Image description: High flooding outside the Old White Horse Brasserie, Old Main Street, Bingley, UK. Image by Chris Gallagher / Unsplash

The UK’s Climate Change Committee (CCC) is urging Minister Emma Hardy to take immediate action to strengthen national defences against the growing impacts of climate change – particularly addressing mounting risks to the country’s water security.

Baroness Brown, Chair of the CCC’s Adaptation Committee, published a letter  addressed to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs), warning the UK must be prepared for at least 2°C of global warming by 2050, with the likelihood of 4°C by the end of the century. The committee said this would bring more frequent and intense droughts, floods, and heatwaves, severely testing the nation’s already stretched water systems.

The CCC admonished governments, saying “they have repeatedly failed on their ambitions to make the UK resilient to climate change.” Rising temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns could increase flood risks in winter while leaving reservoirs dangerously low in summer. Urban areas are to particularly face mounting threats from flash flooding, while rural regions may struggle with prolonged dry spells impacting agriculture and ecosystems.

When the UK is likely to experience hot, dry summers along with an increase in the combined impacts from wet and windy conditions, the CCC believes it is both essential and urgent to see a strengthening of adaptation objectives. Peak rainfall averaged across the UK is expected to increase by up to 10-15% for the wettest days. Peak river flows will increase by up to 40% in some UK river catchments, and coastal cities will continue to experience the effects of sea level rises.