The Chair of the Environment Agency is calling for business and communities to start planning now for climate change.

Writing in the Environment Agency’s newly released Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation report, Emma Howard Boyd says that “worryingly few FTSE boards” are disclosing the strategic risks to their shareholders brought by the physical impacts of climate change.

The Environment Agency Chair is warning that boards cannot continue to see extreme weather events, like floods and heatwaves, as purely operational and need to put aside capital expenditure for resilience measures to ensure business continuity.

She is also calling on insurers to rise to the challenge by rewarding individuals who put in place property level flood protection when calculating insurance premiums.

The UK Climate Projections 18 (UKCP18), published yesterday and developed in partnership with the Environment Agency, show summer temperatures could be up to 5.4C hotter by 2070 depending on global emissions of greenhouse gases over the coming decades. Sea levels in London could rise by up to 1.15 metres by 2100.

As well as higher air temperatures, people will experience climate change through its effects on water, increasingly through floods and droughts.

The Environment Agency’s Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation report highlights:

• Severe heatwaves becoming a regular event in the future. At the end of the century, over half of the UK may experience heatwave conditions every year
• As demand for water increases with the rising temperature, action will be needed to reduce water abstraction, leakage, and increase preparedness for drought. Climate change will reduce river flows, threatening aquatic ecosystems with a reduction in fish species
• Buildings and infrastructure will need to be more resilient to flooding. Some coastal communities are likely to be unviable
• More protected conservation areas will be needed to assist wildlife in migrating north as the climate changes. Action may be needed to relocate climate-sensitive species and control non-native species.

More investment need to maintain flood defences

The report is also warning that more investment will be needed to maintain flood defences that will be subject to wear from increases in peak river flows and rising sea level expected due to climate change. This will lead to increased maintenance and repair costs of approximately 20 to 50%.

The report is recommending that traditional hard defences such as flood walls, sea defences and embankments should continue to be combined with natural flood management, including temporary on-farmland flood water storage to better manage risks in future and sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) which help reduce downstream flooding, should be incorporated into all new developments.

However, the report is clear in acknowledging that continuing to maintain all the current coastal flood defences over the next 100 years is unsustainable, as the numbers of defences highly vulnerable to failure will increase by around 20% under 0.5 metres local sea level rise.

New Thames Barrier to protect London needed by 2070

And while the Agency expects the Thames Barrier to continue to protect homes and businesses in London to its current standard up until 2070, at that point “it is likely to become more cost effective to build a new barrier.” However, it warns that continuing to use the barrier to manage flood risk from non-tidal rivers in west London could mean the number of closures becomes unsustainable before 2070.

Work is already underway, with communities and partners, to consider alternative options to using the barrier to manage this flood risk from 2035.

Water resources at risk

Projections for future water availability suggest that the country will experience significant water shortages by the 2050s unless appropriate action is taken to reduce demand and increase supply, the report warns.

In addition, increased and heavier rainfall will increase the runoff of pollutants and nutrients from land to water, and increase the discharge of sewage effluent from sewage outfalls.

"Climate change impacts are already being felt with the record books being re-written.”

Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency said:

“The UK18 projections are further evidence that we will see more extreme weather in the future – we need to prepare and adapt now, climate change impacts are already being felt with the record books being re-written.”

“It is not too late to act. Working together – governments, business, and communities - we can mitigate the impacts of climate change and successfully adapt to a different future.”

“The Environment Agency cannot wall up the country, but we will be at the forefront - protecting communities, building resilience, and responding to incidents.”

“We increasingly need to look at “green” infrastructure, like natural flood management and soil improvement, to support traditional flood schemes.”

The UK Climate Projections 2018 illustrate a range of future climate scenarios until 2100 – showing increasing summer temperatures, more extreme weather and rising sea levels are all on the horizon.

The Environment Agency is already taking action to manage the effects of the changing climate, including:

• operations teams successfully responded to a 330% increase in environmental incidents during the hot, dry summer;
• A six year flood investment programme is progressing to better protect 300,000 homes from flooding;
• the Agency’s flood forecasting and warning capability is world-leading

The UK’s Climate Projections 2018 will help the Environment Agency prepare for the future. Via the Thames Estuary 2100 Plan, the Agency is mitigating the increasing risk of tidal flooding in London and working with partners to look at alternative options for the future.

The launch of the UK Climate Change projections and publication of the Climate Change Impacts Report comes just days before the launch of the Environment Agency’s annual Flood Action campaign, urging the public to check their flood risk and plan the right action to take in order to protect themselves in a flood.

Click here to download the Climate Change Impacts Report