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Love them or hate them, the royals might need to find themselves a new home soon. That’s because Buckingham Palace could be completely submerged in water within a decade, unless world leaders actually get their shit together with all of this climate crisis stuff.
An environmental campaign group called Climate Central have drawn up model images showing how sea levels could rise above cities around the world if we don’t sort out our carbon emissions now – and the results aren’t pretty. Buckingham Palace is just one of the landmarks shown to be completely surrounded in water, resembling some sort of dystopian mermaid’s castle (another reason why London could be replaced with some other city as the UK capital).
Move the toggle below to show how the land around Buckingham Palace will change depending on our carbon path:
Buckingham Palace is joined by a bunch of other tourist attractions around the world which face rising tide lines – including the Tower of London, Burj Khalifa, and the Lincoln Memorial. In fact, Climate Central’s peer-reviewed study shows that the current global warming trajectory of 3C would affect 10 percent of the world's population by 2030 – that’s more than 800 million people. Eek.
If we get going and cut carbon emissions – urgently – this could be reduced to a rise of 1.5C, meaning we won't all be flooded *quite* so bad, so soon. And with COP26 launching at the end of the month, maybe the science-driven scaremongering could actually drive some positive change. Here's hoping.
Check out the other projected effects of climate change around the world on the Picturing Our Future website.
Climate change will put these areas of London underwater within a decade.
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