The Climate Change Committee’s latest annual assessment of England’s progress in adapting to climate change says that the government must do more to put the threat of climate change at the centre of policy making, from energy and agriculture to telecoms and health.
Baroness Brown (formerly known as Julia King), who is chair of the adaptation committee, said: “This has been a lost decade in preparing for and adapting to the known risks that we face from climate change. Each month that passes without action locks in more damaging impacts and threatens the delivery of other key government objectives, including net zero. We have laid out a clear path for government to improve the country’s climate resilience. They must step up.”
The report, Progress in adapting to climate change – 2023, makes 94 recommendations.
These include the recommendation that planning policy should be reformed to ensure that climate resilience is a priority, with mandatory adaptation interventions on all built-environment project applications.
It says that planning policy should ensure that assessments for all type and size of built development include, at a minimum, an assessment of current and future flood, erosion, and heat risk under future climate scenarios.
Other recommendations include expanding the Part O building regulation requirement – which covers the overheating mitigation requirements of the building regulations – to cover refurbishments of existing buildings, conversions of non-domestic buildings to residential, and prisons.
New-build homes should be put through post occupancy evaluations to monitor summer temperatures to ensure homes meet Part O when built.
The government is expected to publish its third five-yearly National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) this summer. The Climate Change Committee says that this needs to be much more ambitions than NAP2 (2018-23).
“The current National Adaptation Programme fails to match the scale of the challenge now facing the country,” today’s report says. “It lacks a clear vision. It is not underpinned by tangible outcomes or targets. It has not driven policy and implementation across government. Wider policy priorities, including Net Zero and nature recovery, will fail if adaptation to climate change is not incorporated from the start.”
Institution of Civil Engineers director of policy Chris Richards said: “Today’s Climate Change Committee report is a stark warning to the UK government that it needs to make climate adaptation and resilience a policy priority now, before any more time is wasted.
“The current approach is not working – there are significant data gaps and few fully credible plans across many systems.
“As the UK continues the transition to net zero, more and more of the country’s infrastructure systems will rely on electricity. Without understanding how these systems depend on one another, we risk a single point of failure that would impact communication, transport, and vital services like being able to heat homes, schools, and hospitals.
“To effectively plan, data gaps need to be closed so that action on the most vulnerable elements of the UK's infrastructure is prioritised. That’s why the ICE has recommended making adaptation reporting for all infrastructure owners and operators mandatory under the Climate Change Act. Only with a complete picture of how the UK’s systems are linked can the government effectively plan for the climate changes that are coming.”
Hannah Giddings, senior advisor for resilience at UK Green Building Council, said: “This report shines a light on the sheer scale of action needed to prepare the UK’s built environment to the full range of threats of our rapidly changing climate.
“While we have welcomed improvements in flooding policies and tackling overheating in building regulations for new residential properties, this report rightly asserts that the government needs to act much more decisively and comprehensively to improve the UK’s resilience to climate change.
“Our members across the built environment are working hard to design and deliver a built environment fit for the future. But with investment in climate resilience falling short by an estimated £10bn every year, the government must support our efforts with ambitious policies and standards, accurate data and measurement regimes, and crucial reforms to the planning system. Our built environment – and the people living in it – cannot afford any more delay.”
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