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

Appendix A
ROYAL COMMISSION STUDY ON ADAPTING THE UK TO CLIMATE CHANGE –
INVITATION TO SUBMIT EVIDENCE
The focus of the study will be on whether the UK has the institutional capacity and arrangements
necessary to adapt to changes in the natural environment brought about by climate change. The scope
of the study is the UK in an EU context. To help illustrate the issues, the Commission invites evidence
based on three exemplar subjects:
Biodiversity, nature conservation and protected areas;
Sea level and coastal zones; and
Freshwater.
The Commission believes these areas and their interconnections are particularly challenging, and will
help to illustrate the complexity of adapting the UK to climate change. These arrangements will cover a broad
spectrum ranging from formal governance processes for government and large organisations through to informal and local
activities. Consideration will be given to the UK’s capacity to understand how climate change is likely
to impact on ecosystems and on what time scales; on the way society values the natural environment
under changing circumstances; and on the mechanisms that might be employed to manage the natural
environment so as to safeguard these values.
RATIONALE
The natural environment provides a ‘life-support system’ to society through the services it provides,
and as ecosystems, habitats and species respond to climate change it is inevitable that there will be
direct and indirect impacts on the human environment through the dependencies on these services.
In order to adapt to these changes in the natural environment, society will need to draw on existing
institutional capacity and arrangements and also generate new ones as part of the adaptation process.
So a key question is ‘does the UK understand what institutional capacity and arrangements it has to
adapt to climate change, what are the enablers and barriers, and what institutional arrangements does
it actually need?’
Climate impacts generate autonomous adaptation responses in natural systems, whereas humans will
make conscious as well as autonomous responses. It will be necessary to understand both the planned
and autonomous responses that society has in an attempt to minimise the adverse impacts of climate
and environmental change, either as a result of events that have occurred or those that are anticipated.
It is not yet clear what the likely positive and negative impacts of adaptation measures will be for both
humans and the natural environment. The interactions and feedbacks between social and environmental
systems will underpin the effectiveness of adaptation. The ability of individuals and society to
recognise the opportunities and beneficial consequences of adaptation, as well as respond to the adverse
consequences, without damaging the efforts to mitigate climate change, will be key features of success.
One of the challenges of climate change is uncertainty about the level and rate of impacts that can be
expected, and consequently about the levels of risk that society is prepared to tolerate. In addition it
should be recognised that the environment and society will continue to change even without climate
change. Non-climate impacts will affect the range of suitable options for adaptation. Despite these
complexities and uncertainties, decisions and policies will need to be made that support action now
and in the future. There may be existing frameworks for decision making in the face of uncertain or
incomplete information that could be relevant to making decisions about adapting to climate change, or
it may be that new frameworks are required. In order to understand how best to plan adaptation actions,
the institutional arrangements that enable or hinder adaptation must be explored.
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