UK’s Third Climate Change Risk Assessment

By Paul Homewood

With the public finally rebelling against the cost of Net Zero, the government has published its latest Climate Change Risk Assessment, warning us that climate change will cost tens of billions in “climate disasters”:

The Government has today (Monday 17 January) published the UK’s Third Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA3), recognising the unprecedented challenge of ensuring the UK is resilient to climate change and setting out the work already underway to meet that challenge.

The five-year assessment, delivered under the Climate Change Act 2008 and following close work with the Climate Change Committee (CCC), identifies the risks that climate change poses to multiple parts of our society and economy.

For eight individual risks, economic damages could exceed £1 billion per year each by 2050 with a temperature rise of 2°C, with the cost of climate change to the UK rising to at least 1% of GDP by 2045.

Details

As required by the Climate Change Act 2008, the UK government has undertaken the third five-year assessment of the risks of climate change on the UK. This is based on the Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk, the statutory advice provided by the Climate Change Committee (CCC), commissioned by the UK government and devolved administrations.

The risk assessment considers sixty-one UK-wide climate risks and opportunities cutting across multiple sectors of the economy and prioritises the following eight risk areas for action in the next two years:

risks to the viability and diversity of terrestrial and freshwater habitats and species from multiple hazards
risks to soil health from increased flooding and drought
risks to natural carbon stores and sequestration from multiple hazards
risks to crops, livestock and commercial trees from multiple climate hazards
risks to supply of food, goods and vital services due to climate-related collapse of supply chains and distribution networks
risks to people and the economy from climate-related failure of the power system
risks to human health, wellbeing and productivity from increased exposure to heat in homes and other buildings
multiple risks to the UK from climate change impacts overseas

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-publishes-uks-third-climate-change-risk-assessment

The report is largely based on last June’s Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk, published by the CCC, who seem to now be in charge of every aspect of climate policy. Unsurprisingly, given their involvement, the latest assessment is pure fantasy.

Three basic factors undermine and discredit the new Risk Assessment throughout:

Despite claims to the contrary, no evidence is offered that our weather is getting any worse, or will do. Flooding is a good example, which we are told will become disastrous in future. So where is the data which shows it has already got worse?
The report totally ignores adaptation, as this section reveals:

It is absurd to assume that, for instance, farmers won’t adapt to slightly warmer weather.

Whatever may be the impacts of climate change, and no mention seems to have been made of the undoubted benefits, they will be dwarfed by natural variability and other human influence. Moorland wildfires, for instance, are mentioned several times, even though the actual data proves that the UK is not getting drier. But where is there any acknowledgment of the overwhelmingly key factors in wildfires – arson and accidents, both aggravated by easy accessibility nowadays. If we are so concerned about wildfire, surely we should be addressing these factors, and not trying to control the weather?

In terms of the specific risk areas, the first four all seem to revolve around floods and drought, with a few wildfires thrown in:

They really are making a meal out of wildfires, which only affect a miniscule proportion of our moorlands.

As for the other two, where is the evidence that either floods or droughts are getting worse? If they have not in the past, why should we believe the CCC when they tell us they will in future.

The idea, anyway, that floods will diminish soil fertility is ridiculous. It is flooding which restores fertility.

The CCC talk about land management and new crops and technologies, as if farmers have not been doing these since time immemorial. But England is not suddenly going to turn into Texas in climate terms, and the enormous year-to-year, as well as month-to-month, variations will continue to dwarf longer term climate changes. If these happen at all, they will occur so slowly as to be barely noticeable, and will allow plenty of time to adapt

They go into the realms of fantasy when it comes to supply chains:

According to the CCC, extreme weather is already causing disruption:

But what does “extreme weather” have to do with “climate change”. There is certainly no evidence that it is getting worse.

We have already learnt from the pandemic that it is dangerous to be over reliant on China for so much of what we buy, and it should be a top priority for any government to reduce this.

But the danger is that Net Zero policies will destroy our industrial base and place even more dependence on imported goods.

But this next section must surely take the biscuit!

Again from the CCC:

So the the weather related risks to our electricity system will grow as we become more dependent on wind power.

WOW!! I did not see that one coming!

It gets worse:

Obviously whoever wrote this gibberish did not read the ONS’ latest report, pointing out that global warming has saved half a million lives in Britain.

The CCC perpetuates the lie about 2500 heat-related deaths in 2020, failing to point out that death rates in recent hot summers have actually been lower than cold, wet ones.

Apparently we are all going to be too hot to work as well! Have they not heard of air-conditioning? Or mechanisation which takes the hard labour out of most jobs?

And what about all of the lost productivity during cold winters, when the whole country can seize up with a few inches of snow? We are told these are things of the past now.