Miliband Warns: British Way of Life ‘Under Threat’ as Climate Extremes Escalate
Britain’s identity, its daily rhythm, its natural seasons—are all under siege. That’s the warning from Energy Secretary Ed Miliband, who says climate change is no longer a future concern but a present and pressing threat.
“Our British way of life is under threat,” Miliband told the PA news agency. “Whether it is extreme heat, droughts, flooding, we can see it actually with our own eyes, that it’s already happening, and we need to act.”
His comments follow the release of the latest State of the UK Climate Report, published in the International Journal of Climatology. The findings are sobering. Britain is warming faster than many realise, sea levels are rising at an accelerating pace, and the weather—once considered reliable—is now increasingly erratic.
The Met Office confirmed what many have sensed: the UK’s climate is “notably different” from a few decades ago. That’s not just about warmer summers—it’s about heavier rainfall, sudden droughts, and record-breaking seasons.
Last year was officially the fourth warmest on record since 1884. Spring 2024 set new heat records. And now, spring 2025 has broken them again.
Mike Kendon, Met Office climate scientist and lead author of the report, said: “It’s the extremes of temperature and rainfall that is changing the most, and that’s of profound concern, and that’s going to continue in the future.”
He explained that the most intense summer days are warming about twice as fast as average summer temperatures. Meanwhile, the UK is seeing more extreme rainfall and flooding than ever before.
Between October 2023 and March 2024, England and Wales experienced their wettest winter in over 250 years. Floodwaters overwhelmed parts of Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, the West Midlands, and eastern Scotland.
Still, the UK isn’t necessarily seeing more storms or higher winds, according to current data. But the warming planet is making everyday weather more volatile, and more dangerous.
Sea levels around the British Isles are also rising faster than the global average. Dr Svetlana Jevrejeva, from the National Oceanography Centre, warned: “This extra sea level rise contribution is leading to an increase in the frequency of extreme sea levels and an intensification of coastal hazards.”
Over two-thirds of the UK’s total sea level rise since the early 1900s has occurred just in the last 30 years.
Miliband and Environment Secretary Steve Reed visited Hinksey Heights in Oxfordshire, where a rare alkaline fen is being restored as part of a broader push to revive the UK’s freshwater habitats. The project, they said, is a beacon of what needs to happen nationwide.
“That’s why the Government has a central mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower and tackle the climate crisis,” Miliband explained.
On those resistant to Labour’s green push, he was clear: “(U)nless we act on the cause of what is happening, the cause of what is changing our climate, then we will be betraying future generations.”
Steve Reed echoed the urgency. He called the climate report a wake-up call and said that efforts like the fen restoration tackle both climate change and biodiversity loss in tandem.
“Yes, we’d become one of the most nature-depleted countries on earth,” he admitted. “This Government is calling time on that decline.”
The environmental message is also written in nature itself. The Nature’s Calendar database, managed by the Woodland Trust, shows signs of the shifting seasons: frogspawn arriving weeks early, blackbirds nesting ahead of schedule, and leaves staying on trees longer due to extended mild weather.
Professor Liz Bentley, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, said the evidence couldn’t be clearer: “The report reinforced the clear and urgent signals of our changing climate.”
The message is blunt. The UK isn’t heading toward climate change—it’s already there. And according to experts, without swift, bold action, the future could look even more unfamiliar.
