A report on the production and implementation of a Climate Change Adaptation Framework for the Council.

The Committee considered a report onthe production and approval of the Climate Change Adaptation Framework for the Council. A copy of the Climate Change Adaptation Framework was appended at Appendix 1. A copy of the Reading Climate Risk Assessment spreadsheet was attached to the report at Appendix 2.

The report set out the global context concerning climate change and global warming and explained the worsening impacts, risks and costs, both nationally and internationally, that included environmental events such as floods, heatwaves, storms and wildfires. The report explained that the UK faced warmer and wetter winters, hotter and drier summers, and would be susceptible to more frequent and extreme weather events and that this would continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. The report explained that climate change would have a significant impact on the economy and that the most vulnerable in society would be the most exposed to its risks as they had the least resources available to them to allow them to adapt. The report explained that the Council, its partners and the wider community needed to plan for and adapt to the effects of climate change and that the Climate Change Adaptation Framework had been developed to allow the Council and the communities it served to become more resilient to its impacts.

The report explained that the Council had long recognised the need to adapt to climate change and that this had been outlined in the Reading Climate Emergency Strategy 2020-25, the vision statement of which was to achieve a “net zero, resilient Reading by 2030”. The report explained that, whilst the Climate Emergency Strategy did identify and plan to manage climate risks, it was more focused on climate mitigations (reducing emissions) than on climate adaptation (preparing for the impacts) and that it did not address climate adaptation comprehensively enough from the perspective of the Council’s own services and responsibilities. Therefore, there was still a need for the Council to develop a more bespoke climate adaptation framework.

The report explained that the Climate Change Adaptation Framework had been prepared to fill the gap that had been identified in terms of giving the Council a clear framework to build on the foundations that had been laid in the Climate Emergency Strategy by setting out in more detail the key risks, issues and objectives for the Council to pursue to make itself, and the communities it served, more resilient to the impacts of climate change.  It also provided a framework within which individual Council services could develop their approach to managing climate risk as they became more climate risk aware.

The structure of the proposed Climate Change Adaptation Framework was set out in the report which stated that it was important to understand that climate adaptation was a process not an event, and that dynamic assessment of climate related risk would be required to continually update the response of individual services and the Council as a whole.  Hence the approach had been to develop a framework which could evolve over time and be updated in real time.  The outputs from which could then be fully integrated into the Council’s risk management corporate/service planning and performance management frameworks, rather than sitting in a separate plan which attempted to capture every possible action but, which would quickly become dated. 

The report proposed that, as a first step, the Committee should endorse the proposed Adaptation Framework (attached at Appendix 1 to the report). Following this, individual Council services would need to apply the principles, objectives and risks identified in the Framework to their own contexts, thereby enabling the Framework to be developed more fully.  As work progressed, and given the wide-ranging nature of climate risk, the report proposed that the Adaptation Framework should also be considered by other Committees and be adopted as Council policy.

Resolved –

(1)           That the proposed Climate Change Adaptation Framework for Reading Borough Council included at Appendix 1 be approved;

(2)           That it be noted that work needed to be done by all services to identify specific actions to make services and communities more resilient to climate impacts, within the context of the Climate Adaptation Framework;

(3)           That the Climate Adaptation Framework be considered by other relevant Committees prior to submission to Policy Committee for adoption as Council policy.