Preparing London for extreme weather

Agree with most of what you say but not the idea of passively waiting for 'free' money and for 'them' to put things right. Plenty of other parents, staff and governors and even ex pupils and local well wishers and possibly apprenticeship schemes and volunteers will be a resource for replanning and funding and labour for the playground. Boys (apparently) need a high fenced area to kick balls and fight, but that can be on a permeable surface. Maybe nowadays girls also need their own area for ball skills. The rest of the area can be permeable too but planted, with a shelter and also using hedging and edible plants and a wildlife- encouraging project. 

I agree about the depaving and incentives.  Good idea.  I think it needs to be easier to do this and to increase the amount of greenery in our streets, which means a turn-around in planning and council attitudes towards risk and the enviroment.  At the moment my neighbour can pave over their garden, buy a 4X4 petrol car (ie contribute to pollution and flooding) without my or council consent. They can also use weed-killers and get the council to remove 'weeds' and cut trees back (which they do).  Without my consent.  IE, to decrease and degrade biodiversity and biomass and increase pollution is easy.  But if I want to get a tree planted in my street or install a parklet, I have get my neighbours to agree.  I also have to design, fund and maintain it.  It's a complicated process and one which puts many people off.  'Greening up' should be the default while polluting needs to be harder.   Might need a lot of nature and climate change education as a lot of people still seem oblivious! 

Great idea - better yet, force landlords too. A huge proportion on London renters would love to have more eco homes. But we are stuck with landlords who have no incentives. Give them a reason to do the right thing :) 

Yes and no. Local authorities have no money so no grants, only loans, but loans can be secured against the deeds to the property, and paid back at a very modest rate if the person is impoverished. There is permeable paving, so local authorities and central government could investigate putting a high tax on any non permeable surgace, and setting an example themselves by not using it. They should ban plastic grass and simply order it to be removed.

Yes and no. Better to build in air cooling by design. Hot countries have done it since ancient times. (Live in caves and 'undercliffs',and in places use wind tower columns which let hot air rise, and catch every slightest air current from any direction, encouraging a through-draught)   Air conditioning a) costs the planet b) costs the bill payer and c) is going to crash when supply fails, as it will.

Heat pumps can actually work for cooling too - by circulating cold water through radiators instead of hot water. People should be made aware of this benefit - it might increase uptake. It needs a bit of thinking about during installation but is totally possible. Another benefit is that it wouldn’t dry out the air like air con does. 
Agree about passive design for hot climates - easy retrofits include awnings, exterior blinds and painting roofs white.

Fiona, with the greatest respect, take your blatant science denialism away and go read an actual scientific paper. Like this one, which finds 99% consensus in the peer-reviewed scientific literature on human-caused climate change: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966