Twenty-eighth Report Adapting Institutions to Climate Change Cm ...

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understood in order that it can be used appropriately. The Commission is aware of the importance
of maintaining quality control for those offering consultancy services in relation to adaptation. It
suggests that quality control could be achieved through the development of a scheme of ‘accredited
practitioners’ of UKCP09. The Commission recommends that governments and relevant
bodies build climate change adaptation into existing personal and corporate accreditation
schemes to help ensure that climate projection information is being interpreted
and used appropriately.
In the longer term the multidisciplinary Living With Environmental Change (LWEC) programme
described in Chapter 2 will be an important source of new insights that could contribute to our
adaptive capacity and be used to inform adaptation action. To ensure that institutions generally
can benefit from this information, there needs to be effective knowledge transfer mechanisms
in place for all research activity of relevance to adaptation and, as LWEC is such a large
programme, it should be a leader in this. The Commission recommends that the Living With
Environmental Change partners develop an extensive and proactive knowledge transfer
programme to ensure that new information on climate change adaptation is shared widely
and effectively.
ENSURING RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE
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Finally, adaptation should not be set in competition with other goals but should be viewed as a core
element of an organisation’s primary activities. This does not mean that building adaptive capacity
will not cost money. Inevitably competition for resources will lead to tensions between competing
objectives, as we have seen in spatial planning (Chapter 3). The Commission was disappointed
to learn that the Treasury’s approach to the provision of additional funds for adaptation does not
appear be in keeping with the scale and urgency of the problem, or indeed with Government’s
own ambitious targets for adaptation. 9
The Treasury acknowledges that there is uncertainty over the total economic impact of climate
change and is awaiting the publication of the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment and Economic
Analysis (due in January 2012) “... in order to inform further consideration of climate change risks
and policy development.” 10 We are concerned that sufficient resources will not be available to meet
the scale of the challenge of adaptation, and that the scale of the challenge is not yet adequately
reflected in the frameworks for setting and prioritising departmental objectives. We recommend
that Government departments ensure that at the next (and at future) comprehensive
spending reviews sufficient resources are committed to building adaptive capacity, and
that appropriate recognition of the need for adaptation is included in the frameworks for
setting and prioritising departmental objectives.
EQUITY
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Aspects of the uneven distribution of costs of climate change are outlined in Chapter 3 (3.72-3.94).
This is not unique to the issue of climate change: there are many examples where the costs and
benefits of action, or inaction, fall differentially. It is clear that governments need to continue to
develop an adequate process which does not unreasonably favour some individuals or interests (for
example property interests or conservation interests) in the allocation of resources for protection
from flood and coastal erosion. Decisions on protection (or not) should be taken alongside
decisions on the treatment of those most disadvantaged by climate change.
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