When you think about dangerous climate change, what do you picture?
Most likely, you think of abstract visualisations like graphs about the greenhouse effect, oil rigs spewing gas, or glaciers melting. These may not feel fully real to you.
Sometimes, you might picture the damages caused by climate breakdown that affect humans, like droughts in Africa, floods in the Philippines, or wildfires in Australia. These visions are a step above charts and gas, but they still perpetuate the myth that climate breakdown isn’t here, now, in this country.
The biggest problem with communicating climate breakdown is that it’s so difficult to make tangible. It’s often abstract, hard to relate to, and happens in a far-off part of the world.
This intangibility makes it hard to get people to come together and do much about it. Mass mobilisation efforts have been mainly concerned with pressuring governments to reduce invisible gas emissions. Reducing emissions is essential, but we need new ways to reboot the process and rally more people.
A strategy beginning in climate adaptation promises exactly that. It can fix the intangibility of climate breakdown. When we adapt to the damage that’s here and coming, we’re showing that we recognise the reality of what’s happening. Far from being a distraction from decarbonisation, strategic adaptation can act as a catalyst for it, transforming climate breakdown from an abstract threat to a lived and shared reality.
The Global North, until recently, was relatively immune to climate breakdown; however, this is changing rapidly. The US is experiencing unprecedented hurricanes, wildfires, and flash floods, while mainland Europe has seen a sharp rise in droughts, wildfires, and floods.
Our island nation has been fortunate to avoid major incidences, but this luck won’t last. The UK is already feeling the start of climate breakdown. In 2024, the UK had the second worst harvest on record due to extreme weather swings, and flood alerts reached record levels in the first four months. The year also saw the highest number of flood insurance claims totalling over £650 million. Spring 2025 was the hottest and sunniest on record.
We are currently in our third heatwave of the summer, though not as extreme as the 40 degrees C heatwave that destroyed records in 2021. Every heatwave kills some elderly people, and they are becoming more frequent and severe.
Climate risks manifest differently globally. In our damp island, flooding is the most obvious risk, especially in our lowlands, which are susceptible to coastal and river flooding.
To adapt to dangerous climate change, we should build natural flood defences. Restoring wild woodlands, lining rivers with shrubs and hedges, and restoring wetlands and peatlands are crucial. Eastern England, in particular, where I happen to live, has drained many of its peatlands, marshes, salt marshes, and mudflats, which can act as natural flood reservoirs, if they are restored. Returning beavers to the landscape can also help.
Wildfires are an under-acknowledged risk, especially in this drought-stricken summer. Britain is vulnerable to wildfires because we have little experience compared to other countries like Greece or California.
Human-centred adaptation approaches are also important. When disasters occur, communities that care for each other and share resources and shelter are crucial for saving lives. Community-building actions, such as joining a choir, football club, or helping at schools, are forms of adaptation-building.
Adaptation efforts are essential to our response to climate breakdown. Preventative mitigation through reducing climate-deadly emissions was viable as an exclusive approach in the 1980s when human-caused climate change was first known. However, we have largely missed that opportunity, and some climate breakdown is now inevitable. We must adapt to the reality of climate breakdown so that we are ready for disasters. Because if we are not ready, they will be much worse.
At the Climate Majority Project, we’re thrilled to have held our kick-off event for our Strategic Adaptation for Emergency Resilience (SAFER) campaign. This event aims to finally put adaptation into action. Alongside Caroline Lucas, I chaired this event, which discussed how communities, businesses, professions, and governance can all make themselves #safer against current and future challenges.
Join us in this vital work.
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(Thanks to Joe Eastoe for research assistance, and to Caroline Lucas, Andrew Boswell, Lesley Grahame, James Vaccaro and Bridget McKenzie for helpful comments on an earlier draft.)
Teaser image credit: Eurasian beaver and kit by the River Tay in Scotland. After being extinct for several centuries, beavers were reintroduced to Great Britain in 2009. By Ray Scott – Emailed to me by Ray Scott, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12670186