Climate change

How climate change will affect South Tyneside

Climate change will affect South Tyneside due to:

Local weather changes

Local weather will keep changing, meaning the Borough will be likely to see:

  • more severe and frequent flooding
  • summer droughts and heatwaves
  • more intense and frequent storms, especially in the winter

This will effect our:

  • transport, with increasing road and rail disruption
  • buildings, including schools, hospitals and businesses
  • health and wellbeing
  • animals and plants
  • food quality and availability 

For more information, see .

Global changes

Global changes will have a local impact.

It is likely that South Tyneside will be affected by:

  • Food shortages
    As a changing climate and overexploited land affect global food production, South Tyneside may see more empty supermarket shelves and fresh produce is likely to decrease in quality and nutritional value.
  • Mass immigration
    An estimated 1 billion climate refugees will be forced northwards by 2050.
  • Further pandemics
    Degraded natural environments increase the likelihood of new virus outbreaks around the world.  
  • Financial problems and unemployment
    The cost of inaction is greater than the cost of action, with poorer regions being the worst hit.
  • Loss of land to sea-level rise
    See 

The impact on South Tyneside will depend on how quickly and effectively we act.