From the moment Andy Burnham swaggered into Number 10, climate scientists, campaigners, and the general populace sweating through a summer of extreme heat have been waiting for him to acknowledge the elephant - or rather, the melting ice cap - in the room. For a few weeks, critics held their fire. He'd only just unpacked his boxes, after all. But now, as we watch terrified horses gallop over cindering heathland in the New Forest while yet another wildfire rages, patience has worn thin.

Emma Howard Boyd, former head of the Environment Agency and now a professor at the Grantham Research Institute, put it with admirable restraint: 'As the prime minister tours every region of the UK, it will be hard to miss the impacts of this extraordinary summer: wildfires, drought, parched farmland and people struggling to work in extreme heat.' She called for 'urgency' - cut emissions, invest in resilience, do something, anything.

Mike Childs of Friends of the Earth was less diplomatic, demanding Burnham 'end his silence on the climate emergency.' But Burnham, the man who as Mayor of Greater Manchester championed carbon neutrality by 2038, now seems to have developed a sudden allergy to the words 'climate' and 'emergency' in the same sentence. Five heatwaves this summer, a Cobra meeting that produced a 'possible' ban on disposable barbecues - and not a peep about the underlying crisis.

He's enjoying a popularity bounce, with Labour ahead of Reform UK for the first time in over a year. What better moment, we ask, to ignore the naysayers who claim climate talk is a culture war? What better time to address the impacts of human-induced climate change on ordinary people's livelihoods, the environment, and the cost of living?

Instead, in his first 25 days, Burnham found time to blame his generation for the social care crisis, but has avoided mentioning the equal dereliction of duty in failing to adapt our hospitals, schools, and homes for the heat. The results: a government department with just 20 staff on climate adaptation, nurses fainting in A&E, teachers sweltering in 40C (104F) classrooms, and farmers warning of low yields and food price hikes. All of this is happening to the ordinary people Burnham claims to champion. Perhaps he's waiting for a more convenient apocalypse.