Boris Johnson’s slow response to the UK’s rising floodwaters is a dangerous mistake

Those living in the wide swathes of England now affected by flooding are not, for the moment, much interested in whether their plight is part of the climate emergency. They first need emergency assistance in their own homes, and the immediate attention of government.

They are not receiving it. Even with an election campaign just a few weeks ago, Boris Johnson was slow to react to the first phase of the extreme rains – and now the prime minister has been slow to do so again. The Prince of Wales has done his bit, but ministers are apparently otherwise occupied.

A meeting of the Cobra committee should have been called days ago, notwithstanding the Christmas break. A government’s first duty is to ensure the security of its citizens, and when the Met Office is issuing danger to life warnings, that duty could not be more pressing.

People in the affected areas have a right to know why so little has been done over many years to strengthen their flood walls. The strengthened defences around Sheffield, for example, seem only to have diverted water to other parts of the Don valley. The government has pledged £1bn a year to augment defences, but this may not be enough.

Given the damage to houses, commercial premises and infrastructure, and lost output, this is surely one public investment project that can quickly pay for itself.

Soon, some parts of the country – the ancient flood plains, but also elsewhere – will become uninsurable for such risks. Perhaps house builders should never have been allowed to develop these areas in past decades, but those are mistakes that have already been made. What we are witnessing now is the frequent inundation of homes that can never be fully flood-proofed. The owners may eventually find their properties badly devalued because of the insurance risk. That is unacceptable, and should be politically ruinous to any government that permitted it. The best way to prevent such an outcome without a huge state subsidy to insurance firms is, to coin a phrase, get those flood defences done.

When the waters eventually subside, there will also be an opportunity to discuss this most graphic and painful example of climate change. In some places a month’s worth of rainfall has fallen in one day. Rainfall in the past decade is becoming appreciably higher than in previous decades.

Global extreme weather events and related phenomena – bushfires in Australia, Atlantic hurricanes, the rapid melting of the polar ice caps – are growing more frequent and more severe. The scientific evidence that it is due to man-made climate change is irrefutable. Yet, as we witnessed at the Madrid COP25 conference, there is still too little political pressure on governments to act.

There must, though, be better things for them to be spending their taxpayers’ money on than a futile attempt to mitigate climate change. Rather, they should be diverting resources to reversing climate change. Political pressure is growing and carbon targets are being set – but not nearly rapidly enough to reduce these outbreaks of biblical flooding.

For some time yet we will have to live with them as best we can.