The UK is set to be amongst the best prepared nations for the implications of climate change following publication of a groundbreaking study into the threats the country faces.

The Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) highlights the top 100 challenges to the UK and our economy of a changing climate and provides the most compelling evidence yet of the need to increase our resilience. The research confirms the UK as a world-leader in understanding climate risk to ensure we can make robust plans to deal with these threats.

In order to provide a reliable baseline for decisions by Government, local authorities and businesses the research does not take into account any future policies or plans. However, a Government report published alongside the CCRA does highlight the many current and future policies already in place and gives details of plans which will address some of the risks identified.

The Government has also announced a National Adaptation Programme that will prepare the UK for the effects of climate change, including the risks set out in the CCRA. People are encouraged to give their views through a new website on the action needed to tackle the implications of climate change where they live and work. (more…)

LLANDUDNO is at ‘high risk’ of flooding in the next 50 years unless work is taken to strengthen sea defences, new research shows.

It is believed that sea level rises could hit parts of the town in the future unless flood defence works are implemented.

Last week, residents in Llandudno met to discuss plans as part of the Shoreline Management Plan (SMP). The multi agency backed scheme outlines measures to tackle the threat of sea level rise and assess the risks of sea erosion to the coastline.

Dyfed Rowlands, Conwy County Council’s environment manager said: “The flood risk doesn’t look too bad at the moment but in the future, certainly with the impact of climate change and sea levels rising we should be thinking what should be done for the future,” he said. (more…)

It’s time to wade back into the troubled waters of flood and coastal defence funding in England, because the government unveiled a new plan on Monday. Here’s the headline from the Defra press release:

More flood and coastal defence schemes to go ahead under new funding system

Sounds good right? As regular visitors will know, I have been angered by the glaring contradiction between ministers saying that the risk of flooding is rising due to climate change, and then cutting year-on-year funding by over 25%. Over 1000 schemes that were in line for funding no longer have it.

Of the new arrangement, environment minister Richard Benyon said: “This new funding system means more flood defence schemes will benefit from government money so we can protect more people and properties.” So the new funding system means more government money, you’re thinking. You’re wrong. There is no new money to alleviate the risks of floods devastating people’s homes and businesses. (more…)

Thousands of holidaymakers heading to British beaches this summer will be cheered by a major government report into the state of the UK’s seas. Coastal waters are getting cleaner, fish stocks are improving and species diversity in estuaries is increasing, according to the most authoritative examination ever carried out of UK seas.

But while the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs study boasts of “significant improvements” since the last such report in 2005, it also paints a picture of an environment being rapidly affected by a warming world. Seas around the British Isles are higher, warmer and more acid, it says, and coastal litter levels are at a record high. (more…)

Adapting to climate change needs to become as much of a priority as cutting emissions, MPs on the Environmental Audit Committee argue in a report out today.  Climate projections show that Britain can expect wetter winters, drier summers and a higher likelihood of flash-floods, heat waves and droughts.  The report concludes that Government must do more to raise awareness of the need to prepare for a changing climate.

Tim Yeo, Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee said:

“For a long time the climate change debate has focused on reducing carbon emissions, but adapting to the inevitable impacts of rising global temperatures is equally critical.

“Even if all the world’s power stations were switched off tomorrow past emissions mean that some climate change will still take place and we will face more floods, droughts and heat waves.

“We must act now to protect people, property and prosperity and safeguard the natural environment. Delay will only impose greater costs on future generations.

“The Government must be imaginative and establish new and sustainable sources of funding and support for adaptation.” (more…)

En Grande-Bretagne, le réchauffement climatique se fait déjà sentir, notamment dans le Norfolk, région la plus exposée face à la mer, dans le nord-est de l’Angleterre.

Watch the video on TF1

For Malcolm Kerby climate change is no distant threat to the Third World. He lives where it is already ruining lives… in Britain.

His home is in the small village of Happisburgh on the North Norfolk coast where the shore is retreating, battered by increasingly ferocious rising seas.

“This is the front line of climate change in Britain,” he says. “We can’t deny it. It’s happening. We see it with our own eyes.” (more…)

Will the Kent coast always look like it does now? Unlikely. By 2100 is estimated that sea level changes wrought by climate change will have altered the map and we could find ourselves with a county that looks very different to the one we know and love today

Whether an act of humility or egotistical mania, King Canute’s tidal antics in the 11th century confirmed that the sea does what it wants. We’ve come a long way since, developing more sophisticated ways of thwarting the sea other than a pair of kingly ankles.

Around the county, coastal communities enjoy protection via a network of flood defences. They ensure that, even when the sea is at its bolshiest, those at risk from flooding (10 per cent of Kent’s population), can sleep safe in the knowledge that they won’t end up sharing more in common with Atlantis than Ashford. (more…)

More than 20,000 homes in North Somerset are at significant risk of flooding, according to a new report by the Environment Agency.

The report reveals that North Somerset is the second place at most risk of flooding in the whole of the South West with 20, 415 properties at risk.

The figures reveal one in three properties in the area could go under water as climate change increases coastal erosion and a rise in river levels.

A map published by the agency highlights areas such as Weston Bay, Uphill, Sand Bay, Brean Down and Kewstoke at risk of flooding from rivers or the sea without defences. (more…)

I have an idea how the Government could start on the huge spending cuts that will be required after the next election: replace the environment department with a man carrying a sandwich board bearing the message “Prepare to meet thy doom”. He would do much the same job as Hilary Benn but at a fraction of the cost. Yesterday the UK Climate Impact Programme, a quango set up by his own department, published a report predicting the effects of global warming over the next century.

It warned, among other things, of increasing tempest and flood, speeding up coastal erosion. Mr Benn’s response? We’ll have to redouble our efforts to cut carbon emissions – but there won’t be a penny of extra cash for flood and sea defence. Moreover, there was not a hint of any change of policy over constructing thousands of new homes most at risk of river and coastal flooding, in places such as the Thames Gateway. (more…)