Climate Change - Impacts/Adaptation

On 30 January 2007, The Scotland and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research (SNIFFER), launched a report called 'Preparing for a Changing Climate in Northern Ireland'.

Published on behalf of DOE and NIEA, this report examines the potential impacts of climate change in Northern Ireland across a broad range of sectors.

It looks at measures already being undertaken here and considers what else may be required to adapt to these impacts.

Preparing For A Climate Change In Northern Ireland - Executive Summary (672KB)

Preparing For A Climate Change In Northern Ireland - Full Document (1.41MB)

The importance of a regional approach to reducing the causes and responding to the impacts of climate change has been widely recognised. The Northern Ireland Climate Change Impacts Partnership (NICCIP) has been established to widen the understanding and knowledge of the impacts of climate change within Northern Ireland and the adaptation actions necessary to deal with it.

Further details about NICCIP can be obtained here The Northern Ireland Climate Change Impacts Partnership (NICCIP)

Climate Change Act and Adaptation

The Climate Change Bill became law in November 2008, and the Climate Change Act sets out UK Government commitments to addressing both the causes and consequences of climate change.

Part 4 of the Act sets out the responsibilities in relation to the impact of and adaptation to climate change. This includes ‘the duty of the Secretary of State to lay reports before Parliament containing an assessment of the risks for the United Kingdom of the current and predicted impact of climate change’; this is referred to as the Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA).  

The first CCRA must go to Parliament no later than three years after the Act entered into force (thus November 2011), and subsequent reports no later than five years after each previous report.  There is therefore a continuing statutory obligation to repeat the risk assessment process every five years.

Following the publication of the CCRA the Act sets out the duty for the relevant Northern Ireland Departments to lay programmes before the Northern Ireland Assembly setting out:

• the objectives of the department in relation to adaptation to climate change;
• the department’s proposals and policies for meeting those objectives; and
• the time-scales for introducing those proposals and policies.

UK Climate Change Projections

On 18 June 2009 Defra launched the 2009 UK Climate Projections (UKCP09). These are based on anticipated changes to climate variables such as precipitation, temperature, wind speed and sea level rise.

The UK Climate Projections indicate that we’re likely to see hotter drier summers and warmer wetter winters, coupled with increased frequency of extreme weather occurrences such as heatwaves, dry spells, heavy rain and flooding.  Some of the key findings from the Climate Change Projections estimate that by the 2050’s Northern Ireland will have:

• An increase in winter mean temperature of approximately 1.7 °C;
• An increase in summer mean temperature of approximately 2.2°C;
• Changes in winter mean precipitation of approximately +9%;
• Changes in summer mean precipitation of approximately -12%; and
• Sea level rise for Belfast of 14.5cm above the 1990 sea level.

In order to make UKCP09 as widely accessible as possible, the information it contains is available through a new dedicated website. A major component of the new website is a UKCP09 User Interface which will allow users to interrogate the projections to produce customised output on expected climate change for the UK.

The UKCP09 website can be viewed here

In order to assist organisations, who plan to use the Projections, the UK Climate Impacts Programme will be running a UK wide ‘Projections in practice programme’. In Northern Ireland, training sessions, seminars and briefing sessions will be delivered, in the autumn, to key decision makers from central and local government, the business community, the voluntary sector and professional organisations. If your organisation is interested in attending any of the training sessions they should contact the Climate Change Unit, who will endeavour to allocate them a slot at one of the seminars.

For further information or should you require the documents in an accessible format, e.g. Braille, audio-cassette, minority ethnic language etc, please contact Climate Change Unit by contacting climate.change@doeni.gov.uk