In a study delivered to Parliament on Wednesday, the UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) concluded that the nation is not ready for the upcoming effects of climate change.
“Very limited evidence of adaptation at the scale needed to fully prepare for climate risks facing the country across cities, communities, infrastructure, economy, and ecosystems,” the report, which is a component of the CCC’s annual assessment of England’s progress in adapting to climate change, found.
Extreme weather occurrences pose a serious threat to the infrastructure supporting power networks and the internet. Due to cable network damage from Hurricane Arwen in November 2021, one million British homes were left without electricity and internet access. Storms like this one and worse will occur more frequently as a result of climate change.
The country’s energy infrastructure’s production and transmission efficiency will probably suffer as a result of the high temperatures. The committee also foresees overheating-related faults and notable increases in the demand for energy for cooling during the hot summer months. Droughts may also have an impact on hydrogen creation and hydropower generation.
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As a consequence, infrastructure within the energy sector will require extensive adaptation to deal with the effects of climate change that are already in place and limit emissions to stop these effects from getting worse.
It demonstrates how little adaptation progress has been made under the first two National Adaptation Strategies (NAP1 and NAP2). According to the committee, NAP2 did not address all of the climate change risks outlined in the previous Climate Change Risk Assessment, which was partly to blame for the risks.
The committee assessed government plans across 13 sectors, finding that just five out of 45 policy areas had fully credible climate change plans and none were making tangible progress to improve climate resilience.
The report found that impacts from extreme weather over the past year, including storms and floods throughout this winter and the last and the record-breaking heatwaves of summer 2022, highlight the UK’s vulnerability to such events and the urgency of adapting to climate change. Particularly, it found that the heatwaves brought “unprecedented numbers of heat-related deaths” as well as wildfires and infrastructure disruption, principally because the UK was not sufficiently prepared for such temperatures.
The CCC found that currently, “there was no visible plan by the industry or government to manage long-term risk”.
Story adapted from Power Technology
