Kristin and Daisy go on a deep dive to explore how climate change will impact Kent in the next 100 years
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Around the world, the effects of climate change are ever developing. Over the past century,
00:24so much has already changed in our environment and the pace of change is worrying climate
00:28activists. Closer to home, in Kent, the changes are inherently visible. In this documentary,
00:34we explore how these changes are already shaping the county and ask, what could the next 100
00:40years hold for Kent's future? With growing concerns of the effects of climate change,
00:52the next few years are unknown and difficult to predict. Climate change is real and it
00:57has real impacts on the way we will lead our lives, not just now, but forever unless
01:02we get it right. Well, as I say, I think climate change is such a huge issue for the whole
01:07of humanity. What we can't defend against is these severe heat waves. We have to reduce
01:13the amount of carbon we're putting in the atmosphere to reduce the impacts of climate
01:17change. That's probably the most important thing that we all have to do. Now, this all
01:22seems quite scary, but it's important to remember that there are ways we can slow down. But
01:26first, we need to understand what climate change really means. It's about how temperature
01:31and weather patterns can change. While these shifts are sometimes natural, in recent centuries,
01:36human activity such as burning fossil fuels has a large effect on climate change. This
01:41is because it produces greenhouse gases that increase the insulation around the earth,
01:45making sea temperatures rise and extreme weather more common. The kind of gases we're talking
01:50about include carbon dioxide and methane, which are produced by driving your car, airplanes
01:55and deforestation. So firstly, what does this all mean for our oceans? Let's do a deep dive.
02:01The extra carbon dioxide that we're getting in our atmospheres, that's essentially having
02:06this sort of blanketing or greenhouse effect. And that is giving extra insulation and water
02:14is absorbing some of that extra heat. And it's raising a few degrees at a time. And
02:21what that means is that those species which are essentially occupying their northern most
02:27temperature limits are able to now be extending their ranges further northwards, because that
02:36sort of temperature is becoming more frequent and sustained for longer periods of time,
02:42which we weren't seeing kind of 10, 20, 100 years ago. It's not just our waters that will
02:48face change. So to find out the impacts that are already affecting us, our communities
02:52and our futures, we have been speaking with industry professionals about their predictions.
02:57Kent County Council released a report revealing how climate change could impact the county.
03:02I've come down to Maidstone to find out how the climate could impact people's health.
03:07Probably number one threat in the next 100 years for public health especially is climate
03:12change. What will happen is we'll kind of start to have a tropical type of climate.
03:17Communicable diseases that are waterborne, that are through food, through air, as well as
03:23something called vector-borne diseases, they'll all start to increase. The other thing that's
03:27going to happen as a result of this is pressure on the infrastructure. So when things start to
03:32break down and not work quite well, you're going to have pressures on the waters, utilities,
03:38electricity, all that kind of a thing. You're also going to have a major impact on the NHS
03:44and on health services as well as social care. Now the environmental impacts, everyone knows
03:48about them because you're already starting to see it, whether it's years worth of rain falling
03:54in one day in Spain, whether you've seen the flooding that's happened in England as well
03:58recently. So there's going to be extremes of climate which start to impact on life. Kent
04:05particularly affects the coastal region, which is also the region of the maximum amount of health
04:10inequalities and health challenges. To see how Kent's coasts are being affected, I went to Sheppey
04:15to see what it will look like in the next 100 years. For context, however, we first need to
04:19understand what it looked like in the past. In the middle ages, there was a lot more water inland.
04:25So everywhere from Romney to Thanet, areas around the Isle of Grey, actually we had a lot more
04:31waterways inland and over the years we've drained those to bring agricultural land into use. It
04:36could be that some of that recedes, but that's not the plan. But we have to be very aware
04:41that there could be some really big, scary environmental changes. We need to be
04:46planning for that now. Kent in particular is a place that will see the effects of climate change
04:51in many ways. In fact, it already has. With its cliffs made from clay, it puts it at a high risk of
04:57coastal erosion. With homes lost already, it is expected in the coming decades that nearly 90 more
05:02could be lost as the island is predicted to lose another 200 metres of its coastline. Climate change
05:08just magnifies everything. I mean, as I said, drier summers will mean that the clay dries out more.
05:14It's more prone to fracture and cracking and that increases erosion. But at the same time,
05:19rising sea levels are a clear and present danger to a lot of the coast in southeast of England and
05:24Kent in particular because we're so low-lying. I mean, in my constituency of Sittingbourne and
05:29Sheppey, a lot of the land is at or below sea level and it's only land because of the drainage
05:36systems that are in place and the sea defences. So how will climate change impact us? Will Sheppey
05:41be underwater? So actually, this bit on the edge and the current predictions, this bit is likely to
05:45still be here. Immediately behind me, that will have receded quite a bit. So the centre of Sheppey
05:51is a hill around Minster. That will have gone further inland. But the bulk of the hill will
05:57still be there in 100 years. And I think the other areas, the southern areas and the marshes
06:02and the marshy areas of Sheppey, actually, if we manage them well and we manage our sea defences
06:07well, they'll still be there. But it will require, you know, we will have to build up some of the
06:11levees and build up some of the sea walls to keep those protected. Other parts of the world are
06:15going to become much, much drier, much, much more difficult to grow crops. So one of the things that's
06:20really important in Kent is that we protect our agricultural land going forwards because that's
06:25going to be really important for global food security, not just national food security.
06:29Farmers have already had to start adapting to the changes in climate, meaning farming itself
06:34will change. Kent and Medway's agriculture is so important to the entirety of the UK.
06:39Many refer to Kent as the Garden of England, but it's not just fruits, vegetables and flowers which
06:44are grown here. Many actually depend on the climate for their vineyards and breweries.
06:48I've come to a hops farm near Ashford to find out more.
06:51Definitely the climate is changing. With our crop, with the hops, we irrigate the hops.
06:58That's sustainable, so we collect winter rainwater that would otherwise have caused flooding
07:03potentially and then pump that onto the hops in the summer. So very sustainable. What we can't
07:11defend against is these severe heat waves which aren't good for hop growing. So we then need to
07:18look at varieties which are drought resilient and heat tolerant.
07:22And it's not just for food, wine and beer for why we need to keep agriculture alive.
07:27The land itself can be used to help lower our carbon footprint.
07:31I'm for myself. I think the farms that we see here in Kent and around the United Kingdom,
07:36they will play a vital role in helping us reduce carbon emissions through, for example,
07:41ensuring we don't need to fly in food from all over the world at a vast expense and environmental
07:46cost. But also, of course, the very nature of the countryside. Our trees can help stop
07:53flooding in some parts of the country.
07:55It's not just coastlines and farmland being impacted by climate change.
07:59It's city centres like Canterbury that are also feeling the effects.
08:04Flooding has always happened in Kent and South London. It's historic. We've had flooding since
08:11the Romans were here. What we are seeing is more significant flooding as time moves on.
08:17There's several reasons for that. There's certainly we are seeing a change in the weather
08:20patterns which can be attributed to climate change. There's land use, there's development
08:25and there's the fact that there's more rain falling from the sky.
08:30Sea level rise is causing us coastal flooding occasionally and the Environment Agency and
08:35other flood risk authorities in the county are working really hard to predict where flooding
08:43is going to happen and try and stop it.
08:44What did Kent look like a hundred years ago? What was there here? Well, actually,
08:50it wouldn't have looked a lot different from where we are right now. In fact,
08:54it probably looked very similar.
08:55And finally, we asked the industry professionals to give us their predictions on what Kent could
09:00look like by 2125.
09:03I think we would not recognise Kent in a hundred years' time based on the current climate policies
09:09of national governments around the world unless we tackle climate change clearly
09:16and rapidly and we do it now.
09:18I think you can expect to see far fewer farms, far less of our beautiful countryside and instead
09:24more flooding, worse roads, our infrastructure continue to degrade, lots of housing in places
09:31that are completely inappropriate and at its absolute worst, the destruction of the countryside.
09:36If we continue the way that we are, being predicted to well exceed the 2.5 degrees centigrade,
09:45which we are trying to limit ourselves to, that will dramatically alter our entire ecology
09:54around our coast, particularly here in the southeast.
09:57It's really difficult to say 50, 100 years out because some of it is policy-led
10:03but what we're doing on our farm is we're farming good ground to produce food,
10:11our hops, and we're on poor soil.
10:14We're looking at environmental biodiversity, climate mitigation.
10:20There are two scenarios.
10:21So there's an optimistic scenario where we actually did pull together, not just as a country,
10:26but as a global community to tackle this and we managed to change and prevent that tipping balance.
10:34The pessimistic scenario is we lost control
10:38and that particularly means that certain areas of the UK will actually be flooded,
10:42so parts of London will be underwater by then.
10:47There'll be countries across the world which have disappeared.
10:50Although climate change is happening quickly,
10:52there are still things that we can do to help make our futures more positive.
10:56Part of England and Kent and Essex are some of the few salt marshes like this that we have in the world.
11:01So they're really, really vital for protecting the environment and biodiversity.
11:05So we need to actually make sure they're protected.
11:07And the technology we now have available to us in terms of the modelling of rivers,
11:12the modelling of flows, that can only increase as we go further forward
11:16and we're going to get better at it and communities will understand flood risk better.
11:20Reduce your carbon footprint.
11:22So really think about the way you travel,
11:25whether you need your car that many times where you can actually pull vehicles, use electric vehicles.
11:31This is the kind of action that we would need to take to make a change for our futures.
11:36So what do you think Kent will look like in the next 100 years?