CCC says government is falling short on adapting for climate change

The UK’s plans for adapting to the effects of climate change “fall far short of what is needed”, the government’s statutory adviser has said.

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) has published its report on the third National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) published by ministers last July, intended to set out how people, buildings and vital national infrastructure including transport, water, energy and telecommunications networks could be protected from the increasing effects of extreme weather.

Baroness Brown, chair of the adaptation subcommittee of the CCC, said, “The evidence of the damage from climate change has never been clearer, but the UK’s current approach to adaptation is not working.”

NAP3 is the third in a series of five-yearly updates in response to an assessment of climate risks, required under the 2008 Climate Change Act, from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

But the CCC found that although it is an improvement on previous efforts, the new plan is still inadequate and requires improvement before the next scheduled update in 2028.

NAP3 lacks pace and vision, it says, and is based on existing policy or mechanisms which are inadequate and ignore more than half of the short-term actions to address urgent risks from extreme weather identified in the latest risk assessment.

CCC says there is currently a window to build more effective climate resilience in the UK. For instance long-term decisions are being taken with new price control periods for energy, water and rail, which could accommodate effective resilience standards to manage future climate risks. These opportunities must be grabbed, urges the committee, before another window for meaningful change closes.

Baroness Brown said “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.”

The report criticises Defra for failing to make adaptation a priority and failing to work closely with other government departments and local authorities. Ministers, said CCC, are also failing to fund adaptation efforts sufficiently, or provide the incentives for private sector investment and there is too little monitoring and evaluation.