What next for climate adaptation in Yorkshire & Humber?

Muriel Bonjean Stanton, Engagement and Impact Officer, explains how the Commission is developing its work on climate adaptation and resilience. 

We are already living with the widespread consequences of the climate crisis. As we experience stronger, more unpredictable and more frequent extreme weather events, our health, our built and natural environments, and our vital resources are at risk.

Yet regionally (as well as nationally), we are not doing enough to prepare for extreme weather, so we’re falling behind in our ability to respond and recover.

Yes, we still need to cut carbon emissions to avoid the worst of the climate crisis – but with international climate cooperation slowing down, the the need to adapt to higher levels of warming is mounting.

What has the Commission learned so far?

We wanted to understand what climate adaptation looks like within the region and what the potential barriers are. Through our Climate Adaptation Programme for Local Authorities (CAPLA), we have created safe spaces for stakeholders to talk about climate adaptation and built capacity within organisations to develop strategies and plans to mainstream climate adaptation into their decision-making processes.

Despite climate adaptation becoming a more prominent issue for organisations, there are many barriers to action, not least the lack of access to finance. We’ve learnt that it can be hard to understand the climate-imposed risks to the organisation, or on the services or products it provides. We’ve learnt that there’s a need for better coordination, particularly between climate policies and planning processes across levels of government. And we’ve learnt that there is a need to consider climate risks in the maintenance and upgrading of existing infrastructure, not just new developments.

We also wrote two papers – one on Emergency Response and Preparedness and the other on Climate Adaptation in Infrastructure – and asked the public for their thoughts. We heard about the need for greater leadership, for more community engagement and education, and for local plans led by people who understand local issues. People also wrote about the need for more co-ordinated action at a national level and a more strategic, climate-focused approach to planning.

Taking it forward – our work on adaptation

Our Accelerating Adaptation Action Programme (AAAP) is dedicated to climate adaptation planning and implementation in Yorkshire and the Humber. It has five workstreams, which build on the 2024 Yorkshire & Humber Climate Action Plan and incorporates feedback gathered from the public and other stakeholders:

Workstream 1: Capacity building and joined-up working in organisations and communities across the region.

Workstream 2: Regional climate risks and evidence making the most up-to-date information available to stakeholders.

Workstream 3: Adaptive societies* that have enough capacity to embrace uncertainty and proactively adjust to the impacts of climate change.

Workstream 4: Regional roles and responsibilities for climate adaptation both in terms of climate emergency response and longer-term climate adaptation planning.

Workstream 5: Investments in regional climate adaptation will be crucial to unlock progress.

Three objectives cut across the five workstreams. The first aims to build a regional baseline to identify what is already going well and where more work is needed. The second is to prioritise and act now, identifying the quick wins we can implement given the resources and capacities available, creating a momentum for action. The third is to unlock further climate adaptation actions, through building on new research and identifying new resources for action.

A comprehensive approach – our other work on adaptation

As a Commission we are determined to increase the profile of climate adaptation and accelerate actions across Yorkshire and the Humber. Adaptation already cuts across much of the work that we do.

Our Regional Policy Forum developed a set of regional planning principles, which were endorsed by the Yorkshire Leaders Board in 2023. The “adapting to 2 degrees of warming, but preparing for 4 degrees” principle would require new developments to prioritise adaptation measures for 2°C straight away, whilst considering plans and options to withstand more severe impacts in the longer term. This principle was accepted by the Board with the caveat that it needs better evidence or national policy change to put into practice.

Our Public Affairs Group has identified several areas where national government action is crucial to support our regional efforts. Harmonising infrastructure standards would enable the design and implementation of more efficient and effective adaptation measures; supporting statutory climate risk reporting and disclosure across public and private organisations would build a picture of climate hotspots, local climate risks and potential solutions; and including adaptation into the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill would bring clarity to the expectations, roles and responsibilities for climate adaptation across the different levels of government.

* ‘Well-adapted’, ‘climate-ready’ or ‘climate-resilient’ are terms often used interchangeably to refer to the end goal of adaptation. Yet, climate adaptation is rarely finite due to the increasing intensity and unpredictability of extreme weather events. Instead, climate adaptation should be thought about as a dynamic and agile process, one that continuously adjusts to the unpredictable effects of climate change. Community engagement will be key to understand the enabling conditions that guide societies to be more adaptive. Adaptive societies also require a robust climate adaptation policy framework to build resilience to climate impacts – both vertically, by improving the coordination of local, regional to national effort, and horizontally, across sectors and stakeholders in the region.