Its climate watchdog warns that the government is preparing for the UK to increase the threat posed by rising temperatures.

In a highly critical report, the Independent Climate Change Commission said progress “is either too slow, has stalled or is heading in the wrong direction.”

The CCC warns that from hospitals and nursing homes to food and water supply, this could leave the UK vulnerable to severe economic and health impacts in the coming decades.

In response, the government pointed out its investment in flood control, but acknowledged that more work was needed.

Flood Minister Emma Hardy told the BBC News that preparing for a changing climate is “a thing we really work on.”

“We are spending £2.65 billion on upgrading, maintaining and establishing new flood control measures.

"But we absolutely know that there is more to do."

Extreme weather in the UK is intensifying driven by climate change, from 40 degrees Celsius in July 2022 to England's wettest 18 months between October 2022 and March 2024.

The Earth continues to get hotter due to human emissions of warm gas from the planet, so this event may become more severe and happen more frequently.

Better preparations can limit damage by making the country more resilient, but the CCC says this won't happen near the speed required.

"We are seeing climate impacts happening faster and stronger, but the government doesn't seem to take them seriously," Brown Maroness Brown, chairman of the CCC Adaptation Committee, told BBC News.

She added: "The declaration says it will solve this resilience problem, but so far, nothing has been done."

"We've heard some enthusiastic words...but nothing came out."

In terms of climate change adaptation, none of the 46 regions assessed have made “good” progress in climate change adaptation. Only three have “good” plans and policies for the future.

These are mainly with the CCC's last report in 2023.

Health is one of the areas where you are underprepared.

The CCC notes that the number of deaths related to extreme heat increases and the hospital itself is vulnerable to hot weather.

Baroness Brown highlighted the case of Guy and St. Thomas, London’s largest hospital trust, whose data center failed to hit during the extreme heat of July 2022.

This means it cannot operate its appointment system when demand is strong and has to move to paper appointments.

“We lost thousands of critical appointments for critical testing,” she said.

"We are working to improve the NHS. We will go backward unless we consider that it has to be resistant to the climate."

Flooding is another challenging area. Since previous CCC reports, local resilience and coastal flooding have been found to be intensified in local resilience and coastal flooding.

The ancient city of Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire is a good example. In the past four years, it has recently been flooded in November 2024.

Polly Pearce describes how her charity store drowns.

"It's too fast... (like) a tsunami," she said.

“(The water) is as high as the paneling on the wall…We have all the Christmas stuff ready, but lost.”

There are free shops on the streets, and many people reportedly went bankrupt at the cost of repeated floods.

Store owners say insurance companies either won’t secure their property insurance or premiums are high now, with many store keepers saying they can’t afford it at all.

The Environment Agency said the town could not afford to pay £25 million to £30 million in flood protection costs.

The government said it is committed to helping residents and will start work to increase property flood resilience in the summer.

The CCC noted progress in several other areas of climate adaptation, such as planning to identify risks for businesses and financial institutions.

At the heart of these discussions is the cost issue.

But putting efforts to prepare for the UK for a changing climate to save cash is a “huge mistake” and could increase economic losses in the long run.

“We are very concerned about their spending review,” she added to the committee’s unusually strong guilty plea.

"This is not tomorrow's problem; it is today's problem. If we don't solve it today, it will be tomorrow's disaster."

The BBC filed a free information requirement found that at the Department of Environmental and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) (DEFRA), only 18 staff members worked in full.

This accounts for only 0.3% of Defra’s nearly 6,600 full-time core staff.

Some of these employees also work part-time in climate adaptation, which does not include figures working in other parts of the government, Devra said.

Other reports by Tanaka Miho