CCC publishes assessment on UK’s adaptation efforts

The government’s independent climate advisory body, the Climate Change Committee, has today published its new report, A Well-Adapted UK.

A stock-take on the UK’s progress on adapting to climate change, it highlights how our British way of life is “under threat” from the growing impacts of extreme weather, and outlines the solutions that should be prioritised to protect the country from climate breakdown.

Responding, Denis Fernando, rights and justice campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said:

“Every aspect of UK life is already being affected by worsening weather extremes – from British farmers struggling to grow food, to the nation’s roads, railways and homes being battered by increasingly severe and costly storms, floods, heat and drought.

“If the government doesn’t strengthen its plans for adapting to climate breakdown, then the most marginalised in our society will continue to pay the highest price – with older people, children and disabled people among those at greatest risk.

“Nature has an important role to play in protecting our communities, whether its increasing tree cover and the availability of green space to cool cities, or restoring peatlands and forests to reduce flooding. But there’s only so far that adaptation can go without greater action to reduce carbon emissions and help prevent the worst of climate breakdown. That’s why we need all countries, including the UK, to vastly ramp up their ambition in creating a fair, green, zero-carbon future.”

Last year, Friends of the Earth research found that there are nearly 10,000 care homes and over 1,000 hospitals in the areas most exposed to extreme heat. Separate analysis earlier this year also found that 2.4 million people live in neighbourhoods that are at high risk of flooding, with a further 1.8 million expected to move into this category over the coming decades.

ENDS