During a sweltering week of record-breaking high temperatures for the UK, RELIABLE researchers joined both in-person and online events during the London Climate Action Week (LACW).

"Climate warming stripes chart titled 'Temperature change in the United Kingdom since 1884'. Each vertical stripe represents a year, with blue shades indicating cooler-than-average temperatures and red shades indicating warmer-than-average temperatures. The stripes transition from mostly blue in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to mostly deep red in recent decades, illustrating long-term warming across the UK." — Ed Hawkins / University of Reading. CC BY 4.0

Taking full advantage of the event’s global and local ambitions, the team joined wide-ranging discussions, from UK climate adaptation to international experiences of preparedness, finance and action. Here, the RELIABLE team share their reflections on what stood out, and what questions remain.

Challenging the technical framing of adaptation and centring lived experiences: Shilpi Srivastava

It was encouraging to see adaptation and preparedness gaining more prominence in climate debates, including in the Global North. There was a strong focus on adaptation finance and investment, but also important reminders that questions of justice, inequality and lived experience must remain central. One point that stayed with me was how often adaptation is framed as a largely technical and infrastructural challenge, rather than one deeply shaped by social, political and development contexts. It also brought me back to a blog some of us wrote a couple of years ago on how climate and development questions are deeply interconnected across time and geographies.

A second theme that caught my attention was around the value of opening up evidence in the face of limited data and knowledge. Although uncertainty is rarely mentioned in these spaces, and is often bound up with risk management, it is slowly becoming a driving force for joined up thinking and pooling knowledge and evidence base especially as extremes become more pervasive.

Who is representing whom? Attending LCAW from afar: Shibaji Bose

Unlike the UN climate summits, LCAW enables rapid dialogue between governments and private investors. Yet its focus on market-driven finance also exposes structural inequalities: access to climate finance remains highly uneven, especially for those who need it most but are least able to generate financial returns. For many state and non-state actors in the Global South, this can make climate finance feel more aspirational than accessible. Discussions in London often reflect investor priorities more strongly than the priorities of communities experiencing the most severe consequences of climate change.

Representatives from the Global South are increasingly present on panels and in discussions, but presence does not necessarily translate into agenda-setting power. LCAW is highly relevant because it provides a space where competing narratives can be debated openly and where finance, science, business and civil society can connect beyond formal diplomacy. However, for the event to maintain its global legitimacy, it must move beyond symbolic inclusion and address the critical question of whose voices shape the global climate agenda.

Centring whole of society Approach: Becky Carter

The record-breaking heat in the UK sharpened awareness of the diverse, interconnected nature of extreme weather effects, with the high temperatures leaving schools, hospitals and transport networks unable to cope. It also exposed how economic and social inequalities mediate climate impacts, with those already under personal, economic and social strain bearing the brunt of climate shocks, for example, elderly residents in care homes without air-conditioning and tenants living in poorly maintained tower blocks.

These cascading impacts require whole-of-society approaches to climate adaptation to manage the effects of unavoidable expected climate change and to build resilience and preparedness for increasingly frequent climate shocks. Three fundamental drivers of this transformational change emerged strongly from LCAW discussions: community support, political leadership and long-term resourcing. Compelling storytelling on climate impacts, as well as clearer communication about the benefits of climate action and preparedness, to inspire collective action is key.

Looking ahead

The heatwave gave LCAW a sense of urgency and brought an element of lived experience to the week’s conversations. Yet these discussions also took place under the long shadow of rising climate backlash and authoritarian politics. Even when not framed in those terms, participants pointed to cuts to council funding in the UK, the rollback of aid to the Global South, and the unequal ways in which climate impacts fall on different people and places.

LCAW offered an important space to network, learn and engage with a diverse audience. But the real test for such global climate events is whether, how quickly, and for whom these conversations and ambitions translate into on-the-ground action. In RELIABLE, we continue to explore these pathways for context-sensitive, responsive and equitable responses under conditions of climate uncertainty.