Adapting the UK to climate change

The RSC has submitted both initial evidence and then also a response to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution "Study on adapting the UK to climate change"

The chemical sciences have a huge role to play in enabling society to first of all mitigate climate change and also adapt. The chemical sciences already plays a vital role in measuring and monitoring key climate change indicators, such as CO2 and temperature, which is essential to enable accurate climate change models. The chemical sciences will help to provide the solutions to enable us to mitigate climate change, such as by developing low carbon energy sources and carbon capture and storage technologies.  Finally the chemical sciences will be essential in providing new innovative solutions to help society adapt to climate change, for example by providing new low energy technologies for producing drinking water, new fertilisers to allow us to grow enough food and new medicines to treat people and animals as disease vectors change.