Government has launched its National Adaptation Programme for climate change in the UK. The plan is a legal commitment in the Climate Change Act (2008) that we and many others fought hard for. We did this because it was clear that our climate was changing and that even if we were successful in meeting our climate targets a considerable amount of change was still inevitable. Five years later and this rings even truer, with global emissions still increasing and the signs of our changing climate becoming ever clearer.
The adaptation programme was, therefore, an opportunity to ensure that the most vulnerable sectors of our economy are ‘climate ready’. It was also a chance to check whether this Government’s nature conservation strategy was fit for purpose given our rapidly changing climate.
Since the Act was passed, however, political understanding of and support for action on climate has declined, and as a result the ambition of the programme is considerably less than any of us anticipated.
The programme establishes some important principles. It recognises the ‘critical importance’ of biodiversity, landscapes, ecosystems to human wellbeing and economic prosperity. It recognises the important of adaptation planning for nature, and the key pillars this should be built on: building resilience by ensuring existing sites and species are in good condition; accommodating change, such as welcoming new species; encouraging widespread action in other sectors to benefit the natural environment, for example using ecosystem based adaptation in , restoring floodplains to reduce the risk of flooding in nearby towns; and improving the evidence base.
These warm words are not, however, backed up by any new action or new funding, or even any commitments to reviewing whether this might be needed. We believe that they must be, to give nature a home as climate change bites ever harder. As we know from last month’s ground-breaking report, The State of Nature, nature is already in trouble, with 60% of species in the UK declining. This means that resilience and the ability to adapt to climate change will be low, and climate change will act as another lead weight in the pockets of sinking populations, bringing them ever faster to the bottom.
The right words won’t stop that from happening; action will.