Race is on to adapt UK homes to the brutal reality of even hotter summers

The focus has been on keeping homes warm in winter, to stop them leaking heat. Cooling overheated homes is a new challenge

- Fiona Harvey

Wondering what future British summers will be like, as the climate crisis unfolds? Clue: put away visions of sipping Yorkshire champagne on a Barcelona-style balcony. Think instead of stuffy, overheated homes making sleep impossible, droughts and floods that play havoc with infrastructure, and urgent health warnings for the old and very young.

"What we are facing is climate brutality. That is the reality of the hotter weather coming down the track," says Simon McWhirter, the chief executive of the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC).

Temperatures have already topped 40C (104F) during one summer, in 2022, and that record-breaking heat is likely to be repeated in the next 12 years, according to the Met Office, as global heating drives more weather extremes. A temperature of 28C inside the home is likely to become the norm in London and the south-east in the decades to come, says McWhirter.