Terina Hine – Climate breakdown is a class issue

It should be obvious that it is the working class who will suffer most from climate breakdown, but sometimes the obvious must be pointed out again and again.

Cross-posted from Counterfire

Picture by Hong Kong Free Press

Blue skies, blistering sun, scorched parks and unbearable heat, this is summer 2026. And while some may bask in shady gardens, sipping cool wine, or drive air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned offices, others suffer.

When Covid hit, we were told we were all in it together. Although we soon learned age and general health made some more susceptible, and that the poor were the most vulnerable of all. Those who lived in overcrowded conditions, who worked on the buses, or could not afford to take sick leave suffered disproportionately. The same can be said of this summer’s heatwave. Heatwaves are a class issue.

At home

As the fourth heatwave of the year arrived in late July millions of us braced yet again for sleepless nights and unbearably sweaty days. For those in cheap rentals, social housing or temporary accommodation the ordeal was even worse.

The vast majority of the UK’s housing stock is unfit for extreme temperatures, even more so when it comes to lower cost rentals and social housing, which are often poorly maintained, poorly ventilated and lack insulation. The absence of shady external space during spells of hot weather, especially in school holidays, makes matters worse.

An estimated 13,000 people are housed in former office buildings now converted into temporary accommodation (temporary for many can mean well in excess of a year). As a result of planning deregulation, requirements around things such as space and windows have fallen by the wayside. Walls can be glass, turning flats into greenhouses, and if windows can be opened at all it’s often just to let in excessive traffic noise or pollution.

One such building is billionaire owned Britannia Point in Colliers Wood, London. Britannia Point houses 60 families from a number of London boroughs and hit the headlines recently when residents had their air conditioning disabled without warning during the heatwave. Apparently, the air conditioning was not part of the council contract. One resident, who has lived in the tower block for three years, said the air-conditioning had only ever worked intermittently and for most residents windows only partly open. With this year’s heat the problem became acute, resulting in children being rushed to hospital with fainting and nosebleeds.

Following a media campaign and pressure by some local councilors, two local authorities have decided to move residents. Others, Croydon and Tower Hamlets, have not – they say the problem has been solved. But according to a Guardian report last week a number of residents were still unable to access the air-conditioning when temperatures hit 35C. The building managers say residents are free to use their air conditioning units if they work, for an additional charge of £35-50 per month.

At work

There are currently no regulations on maximum workplace temperatures – inside or out. For those sweltering in offices and shops without air-conditioning days become unbearable, for those driving buses or working in construction hot days become dangerous.

London bus drivers are set to strike over the conditions they have had to endure this summer. 1,500 drivers from eight garages are due to walk out on a variety of days between August and October. Their buses have no effective air-conditioning, being fitted only with systems that blow in air from outside – and when the outside temperatures reach the highs experienced this summer cabs are reaching temperatures in excess of 40C. The consequences: drivers experience heat exhaustion, heat stroke and dehydration, and passenger safety is compromised.

For those who work in the construction industry conditions can be equally appalling. Heavy PPE, direct sun, humidity and taxing physical labour result in vulnerability to heat stress. Scaffolding tubes literally become too hot to handle. In urban areas, where concrete, tarmac traffic push temperatures higher conditions can be even more difficult. Although firms are required to operate safe conditions for employees, workers have no legal right to stop work in extreme heat.

Elsewhere in Europe there are upper limits at which outdoor work must cease. The TUC recommends strenuous outdoor work should stop when temperatures reach 27C. Some companies have instigated amended working hours – starting at 6am and ending at noon – but they have no obligation to do so, and shortening the working day delays projects and costs money. Plus, there are regulations about making noise before 8am which hinders early start times on some sites. Proper legislation is needed.

In the kitchen

Global food prices, already high thanks to wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, will rise further as the impact of the summer weather begins to take its toll. The Telegraph complained that a glass of Bordeaux 2026 will have a smokey taste, but it is the impact on crop yields that will be felt in the majority of kitchens.

Extreme drought, heat and wildfires have hit food production hard. UK farmers have warned the coming harvest will be the worst on record. Hardly surprising given it was the driest July since 1836 and all of Wales and half of England are now officially in drought, after suffering not just a hot, dry summer but a dry spring. There is fear that if this weather continues year-on-year as many predict, England’s farmland will become parched and unproductive.

It is not just UK food production that will be hit but food production everywhere. European farmers have been forced to destroy 9m tonnes of crops. The heat in central and western Europe has been record-breaking and wildfires extensive. In the first week of August temperatures in Slovakia hit a new high of 42C, while in Poland the heat caused power plants to be shut down due to low water levels in the Virtual River. Wheat and grain yields will be severely reduced. Meanwhile the hot and dry conditions in the Corn Belt of the US have caused world maize prices to rise dramatically, and the delayed monsoon rains and below average rainfall in India are predicted to result in high rice prices.

Both locally produced and imported food will become more expensive, with food-based inflation predicted to accelerate towards the end of the year. As the poor pay a greater percentage of their income on food and basic commodities, they will be hardest hit.

And not just the poor in the UK. According to the UN’s World Food Programme 50 million people are likely to be pushed into acute hunger before the end of the year as a result of the perfect storm of climate crisis induced extreme weather and the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine.

Climate is a class issue

The parks are arid and brown, gardens go unwatered and the streets are dusty, but there are exceptions to these parched conditions. Where I live, we have a massive Thames Water leak flooding the main road, alongside lush, green playing fields inaccessible to the local population.

Water leaks waste more water nationally than the hosepipe ban is saving, yet the water companies are still making profit, and no bills are being reduced. School sports fields (mostly the preserve of the private sector, at least in cities) and golf courses are exempt from the hosepipe ban and have become green oases amidst the desert brown. The contrast between public parks and the private school playing fields, empty and unused in the height of summer bring the inequality of climate change into sharp relief, highlighting the class divide of the relentless heatwaves.

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