UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017

Yesterday the Committee on Climate Change published a 2000 page report setting out the threats faced by the UK from Climate Change. The report consists of a ‘Synthesis’ summary document along with 8 technical chapters. You can download the summary report here and the technical chapters can be accessed from here.

The report highlights six area of threat and these are summarised in the table below.

Lord Krebs who chairs the Adaptation sub-committee summarises the report in this video

There is a great deal in these reports and I can’t claim to have done more than skim the surface but it is clear that we face huge threats from flooding, we are not properly prepared for the rising temperatures and much of our agriculture is entirely unsustainable as it is degrading the soil that it depends upon.

Whilst the publication of this important report passed under the radar for most yesterday due to the shenanigans of the two main political parties it is important to see what our new Prime Minister had to say in 2008 about climate change.

“I am thrilled to see that after years of Conservative pressure, we have finally passed a necessary and ambitious piece of legislation on Climate Change. Britain is the first country in the world to formally bind itself to cut greenhouse emissions and I strongly believe this will improve our national and economic security. To stay reliant on fossil fuels would mean tying ourselves to increasingly unstable supplies which could endanger our energy security and the Climate Change and Energy Bills mark an important step for both the health of our economy and the health of our nation. It is now vital that we stick to these targets. I will continue to put pressure on the Government over the third runway at Heathrow as an extra 222,000 flights a year would undermine our national targets and seriously damage the health of the local community.”

The worry of course now is that with everything else that is going on this essential work won’t receive the time and attention that it needs.