In partnership with the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment (SSEE), the ZERO Institute is delighted to be hosting the Oxford launch of the Climate Change Committee’s Well Adapted UK report.
Join us at 4pm on 1st June at Saïd Business School to discuss this landmark report with Dr Richard Millar, Head of Adaptation at the Climate Change Committee (CCC), in conversation with Profs. Sam Fankhauser and Radhika Khosla.
The impacts of climate change are seriously undermining the UK’s prosperity and security. Not only are these being felt right now, but it has become inevitable that more extreme impacts will be felt in the very near future.
The UK was not designed for the current, let alone future, climate. By 2050, summers in this country could feel like those of North Africa, with extreme dryness and heat causing ever increasing water shortages and drought. Massively swollen river flows will make dangerous – often fatal – flash flooding a regularity. More frequent and violent storms will degrade our coastlines and threaten coastal communities. The cumulative effect of these outcomes will likely severely undermine the UK’s zero-carbon energy aspirations, unless adaptation and mitigation are more closely linked.
The UK government has a legal obligation to assess climate risks every five years, and the CCC has a statutory requirement to give independent advice to government on those risks. For the first time, the Committee is now providing potential solutions to address them, setting out the climate risks, actions and enablers across 14 key and often overlapping systems in our society, including health, land, energy, and the economy. This landmark report will be published on 20 May and will set out the recommendations for immediate action.
