Understanding the challenge and rising to it
Understanding the challenge and rising to it
Climate Adaptation and Resilience is a key pathway in the city’s Climate Change Strategy. Coventry’s independent Climate Change Board has established an up an ‘Adaptation and Resilience Pathway Group’ to develop an Adaptation and Resilience Plan for the city.
The Group includes representatives from the Environment Agency, Severn Trent, University of Warwick, Coventry Solihull Warwickshire Resilience team. The Council appointed CAG consultants to lead on development of the city’s Adaptation and Resilience Plan, working with the pathway group and other key stakeholders across the city. The plan identifies risks under different climate scenarios, which have been assessed and plans developed to try and address them.
Methodology for assessing the risks to Coventry
The development of the Adaptation and Resilience Plan is based on the UK’s 3rd Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3) approach, where 61 specific climate risks and opportunities were identified as applying to the UK and seeing, of those, which are of the most importance to address for Coventry. Of those risks the Pathway Group looked at the 34 categories of risk that related to Coventry, and of these assessed which posed a high or medium risk.
In order to assess our vulnerability to these risks we had to identify the nature of the hazard and where, and factors such as whether people living in some locations more vulnerable than others as a result of extreme weather scenarios. This included heavy rainfall leading to flooding, heatwaves causing excessive indoor air temperatures or adversely affecting outdoor air quality and risk of fires, damage from high winds, effects of severe cold weather and its effects upon the elderly and those in fuel poverty etc.
Using data and projections from the Environment Agency, Met Office and our own teams of specialists we identified our exposure to the risk e.g. the extent and likely duration of flooding and how many households and businesses are likely to be affected and how often over time. We assessed the level of sensitivity to the risks e.g. certain vulnerable groups with health conditions may be particularly at risk and will need to be protected, or specific locations may be sensitive to drought and prone to fires.
We then reviewed our ability to adapt to the likely changes, the more we are able to adapt the less vulnerable we are likely to be. All of these things were taken into account when assessing our vulnerability to a risk with a final combined score for each risk factor being on a scale from 0 to 6 with a final score of 0 being a negligible risk to 6 being a serious risk.
Vulnerability = Exposure + Sensitivity – Our capacity to adapt
Nothing is certain, we have lots of data from current trends and projections to help inform us what the future is likely to look like. We can look at a range of different scenarios based upon the levels of greenhouse gases we have in the atmosphere. The higher the concentration level the more extreme the weather incidents are likely to be.
If we can reduce the levels of emissions proposed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in 2015 the world would be able to keep the average global temperature increase to 1.5oC by the end of the century. If we are not able to do so, then we are likely to experience even more extreme weather. The French Government, for example, is planning all of its future activities and services for a world with a 4 °C temperature rise by the end of the century.
It is worth noting that Coventry, being in the heart of the UK, is likely to experience higher overall average temperature increases than the rest of the country. One can safely assume that it is likely to be more of a challenge to those delivering services to the citizens of Coventry than in other parts of the country.
The study looked at a number of temperature rise scenarios using a combination of 12 different Met Office models and the likely weather changes by 2050 and the end of the century (2100 AD) some of those key measures are detailed below illustrating the range of potential outcomes in relation to the Global Warming Levels (GWL’s).