As parliament debated the controversial climate and nature bill on 13 May to remove protections for the UK’s natural environment, scientists gathered en masse in Parliament Square. This followed a stark warning from the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) that the country was “not prepared” for the impacts of climate change.
Over 150 scientists from across the UK were joined by TV broadcaster and naturalist Chris Packham, expert researcher on carbon footprints Professor Mike Berners-Lee, presenter of popular science series Robin Ince, and former chief scientific adviser to the UK government Sir David King.
Their mission today was a simple one – to reiterate to MPs and other policymakers the overwhelming scientific consensus on the severity, urgency and consequences of climate and ecological breakdown.
Yorkshire voices join the national call to action
Scientists from Yorkshire represented the region, travelling to London from Sheffield, Leeds and York to help coordinate and manage the demonstration. Dr Abi Perrin, one of the coordinating scientists and co-founder of the York Climate Connect network, used a medical analogy to stress the importance of such briefing opportunities to facilitate informed decision-making:
“Right now, it’s as if we were trying to run a hospital without having trained our medical staff. Our politicians need better access to the fundamental science of the climate and nature emergency to be able to make informed decisions that protect us all. We are here to communicate this clearly, urgently and constructively, offering to bring evidence and expertise to where it most needs to be acted upon.”
Scientists came to Westminster, filling Parliament Square and greeting their MPs with a simple message: politics must rise to the challenge of climate and ecological breakdown.
Lining the entrances to the Houses of Parliament, they invited their MPs and ministers to engage constructively with them, as constituents and as professionals, on the urgent imperative to prioritise transformative action, and on how current policies fail to protect people from the deadly impacts of the climate crisis.
Leaders issue urgent climate warnings
Sir David King emphasised that: “Science in politics must be louder, stronger, braver. In the crises of climate and biodiversity, science advice is no longer enough. We need science activism …”
Professor Mike Berners-Lee, renowned expert on climate, carbon and sustainability and author of ‘A Climate of Truth’, backed this up, saying: “After decades of warning from science, humanity is accelerating into a polycrisis of climate change, nature degradation and more. It is time to insist on an evidence-based response from all corners of government.”
Chris Packham, standing alongside scientists, added: “We’re in deep trouble. Climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and detrimental political choices. However, we possess a powerful tool: impartial, independent, scientific truth.”
Climate scientists, ecologists, astrophysicists, microbiologists, health professors and other experts from across the UK had written to their MPs in the run-up to the demonstration, many warning that this is a decisive decade for what the world will look like for our younger generations and for future civilisation, and asking them to support effective climate and nature emergency briefings for policymakers.
Climate committee warns UK unprepared for climate impacts
Today’s rally comes just weeks after the CCC presented its 2025 report to parliament, entitled ‘Progress in adapting to climate change’. Their conclusions were stark, and highlighted a lack of decisive action over the past two years:
“The UK’s preparations for climate change are inadequate. Delivery of effective adaptation remains limited and, despite some progress, planning for adaptation continues to be piecemeal and disjointed. The vast majority of our assessment outcomes have the same low scores as in 2023.”
The report emphasises the same warnings that climate scientists are issuing today: the dangers of ‘locking-in’ climate risks:
“Without additional adaptation now, UK policy will increasingly lock-in future climate risks or make these risks worse. It is now critical that good quality adaptation is undertaken at scale and at speed.”
Why Net Zero still matters
Without the necessary climate adaptations, trajectories of the global mean temperature lead to an estimated warming of around 2.5–3°C above pre-industrial levels, as shown by the following graph in the CCC report’s projections.
However, if Net Zero targets are met, warming could be almost half a degree to a full degree lower by the end of the century, lessening the significant impacts of climate change, both in the UK and globally:
“If current Nationally Determined Contributions and Net Zero targets are delivered, central estimates suggest late-century warming would keep to between 1.5–2°C above pre-industrial levels.”
With global mean temperatures still not reaching a plateau and carbon emissions continuing to rise, the only logical action seems to be to listen to climate scientists when they speak. This is necessary to make this decisive decade one of positive climate action, rather than being delayed and distracted by voices that lack climate-science expertise and economic and public health understanding, but are backed by fossil-fuel interests.
