so that our use of peatlands changes from damage and exploitation to harnessing the benefits healthy peatlands provide.  

And indeed such…

This is the second of two blogs by volunteer and nature writer Nic Wilson, exploring the potential of natural flood management schemes to decrease the flood risk posed by climate change

With the UK climate projected to become warmer and with more winter rainfall in the years ahead, alongside increased occurrence of extreme weather including heavy summer downpours, flood management is a key part of planning for the future…

This is the first of two blogs by volunteer and nature writer Nic Wilson, exploring the critical importance of conserving and restoring coastal ecosystems of seagrasses and tidal marshes as a key nature-based solution to climate change.

The UK’s coastal habitats – our seagrass meadows, tidal saltmarshes and mudflats - lock in huge amounts of carbon. These coastal ecosystems remove carbon from the atmosphere, storing…

Mel Coath reflects on the Committee on Climate Change’s Covid challenge to Government

Today the CCC has thrown down a gauntlet to Government. We have a choice: we can respond to the Covid pandemic by investing in a cleaner, greener and nature-rich recovery, or we miss this opportunity and risk an uncertain future. Here we reflect on the big picture conclusions of the CCC, issue the RSPB’s top three challenges to…

Nic Wilson’s series of blogs exploring the critical importance of peatland conservation and restoration as nature-based solutions to climate change continues with a look at the environmental problems created by extracting peat for use in the gardening and horticultural industry. It also highlights a case study from Bolton Fell Moss, a rare raised bog previously used for extraction that is now being restored by Natural…

Natural England brought over a hundred  Fenland farmers, water managers, nature conservation people and others together to look at the future of the East Anglian Fens and the desire to change to protect peatland soils and address climate change. Here are some thoughts from a really interesting and inspiring day. 

 An overarching theme

Climate change is at the centre of farming and land use across the Fens.  We need both to…

Climate change affects everything. While agriculture, if it continues with ‘business as usual’, is likely to be one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases by 2050, it is also likely to be the system impacted most by climate change.

Accounting as it does for 75% of the UK’s land area and 11% of UK emissions, agriculture will play a critical role in helping nature’s recovery and adaptation to climate change…

This is the second in a series of four blogs by Nic Wilson exploring the critical importance of peatland conservation and restoration as nature-based solutions to climate change. This blog explores the environmental problems created by rotational burning. It highlights a case study from RSPB Geltsdale Nature Reserve where restoration work has seen peat rewetted and where burning has been replaced with less damaging heather…

Nic Wilson

As part of National Tree Week (23 November – 1 December), this blog by volunteer and nature writer, Nic Wilson, explores the critical importance of woodland creation and conservation as a key nature-based solution to climate change.

In response to climate change and ecological breakdown, the UK needs to significantly extend its tree cover. Such expansion has the potential to capture and store carbon…

This is the first in a series of four blogs by Nic Wilson exploring the critical importance of peatland as a nature-based solution to climate change. This blog sets out the benefits of healthy peatland and highlights a case study from Forsinard Flows Nature Reserve demonstrating how valuable peatland restoration can be.

Peatland has a critical role to play in addressing the twin biodiversity and climate crises. In the…

Monday, 26 November was a big day for the UK’s climate change world.  New climate change projections were launched by the Met Office, giving us much more detail about the new weather world we are already starting to live in.  Michael Gove focused on the seriousness of climate change in a wide-ranging speech.  And there were celebrations of the 10^th anniversary of the Climate Change Act, with powerful words from Lord…

Melanie Coath, RSPB Senior Policy Officer, Sustainable Development 

Today the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) has published a landmark report on the critical role nature can play in the UK in addressing the threat of climate change and also helping us and nature adapt to a warming world.

The report comes at a critical time. We have a once in a generation opportunity, as we leave the EU and particularly the Common Agricultural…

Last week, a survey suggested that two thirds of people want to see the current onshore wind policy restrictions removed. Perhaps surprising to some, this is music to our ears here at the RSPB. UK Government is failing to encourage a low-cost low-carbon energy solution that is supported by the public and which has the potential to be wildlife-friendly. At the same time it is driving ahead with potentially more damaging…

Jeroen Reneerkens studies how temperatures affect breeding success of sanderlings in Greenland. Together with other researchers, he’s noted both steadily increasing summer temperatures at the Zackenberg study site and witnessed almost no sanderlings breeding this summer.

 

A sanderling in the long-term study in Greenland. Photo: Jeroen Reneerkens

The warming Arctic summers are creating a mismatch in timing…

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By Alice Collier, Policy Officer

Following last week’s bad news, we promised some good news. A bit of #MondayMotivation is in order!

Last Wednesday, whilst making some seriously misguided decisions on bioenergy, the European Parliament did recognised that more coherence is needed between Europe’s energy development priorities and nature protection concerns. A number of important measures were included in the Clean…

The situation with climate change is so tight that, if we want to achieve the Paris target of 1.5 Celsius average global temperature (and we must), we need to bring land management into the frame of action, and do so urgently.

Peatlands in the UK leak huge amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere – 16 million tonnes of CO2e every year, the same as half the national GHG savings we make. This is because,…

From John Lanchbery  RSPB Climate Change Principal Policy Officer

For the last two weeks I have been at the UN climate talks in Bonn – known in the jargon as COP 23.  It is the first COP with a small island country as president: Fiji.  Unfortunately the meeting could not be held in Fiji simply because it is too small to house the tens of thousands of people who come to these meetings nowadays and it is a very long…

UNFCCC COP kicked off this week. John Lanchbery our Principal Policy Officer reports on the activities from the first couple of days….

The climate COP in Bonn started as all COPs do for environment and development groups - with a six-hour strategy session on Sunday afternoon.  We had a very good turnout for the session on agriculture, forestry and other land use – getting on for 50 people which must be a record…

A changing climate is one of the greatest threats to our wildlife, and we’re already seeing effects in Europe. A couple of weeks ago scientists confirmed that it is possible to achieve the ambitious aim, set in the Paris Agreement, of holding temperature rises to 1.5 degrees. But we’ll need faster and deeper emissions cuts than countries have so far promised, as the UN warned yesterday.

The UK is far from…

There’s no denying that renewable energy development will always have some level of impact on the natural world. But the key to a sustainable future is identifying how to generate the energy we need with the least impact so that we can avoid contributing to the biodiversity crisis while trying to resolve the climate crisis.

There is, thankfully, a global consensus that we must move away from fossil fuels to significantly…