The UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) says that far more needs to be done by the government to ensure the UK can deal with the rising threat of climate change risks, including flooding, heatwaves and drought.
February 2024 was the warmest February on record globally. In the UK, it was the fourth wettest February ever recorded. Flooding wreaked havoc in many areas across the country, making roads impassable and affecting journey times.
The cause is climate change, and it will only get worse if we continue as we are. The European Environment Agency (EEA) announced this week that Europe is not prepared for a barrage of climate change risks.
These include the threat of flooding, heatwaves and drought, all of which the UK has experienced in recent years. In summer 2022, the UK’s extreme heatwave saw temperatures soar above 40°C for the first time.
The CCC has also come out and announced that UK efforts to adapt to climate risks have fallen short once again. An independent body that advises parliament on climate change, it has set out its response to the Third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3), the government’s programme to ensure the country is resilient to the impacts of climate change, which was published in July 2023.
Under the Climate Change Act 2008, the government has to produce a national adaptation plan every five years, with the recent NAP3 covering the years 2023 to 2028.
In its assessment of NAP3, the CCC has reported that, while it improves upon previous programmes, it still falls far short of what is required – the key failure being the lack of a credible vision for a well-adapted UK that is resilient to climate risks.
According to the CCC, the NAP3 programme is based largely on existing policy or mechanisms, which means that less than half of the short-term actions to address urgent risks identified in the last Climate Change Risk Assessment are being progressed.
The CCC stresses that the NAP’s status across government must be strengthened to make it fit for the gravity of known climate risks in the UK.
One of the most critical issues in NAP3, according to the committee, is governance. It points to Defra having failed to make adaptation a top priority, despite the growing evidence of climate impacts. It says effective cross-government collaboration is needed to ensure all departments are engaged with adaptation.
More also needs to be done in terms of investment. The CCC found that measures to adapt to climate change are insufficiently funded. NAP3 also does not tackle barriers to investment, such as low perceived urgency of the issue and lack of clear targets.
Better monitoring and evaluation is also vital to improve the UK’s response to climate impacts.
“The evidence of the damage from climate change has never been clearer, but the UK’s current approach to adaptation is not working,” said Baroness Brown, chair of the Adaptation Committee.
“Defra needs to deliver an immediate strengthening of the government’s programme, with an overhaul of its integration with other government priorities such as net zero and nature restoration. We cannot wait another five years for only incremental improvement.”
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