UK heatwave: Why is it so hot in the UK?

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We could see Britain's hottest temperature within hours according to the Met Office.

Why are we so cold? Climate scientists agree on one thing: climate change.

According to the Met Office, the extreme heat we will be seeing over the next couple of days is ten times more likely because of it.

It is being warned that it could pose a life-threatening risk to people who are normally healthy.

When average world temperatures have risen just over 1C beyond levels seen before many parts of the world became industrialised, this is occurring.

It doesn't sound like much. According to the UN's climate science body, we're living in the hottest period for over a century.

Fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas trap heat in the atmosphere and cause greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they helped push the concentration of carbon dioxide to its highest level in 2 million years.

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We don't know where our climate is going.

The UN has a goal of limiting global temperature increases to 1.5C higher than before. It says that should be avoided.

Emissions need to have peaked by the year 2025.

The International Energy Agency estimates that the amount of CO2 emissions from energy increased by six percent in 2011.

We need a minimum reduction by the end of this decade according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The world needs to reduce emissions by the year 2050. Cut greenhouse gases as much as possible and find ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

Many people think the greatest challenge humankind has ever faced is this one.

There was a big UN conference in Glasgow a year ago. By the end of the century, we'd be looking at temperatures rising by 2.4C from pre-industrial levels if all the promises governments made there were implemented.

The UK summers will get hotter even if we reduce emissions to the 1.5C target.

Professor Friederike Otto is a Climate scientist at Imperial College London.

According to a climate scientist at Reading University, we should expect more and longer heat waves in the future.

He warns that we will see more heat-health warnings, more heat stress days, and more heat extremes.

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The UK is doing something about it.

The conclusion of the Climate Change Committee is stark.

In his speech at the Glasgow climate conference, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the world was at one minute to midnight.

According to a report on the UK's progress towards net zero, the government's current policies are not likely to succeed.

The government has set a lot of targets and put a lot of policies in place, but there is not much evidence that they will be fulfilled.

Climate change will cause more frequent and intense heatwaves, and the country isn't doing enough to prepare.

In 2020, heat waves caused an additional 2,000 deaths.

Baroness Brown is the deputy chair of the Climate Change Committee.

She says that they have been telling the government for over a decade that we are not prepared for the heat in the UK.

Professor Hannah Cloke of the University of Reading believes that people are dying of heat in the UK.

She says that most UK buildings and infrastructure were not designed to deal with the kind of temperatures we are seeing this week.

In the last few years, we have made great strides in forecasting extreme weather. We need the systems in place to let people and governments know about the warnings we can give.