Capital expenditure for resilience measures to ensure business continuity due to extreme weather conditions such as floods and heatwaves need to be considered as best practice, according to the Environment Agency’s ‘Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation’ report.
Chair of the Environment Agency, Emma Howard Boyd, said it was worrying that few FTSE boards are disclosing the strategic risks to their shareholders brought by the physical impacts of climate change.
“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,” said Boyd.
“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.”
Rising temperatures and the impact on infrastructure, along with the security measures needed in place to cope with the demands of climate change, are a real threat.
UKCP19 projections, developed in conjuncture 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, along with sea levels rising by up to 1.15 metres in London by 2100.
Climate change and immediate risks to national security have long been accepted, with Governments world-wide boosting security measures in readiness of rising sea levels, increase in natural disasters and an increase in infectious disease and terrorism as a direct cause.
