Sam Brear assesses the claims of the UK government's first Climate Change Risk Assessment.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines risk as: “a situation involving exposure to danger”, so when we heard last week that DEFRA - the government’s Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs – had just released the UK’s first ever Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA), we could not be blamed for fearing the worst. What danger are we to be exposed to? What dramatic new data has come to the fore and prompted the DEFRA to publish a risk assessment that runs to over 1000 pages? After all, the IPCC (The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – basically the UN’s climate branch) released their fourth assessment back in 2007.

Well, as it turns out, there is no dramatic new data. What there is, however, is an insight into the troubles, but also, opportunities, that the UK could face over the next hundred years. A crucial aspect of the assessment is that it assumes that no sector of the economy will make any effort whatsoever to adapt to the problems that climate change presents. In this regard it can be seen to represent what is projected to be the worst case scenario for the UK, and things, predictably, don’t look too good.

Being a small island nation, it comes as no surprise to learn that flooding is going to be the predominant issue we face. In the long term (the next 80-100 years), the melting ice caps that Sir David Attenborough recently described so wonderfully in the BBC’s Frozen Planet, will cause sea level rise along the coastline that will threaten cities, agriculture and livelihoods across the UK, but particularly in the South East. The far more prominent issue though, is that of flooding associated with rainfall. Projections show that, especially in winter, there will be significantly more heavy precipitation events of the sort associated with flash floods, and a decline in light precipitation, i.e. drizzle. Events such as this will affect not only people’s homes, but also their wallets, with the annual expenditure on flood defences expected to rise from £1.2billion at present, to £12billion by 2070.

The other dominant issue that the UK will face is drought. Now, I know what you’re thinking; “Hold on, you’ve just told us we’ll be flooded all the time, we’ll have plenty of water!” Oh, but if only it was that simple. The longer, hotter, summers (bringing with them an increase in the risk of skin cancer, not just tanning opportunities), the increased water demand, and the reduced recharge, will mean that water resources will become much scarcer as the UK’s aquifers dry up. The projections here suspect that the Thames river basin region will face a supply/demand deficit of 940-2550 megalitres per day. In other words, it will take more than a hosepipe ban to rectify the issue.

All in all, the CCRA shows projected changes in our climate that, at present, we are entirely unprepared for. We should be in no doubt that whilst these changes are uncertain, many are potentially significant and others, already irreversible.

It is in the acknowledgement of these projected changes that the assessment’s purpose comes to the fore. The CCRA is not the last word on analysing climate risk – it is the start of a process. Though the report tells us nothing new, it raises awareness of vital issues that we all need to prepare for if we are to prosper and thrive in the future. The opportunities that the assessment states that climate change will present, such as more direct shipping routes, or a boost to the tourism industry, will be meaningless if the underlying fabric of society is in tatters.