The report claims that record-breaking temperatures and the UK’s first 40°C day in summer 2022, accompanied by unprecedented heat-related deaths, wildfire incidents and significant infrastructure disruption, were the ‘clearest indication that climate change has arrived’ in the UK. The CCC report warns that the impacts of climate change ‘will intensify over coming decades, leaving the UK vulnerable without better resilience planning and preparation’.

Appraising the outcomes needed to build climate resilience across the UK economy – and the extent of policies and delivery to meet them – the report states that ‘there is a striking lack of climate preparation’ from government.

In 2022, the government’s own Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3) identified 61 separate risks and opportunities for the UK from the changing climate. These spanned the natural environment, infrastructure, the economy and society.

The reports states that the current National Adaptation Programme to tackle climate change ‘fails to match the scale of the challenge now facing the country’, it ‘lacks a clear vision’, it is ‘not underpinned by tangible outcomes or targets’ and it has ‘not driven policy and implementation across government’.

Furthermore, the CCC warns that: ‘Wider policy priorities, including net zero and nature recovery, will fail if adaptation to climate change is not incorporated from the start.’

The absence of robust monitoring and evaluation is also seen as a barrier. ‘Key datasets to evaluate resilience do not exist or have limitations that prevent effective tracking of climate resilience. A well-resourced climate change adaptation monitoring and evaluation programme is now an urgent priority’, states the report.

The government is due to publish its third National Adaptation Programme this summer. The CCC’s report makes several recommendations for that new programme. Noting that ‘this is a make-or-break moment to avoid a further five years of lacklustre planning and preparation for the changing climate by Defra’, the report states that ‘a strong programme is also a key element of the UK’s contribution to the global effort to tackle climate change and an essential part of the UK’s international leadership on climate change’.

The CCC concludes that: ‘The next National Adaptation Programme must make a step change…[it] must be much more ambitious than its predecessors and lead to a long overdue shift in focus towards the delivery of effective adaptation.’

Baroness Brown, Chair of the Adaptation Committee, adds: ‘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.’

Responding to the CCC’s recommendations, the UK government says it welcomes the report’s ‘healthy challenge to our progress to net zero by 2050’, noting it ‘correctly emphasises that the journey to net zero requires swift delivery, and that this is a decisive decade for tackling climate change which Global Britain must take a leading role in’.

It adds: ‘Policies supporting net zero should be made resilient to current and future climate change risks, to prevent locking in future vulnerabilities, unintended consequences and maladaptation. For example, we must consider the impact that climate change will have on the suitability of our land for different uses, and resilience to weather extremes must be built into the energy systems and infrastructure which will support net zero.’

It was hoped that the UK government’s latest net zero strategy update would address the CCC’s recommendations. However , many analysts and environmental lobbyists have expressed disappointment on the level of government investment being proposed, and failure to truly accelerate the green energy transition and the job creation potential in areas such as significantly incentivising energy efficiency to match the impact of the US Inflation Reduction Act and EU initiatives.