How to keep workers safe in an increasingly hot United Kingdom
Radhika Khosla describes the safety risks that heat poses to workers in the UK, and steps that can be taken to keep people safe without further increased greenhouse gas emissions.
Radhika Khosla describes the safety risks that heat poses to workers in the UK, and steps that can be taken to keep people safe without further increased greenhouse gas emissions.
The Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) has branded the UK Government’s response to its inquiry into heat resilience and sustainable cooling a “missed opportunity” in a press release published this week.
Dr Radhika Khosla, Associate Professor at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Research Letters, IOP Publishing’s flagship journal for inter-disciplinary environmental research.
Radhika Khosla told CNN that countries that lack access to adequate cooling need help to meet the cost of energy improvement. “Cooling is now on the global agenda,” she said. “But the hard work must begin to ensure everyone can stay cool without further heating the planet.”
Dr Radhika Khosla explains the significance of the COP28 Cooling pledge in The Conversation. "Cooling is now firmly on the global agenda. But the hard work must begin to ensure everyone can stay cool without further heating the planet."
UAE daily newspaper The National interviewed Dr Radhika Khosla about the UN's new cooling report, which she led. "Unless this growth in cooling is met sustainably, it’s going to make the achievement of that net zero target [by 2050] very hard, because the rise in emissions that’s going to come from this cooling demand is extremely high," she said.
“Fewer than half of Africans have a reliable electricity supply, and extreme heat will only exacerbate this issue,” Dr Radhika Khosla told China Dialogue. “Communities that rely on off-grid energy sources will be particularly vulnerable in the face of rising energy demands.”
"We need to start adapting to the world that lies beyond 1.5C. That means putting sustainable cooling on the agenda," - Bloomberg climate opinion editor Lara Williams explores new research co-authored by Dr Radhika Khosla, which finds Switzerland, UK and Norway will face a huge adaptation challenge if the world hits 2.0C of warming.
Switzerland, UK and Norway will see the world’s most dramatic relative increase in days that require cooling interventions – such as window shutters, ventilation, fans, or air conditioning – if the world overshoots 1.5 ºC of warming, according to new University of Oxford research
Dr Radhika Khosla was interviewed on BBC Newsnight about new Smith School and Oxford Martin School research predicting the impact of rising temperatures on climate adaptation requirements for cooling across the world. "“I think it's a wakeup call for countries like the UK, for countries in Europe that are not traditionally hot… The elderly, children, outdoor workers, and others - are going to be under extreme threat, and their health, their morbidity and mortality and their productivity is going to be affected,” she said. (23 mins in)