The following letter has been published in the Eastern Daily Press on 5 December 2023 on Flood Risk in Norfolk. Text as follows:
Dear Letters Editor
We read with interest your article "Norfolk river levels likely to stay high for three weeks" (30th November 2023). We are Norfolk scientists and academics familiar with climate science. One of us recently walked around Norfolk in a snorkel to highlight the risks from climate change to our low lying county. We each work for the rapid reduction of carbon pollution which is the primary cause of climate change.
We consider that Cllr Graham Plant's explanation of the flooding, which is hampering Norfolk residents' lives, only went "so far". He conveniently ignored saying why Norfolk has experienced autumn storms which have left the Broads Catchment fully saturated, and also had devastating coastal erosion impacts at Happisburgh and Hemsby.
World leading expert on how climate change affects weather events, Dr Friederike Otto of the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, said of the recent storms “There are a lot of attribution studies and other lines of evidence showing that autumn/winter storms like this are more damaging because of climate change. The rainfall associated with these types of storms is more severe due to climate change, and the storm surges are higher and thus more damaging due to the higher sea levels.”
This strongly suggests that we will only see Norfolk getting more - and potentially much more catastrophic - flooding in the future.
Cllr Plant is due to very soon start the planning process for the Norwich Western Link road which the council acknowledges, if built, would generate significant new carbon pollution from both construction and future use.
Surely it is time for Cllr Plant and his cabinet colleagues to join the dots. Our county needs serious flood defence work and policies to accelerate decarbonisation in every sector, but instead the county Cabinet is spending many millions of pounds to make climate change worse. It would be better to reallocate this money to proper flood defence and coastal protection for Norfolk and to policies dedicated to rapidly reducing carbon pollution.
Yours faithfully
Dr Andrew Boswell, Climate Emergency Planning and Policy
Dr Charlie Gardner, University of Kent
Prof Rupert Read, co-director Climate Majority Project
Promoted by Jan Davis on behalf of Broadland Green Party, a constituent party of the Green Party of England & Wales PO Box 78066, London, SE16 9GQ