2026 heatwaves have cost UK a staggering £4.4bn

2026 heatwaves have cost UK a staggering £4.4bn



Image of London in a heatwave as well as the figure '£4.4bn'

A new report from the Verdant think tank has put a financial cost on the 2026 heatwaves, and the amount they’ve identified is eye watering:

Heatwaves: burning money

The introduction for Verdant’s latest report on heatwaves reads:

Successive heatwaves from May to the end of July 2026 have an estimated economic cost of at least £4.4bn. Previous estimates by Verdant placed the cost of the June 2026 heatwave alone at £2.36bn; this figure now includes all three heatwaves this year, from May to the end of July. May’s relatively minor event cost around £500m; July’s larger hit was £1.5bn, over two distinct peaks.

It’s unfortunately the case that the UK experiences more heatwaves now than it did a century ago. As this chart from the Met Office shows, most years used to experience fewer than two per year; now the baseline is more like four per year:

Verdant continued:

These losses are the result of reduced productivity due to the well-documented effect of all work becoming harder at higher temperatures, and that infrastructure and equipment overheat and fail. For each one degree Celsius temperature increase above 30 degrees in Europe, a 3% reduction in average output per hour has been observed. In a prolonged heatwave, these impacts add up to become significant economic losses. This is only the direct economic cost from productivity losses, and excludes things like losses from wildfires, or higher costs of energy for businesses and households.

The report itself shows the costs will be even greater for some of our closest neighbours:

The EU remains the UK’s most significant trading partner. Compassion aside, then, it’s not in our interests for them to suffer such extreme consequences (especially not when we’re going to suffer along with them).

Culmulation

Verdant continued:

If heatwaves keep intensifying at the rate seen over the last decade, we should expect at least £25.6bn in cumulative losses from summer heatwaves each year by 2030. Even this is likely to understate the true cost, since it captures only the direct hit to productivity. Knock-on effects on electricity costs and supply, along with broader macroeconomic ripple effects, would push the figure higher still. Nor does it include the terrible toll in health and lives lost.

While the political and media establishment focus on benefits and small boats, the climate is proving to be the most serious threat to the budget. And make no mistake; these costs will only grow over time. This is why the backlash to Net Zero is so short-sighted and – let’s face it – manufactured.

In a video titled You’ve been lied to about Net Zero, Simon Clark says that people create misinformation around Net Zero as follows:

So these are the five steps of the anti-net zero playbook. Inflate the costs, ignore the cost of business as usual, ignore the operational savings, ignore the co- benefits, and most egregiously, ignore the costs of inaction. Not getting to net zero is going to cost the world much, much more

Clark also highlights that when people target the ‘cost’ of switching to Net Zero, they ignore the costs of not switching:

the second step often is is to pretend that we can just carry on with business as usual and it won’t cost us anything. Let’s say we’re talking about decarbonising transport. And then people say, “Oh, but you know, an EV that’s going to cost like £40,000. You know, that’s a huge investment. That’s expensive, right?” You know, and you add that up over all of the cars in the in the country and you suddenly get a big scary number.

Again, let’s say we just carry on with petrol cars. Petrol cars aren’t free, right? Okay, maybe you own a petrol car now, so you don’t have to buy a new one, but that won’t last forever. So, that’s step two is you basically pretend that the existing system, which we’ve already built and paid for, can just carry on forever and won’t ever need replacing.

Recommendations

Verdant provide three recommendations on what the UK should do to mitigate the effects of human-driven climate change:

To cut these economic losses and better protect workers, we recommend three measures:

  • a national maximum working temperature;
  • a national heat insurance scheme to protect the incomes of those unable to work during heatwaves, potentially financed by an Extreme Weather Levy on fossil fuel companies;
  • and investment in cooling and urban redesign, including greening urban spaces, to lessen the impact of extreme heat itself.

Will Andy Burnham listen to any of this?

That remains to be seen, although the man has at least now removed his head from the sand:

Featured image via Climate Change Committee

By Willem Moore





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