A new report from the Climate Change Committee has warned that the UK is not “appropriately prepared” for heatwaves, heavy rainfall and wildfires.
The CCC said there was “now unequivocal evidence that climate change is making extreme weather in the UK more likely and more extreme”. But the UK had seen “no change” in addressing this risk with the change in Government.
The immediate concerns of the CCC are:
- More than half of England’s “top quality” agricultural land is at risk of flooding today, with a further increase in total agriculture land at risk expected by 2050.
- 6.3 million properties are at risk of flooding, rising to 8 million by 2050.
- More than a third of railway and road kilometres are at flood and heat risk, rising to half by 2050.
- Heat-related deaths could exceed 10,000 in an average year by 2050.
- Unchecked climate change could impact UK economic output by up to 7% of GDP by 2050.
- The Adaptation Committee has not found evidence to score a single outcome as ‘good’.
Based on its concerns, the CCC has recommended four key areas of action, including improved objectives and targets with better co-ordination across government, as well as great co-ordination across activities, spending decisions and departments of government and resilience planning.
It also called for integrating adaptation into relevant policies, including the next Spending Review, which “needs to ensure that climate adaptation planning is supported with sufficient resources across government”, it said.
Public assets, and critical public services such as the NHS, need to be resilient to current and future weather so that they can operate effectively, and in the case of new infrastructure, without costly retrofitting, it said.
In addition, it called for the government to implement monitoring, evaluation and learning across all sectors. Adequate monitoring and evaluation, underpinned by regular data collection and reporting, is essential to track climate impacts and the effect of adaptation measures at a national level. It is also needed to ensure future planning learns from what is effective. It said “the long-standing gap of an effective monitoring and evaluation framework for adaptation must finally be closed”.
Baroness Brown, Chair of the Adaptation Committee, said:
We have seen in the last couple of years that the country is not prepared for the impacts of climate change. We know there is worse to come, and we are not ready – indeed in many areas we are not even planning to be ready.
“The threat is greatest for the most vulnerable: we do not have resilient hospitals, schools, or care homes. Public and private institutions alike are unprepared.
“We can see our country changing before our eyes. People are having to cope with more regular extreme weather impacts. People are experiencing increasing food prices. People are worried about vulnerable family members during heatwaves.
“Ineffective and outdated ways of working within Government are holding back the country’s ability to be future-fit. Is this Government going to face up to the reality of our situation? Failing to act will impact every family and every person in the country.
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