Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment he has made of the threats posed by the climate emergency following the extreme weather events in (a) the UK, (b) Germany and (c) China.

Recent global weather and climate extremes observed in the UK, Germany and China are consistent with expectations from climate research that we will see increases in the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall events. This is being borne out by observations; the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on the Physical Science Basis of Climate Change says, “the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation events have increased since the 1950s over most land area for which observational data are sufficient for trend analysis (high confidence), and human-induced climate change is likely the main driver.”