This item was published during the term of a previous administration that ended in April 2007
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New climate change report
20/05/2003
A new report on climate change is published today -
Climate adaptation: risk, uncertainty and
decision-making.
It provides a step-by-step decision-making framework to
help planners, businesses and government assess the risk
posed by climate change, and work out how best to
respond.
The report, which has drawn upon a wide range of UK
expertise, has been written by experts from the Environment
Agency's Centre for Risk and Forecasting and the UK Climate
Impacts Programme (UKCIP), with funding from Department for
Environment Food and Rural Affairs.
The reports says that climate change will affect many
aspects of people's lives. While uncertainties remain on
the impacts on society, the environment, business and the
wider economy, advances in the understanding of the climate
mean they are better placed to provide increasingly
detailed climate change scenarios for the UK as a sound
basis for assessing some aspects of climate risk.
While some decisions are directly driven by the need to
manage climate risk - such as improvements to flood
defences - there are many other decisions for which the
importance of climate change is less obvious or
clear-cut.
The report will help decision makers answer:
- What climate change risks could affect my
decision?
- What adaptation measures are required, and when
should they be implemented?
- Adapting to climate charge
One adaptation measure recommended by the report is to
improve understanding of the effects of today's weather.
For instance, knowing how and when road and railway systems
fail in heat waves, or water supply systems fail in
droughts, will help infrastructure managers assess the
risks from climate change.
The report recommends that whatever strategy is chosen
decision-makers should:
- aim to keep options open and flexible, so that
other strategies can be put in place for the
future
- avoid making decisions that will make is more
difficult to cope with future climate change - such as
inappropriate development in flood risk areas
- look for 'no regret' options, that will deliver
benefits whatever the extent of climate change
Chris West, UKCIP Director, said:
"This report will help businesses decide whether climate
change should influence their decisions. It will be
particularly useful to people who are responsible for land
and property, which might be affected by, for instance,
overheating, flooding and subsidence over the coming
decades. It should also help identify business
opportunities arising from climate change, such as growing
markets and products designed to cope with the future
climate."
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency's (SEPA)
Professor James Curran, Head of Environmental Futures,
said:
"Climate change is with us now in Scotland and it's only
going to get worse. We must take account of its effects in
everything we manufacture, design and build and in the
policies and plans we make for the future. This report
hammers home that message and enables organisations
including SEPA to judge the risks and make the best
decisions.
"Whether it's avoiding severe flooding in years to come,
working out how much water there will be for public
supplies or hydro-electric generation, deciding how best to
look after threatened wildlife, or designing ventilation in
new buildings - all must take account of climate
change."
Jake Hacker, senior scientist from the engineering
consultants Arup, said:
"At Arup we have been using the UKCIP framework to look
at the climate change risks for the internal environment of
buildings. This is helping us to work out what types of
cooling systems will be needed in the future and which will
work best.
"The framework has proved invaluable in bringing to our
attention many important points and has been
straightforward to apply. I'm sure it will be of great help
to other building professionals to factor in climate change
in their projects."