Wales... the climate change challenge in difficult times

Natalie ReesSenior Project Officer

Climate Change Commission for Wales

Climate Change will…

Change our natural environment and our built heritage

Alter the environment in which our economy operates

Increase the importance of water management to reduce flooding

and ensure supply

Institute of Environmental Sciences, Bangor University

IPCC 5th Assessment 2013

Identified that: • Each of the last three decades has been

successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850.

• In the Northern Hemisphere, 1983–2012 was likely the warmest 30-year period of the last 1400 years.

• It is extremely likely (94% certainty) that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.

This graph shows how temperatures have risen and fallen since 1940 - in the red is warming in the blue is cooling. Credit: ITV News

UKCP09 impacts for Wales

• hotter, drier summers• Increase in extremely warm days• Milder wetter winters• Reduction in snowfall and frost• Increased frequency of intense rainfall events• Decrease groundwater levels• Increased flooding of low-lying coastal areas

FloodingWest Wales 2012

Damage to Property West Wales 2012

West Wales flooding: 8-9 June 2012

Met Office, 2013

As the countryside comes under more pressure from developers, we meet the victims of a failed flood system in Ruthin, North Wales

The flooded streets of St Asaph, near Ruthin, North Wales. 'Everyone blames everyone else, and it’s the ordinary people in the middle who suffer 'http://vimeo.com/73707934

Keith Jones, director of the Welsh Institution of Civil Engineers, called for the whole question of building on flood plains to be re-examined.

“There are two worrying effects,” he said. “First, the development itself might flood, but also that the development takes up room where the water would naturally go, and that causes problems elsewhere.”

He suggested that “expert advice from civil engineers is being ignored by planning authorities, who were under pressure to release land for building”.

One in five or 600,000 people live in flood risk areas in Wales.

But Week In Week Out discovered the percentage of schemes being passed now is the same as before the legislation - 745 schemes have been given the go-ahead in flood risk areas since 2004.

New flooding insurance deal 'needs to include new-build homes and small businesses' The UK Government and insurers' deal has come in for heavy criticism after it was billed as protecting all – only for it to emerge that homes built after 2009 and small firms have not been included.

Climate Change will hit those already in poverty first

• Increasing food prices• Increasing energy and water prices and

insecurity of supply• Increasing fuel prices and shortages of staple

foods• Increase in illness and accidents• Travel disruption so difficulty in getting to

work• School disruption that can affect work

To ensure that Wales prepares successfully for climate change, we need organisations and communities to be aware of the impacts of climate change, and able and willing to do something about it.

We need to be prepared for climate change

WG Sectoral Adaptation Plans• Natural Environment• Business and Tourism• Health• Communities• InfrastructurePublic Sector Guidance “Preparing Wales for a Changing Climate” • 5 Part Guidance on how to prepare for climate change

Be prepared….

Don’t let climate change leave you stranded!

Tackling the reality of climate change in hard economic times is not going to be easy. But we should explicitly recognise that failing to do so would be like aeroplane pilots ignoring the warning lights that are flashing on one engine because they are too busy trying to restart the other.

Chiemi Hayashi, Head of Research at the World Economic Forum's Risk Response Network