Kitty Thompson is Head of Campaigns at the Conservative Environment Network.
In true British fashion, we respond to heatwaves with sweaty stoicism: paddling pools inflated, the frozen aisle pillaged, and men cosplaying as colonial officers in their finest linen garb. We treat 30+ degree weather as something to be endured rather than adapted to. But there is another way. To make British summers bearable, we need to Cool Britannia.
Amid England’s first proper heatwave of the year, the Conservatives pledged to reverse what has become known as the “air con ban”. This is the combination of local planning rules and national building regulations that effectively blocked the adoption of mechanical cooling in new homes.
These regulations were originally introduced at a time when air con was considered undesirable and financially unsound, given how much energy the units require to run. In London, Sadiq Khan’s reverse Midas touch means air conditioning can only be installed as a last resort, with too few homes being built in the capital to really care about whether or not they are cool enough.
Resistance to air conditioning often arrives dressed in this language of sustainability.
The units do use a lot of energy.
But that sort of misses the point, especially when so much solar power currently goes to waste on sunny days. The question is not whether cooling consumes energy; it is whether modern societies can – and more importantly should – function safely and productively without it. Increasingly, the answer is no.
Over the last bank holiday weekend, the heat was a pleasant enough novelty, ripe for splashing in the sea and picnicking in the park. But, in a working week, heat can be economically and socially corrosive. Productivity drops, sleep deteriorates, and children struggle to learn in classrooms that could double up as conservatories.
Where Spain has shutters and Italy has stone buildings, Britain has south-facing new builds with one apologetic desk fan oscillating heroically in the corner. Our country was, after all, built for drizzle. We tend to have low ceilings, dark roofs, and an instinctive fear of opening anything after the watershed because “the bugs will get in”.
Unfortunately, during a heatwave, our homes become ovens. Meanwhile, our policymakers have treated air conditioning as an embarrassing indulgence of European proportions, akin to installing a bidet or taking the month of August off.
While the Tory press release makes no explicit reference to climate change, its commitment to reversing the air con ban is, in practice, a form of climate adaptation. With Britain experiencing higher temperatures for longer periods, it needs to adapt accordingly.
For too long, reducing the impact of climate change has been treated as politically embarrassing or morally suspect, with ambitious efforts to halt climate change in its tracks prioritised instead.
That approach no longer matches reality. Even if emissions fell dramatically tomorrow, Britain would still face hotter summers and more heatwaves in the decades ahead. Mitigation remains essential, but adaptation matters too, because climate change is no longer a distant threat to prevent but a reality that we now live with.
And herein lies an opportunity for the Conservatives to go beyond this first step and carve out a new story of pragmatic climate action. Under Kemi Badenoch, the party has rediscovered its enthusiasm for wielding scissors. Whichever adaptation measure you look at, it seems that red tape is blocking the way. So it’s time for them to get cutting.
Take tree-lined streets as an example. By providing shade, they essentially function as air conditioning for outdoor spaces, making leafy avenues several degrees cooler than the surrounding environment during heatwaves. That matters for pedestrians, wildlife, and even the tarmac.
Yet the Highways Act 1980 makes planting street trees harder than it should be, with councils treating pavements as sacred territory reserved for pipes, cables, and discarded e-bikes. Fearing root damage and liability claims, they take an overly cautious approach. The result is fewer trees and sweatier citizens.
The same story repeats elsewhere.
New building regulations intended to prevent overheating can, perversely, make homes harder to cool naturally by discouraging larger and easy-to-open windows. External shutters – ubiquitous across continental Europe – are barely recognised within regulations, unless automated. Hotter weather also increases demand for water, yet we have failed to build a major reservoir since 1992, while farmers still face barriers to constructing on-farm reservoirs that could improve drought resilience and protect our food security. Once again, planning rules and regulatory obstacles stand in the way.
Adaptation demands abundance, not austerity. More trees. More windows. More water. More shade. More cool air. And, above all, it requires policymakers to stop treating comfort as frivolous. Focused squarely on resilience through deregulation, such an agenda will improve the lives of the Great British public in tangible ways. This is bread-and-butter conservatism.
While ending the air con ban is a good start, there is more work to do. If Britain is going to get hotter, the Conservative Party needs to be cooler.
Kitty Thompson is Head of Campaigns at the Conservative Environment Network.
In true British fashion, we respond to heatwaves with sweaty stoicism: paddling pools inflated, the frozen aisle pillaged, and men cosplaying as colonial officers in their finest linen garb. We treat 30+ degree weather as something to be endured rather than adapted to. But there is another way. To make British summers bearable, we need to Cool Britannia.
Amid England’s first proper heatwave of the year, the Conservatives pledged to reverse what has become known as the “air con ban”. This is the combination of local planning rules and national building regulations that effectively blocked the adoption of mechanical cooling in new homes.
These regulations were originally introduced at a time when air con was considered undesirable and financially unsound, given how much energy the units require to run. In London, Sadiq Khan’s reverse Midas touch means air conditioning can only be installed as a last resort, with too few homes being built in the capital to really care about whether or not they are cool enough.
Resistance to air conditioning often arrives dressed in this language of sustainability.
The units do use a lot of energy.
But that sort of misses the point, especially when so much solar power currently goes to waste on sunny days. The question is not whether cooling consumes energy; it is whether modern societies can – and more importantly should – function safely and productively without it. Increasingly, the answer is no.
Over the last bank holiday weekend, the heat was a pleasant enough novelty, ripe for splashing in the sea and picnicking in the park. But, in a working week, heat can be economically and socially corrosive. Productivity drops, sleep deteriorates, and children struggle to learn in classrooms that could double up as conservatories.
Where Spain has shutters and Italy has stone buildings, Britain has south-facing new builds with one apologetic desk fan oscillating heroically in the corner. Our country was, after all, built for drizzle. We tend to have low ceilings, dark roofs, and an instinctive fear of opening anything after the watershed because “the bugs will get in”.
Unfortunately, during a heatwave, our homes become ovens. Meanwhile, our policymakers have treated air conditioning as an embarrassing indulgence of European proportions, akin to installing a bidet or taking the month of August off.
While the Tory press release makes no explicit reference to climate change, its commitment to reversing the air con ban is, in practice, a form of climate adaptation. With Britain experiencing higher temperatures for longer periods, it needs to adapt accordingly.
For too long, reducing the impact of climate change has been treated as politically embarrassing or morally suspect, with ambitious efforts to halt climate change in its tracks prioritised instead.
That approach no longer matches reality. Even if emissions fell dramatically tomorrow, Britain would still face hotter summers and more heatwaves in the decades ahead. Mitigation remains essential, but adaptation matters too, because climate change is no longer a distant threat to prevent but a reality that we now live with.
And herein lies an opportunity for the Conservatives to go beyond this first step and carve out a new story of pragmatic climate action. Under Kemi Badenoch, the party has rediscovered its enthusiasm for wielding scissors. Whichever adaptation measure you look at, it seems that red tape is blocking the way. So it’s time for them to get cutting.
Take tree-lined streets as an example. By providing shade, they essentially function as air conditioning for outdoor spaces, making leafy avenues several degrees cooler than the surrounding environment during heatwaves. That matters for pedestrians, wildlife, and even the tarmac.
Yet the Highways Act 1980 makes planting street trees harder than it should be, with councils treating pavements as sacred territory reserved for pipes, cables, and discarded e-bikes. Fearing root damage and liability claims, they take an overly cautious approach. The result is fewer trees and sweatier citizens.
The same story repeats elsewhere.
New building regulations intended to prevent overheating can, perversely, make homes harder to cool naturally by discouraging larger and easy-to-open windows. External shutters – ubiquitous across continental Europe – are barely recognised within regulations, unless automated. Hotter weather also increases demand for water, yet we have failed to build a major reservoir since 1992, while farmers still face barriers to constructing on-farm reservoirs that could improve drought resilience and protect our food security. Once again, planning rules and regulatory obstacles stand in the way.
Adaptation demands abundance, not austerity. More trees. More windows. More water. More shade. More cool air. And, above all, it requires policymakers to stop treating comfort as frivolous. Focused squarely on resilience through deregulation, such an agenda will improve the lives of the Great British public in tangible ways. This is bread-and-butter conservatism.
While ending the air con ban is a good start, there is more work to do. If Britain is going to get hotter, the Conservative Party needs to be cooler.