The UK is at risk of summer temperatures exceeding 40 ° C, even if global warming remains limited to 1.5 ° C, forecasters warned Thursday.

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This threshold corresponds to the most ambitious objective set by the Paris agreement to limit global warming with respect to the industrial era, which the British presidency of COP26, scheduled for November in Glasgow, hopes to maintain “wishAccording to many scientists, it is now largely out of reach.

On the occasion of the release of the UK climate report for 2020 on Thursday, Royal Meteorological Society Executive Director Liz Bentley noted that “if we add another 0.3 ° C“These heat waves”it will become more and more intense; we are likely to see 40 ° C in the UK, although we have never experienced such temperatures».

The highest temperature on record in the UK is 38.7 ° C, recorded on July 25, 2019 in Cambridge. “Upon reaching 1.5 ° C of global warming, it won’t be just something we see once or twice“, the majority “something we will see on a regular basisShe added.

Mike Kendon, the author of the report, judged on the BBC that 40 ° C in summer in the UK is “plausible», Highlighting that global warming is already manifesting itself in the UK as in the rest of the world. According to the report, the year 2020 is the third warmest, the fifth wettest, the eighth sunniest, and the first to pass in the top 10 of these three criteria.

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According to Tom Burke, president of the environmental think tank E3G, COP26 will be the first edition of this global climate conference where “the science of climate change has been validated by events». «It’s not just what scientists say, it’s what people experience“He told reporters on Thursday, asking Prime Minister Boris Johnson to”be more visible»At the diplomatic level before COP26. The spokesman for the head of government stressed that the issue of global warming is “a priority“For Boris Johnson and may the latter be”proud of what this government is doing to combat this».