Contents
This report is the Committee’s first assessment of progress in delivering the current adaptation plan. We assess all relevant policy development from across the period of Prosperity for All: A Climate Conscious Wales (PfACCW), whether or not it is formally included within the programme document. We find there are some positive examples of plans in place, although this is not consistent across sectors. Delivery and implementation are more limited and assessing progress is hampered by significant data gaps. For more than 50% of adaptation outcomes, the lack of indicator data prevents a full assessment of progress.
2. Download the report
3. Key messages
- Prosperity for All: A Climate Conscious Wales (PfACCW) provides a good coverage of required research and potential actions across priority climate risk areas.
- There is insufficient progress in delivery and implementation of adaptation and monitoring is limited.
- There are some positive examples of good plans in place, although this is not consistent across sectors.
- The next national adaptation plan for Wales must go further to drive delivery across the public sector and more widely.
- Welsh Government should embed adaptation into its plans for Net Zero, future well-being and increasing biodiversity.
4. Recommendations to Government
Table 1
Recommendations - Adapting to climate change - Progress in Wales| First publication | Recommendation | Timing | Sector | Responsibility |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | The Government should ensure that retrofit programmes take a holistic approach to improving dwellings’ thermal, moisture and indoor air quality performance throughout the whole year and use the findings from the research to produce a holistic retrofit plan/strategy for existing buildings. | Ongoing | Buildings | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Building regulations suitable for refurbishments of existing buildings and conversions of non-domestic buildings to residential to minimise the risk of overheating should be brought into place. | 2023-24 | Buildings | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Make finance available to install proactive adaptation measures for overheating and flood resilience. | 2023-24 | Buildings | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | The Government should investigate how to integrate plans to accelerate the uptake of property-level flood resilience in Wales into flood risk management and buildings policy, for example through regulations for new buildings and targeted funding. | 2025 | Buildings | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | The Government should facilitate reporting on and standards for property-level flood resilience installation and property survey quality. | 2025 | Buildings | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Consider climate risk and adaptation in the four major regional deals across Wales at planning stage | 2025 | Business | Economy |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Provide financial support for smaller businesses to recover and adapt after extreme weather events. | 2024 | Business | Economy; Finance and Local Government |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Carry out stress testing exercises to understand the resilience of essential goods supply chains. | 2024 | Business | Economy |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Develop more adaptation dedicated resources on ‘Business Wales’ website. Find good case studies and establish business champion programmes to provide clear examples, practical actions and engagement. | 2024 | Business | Business Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Update the Water Strategy and include consideration of business water use efficiency. | 2024 | Business | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Engage with UK Government to strengthen adaptation reporting requirements across the UK Sustainability Disclosure Requirements. | 2023 | Business | Economy |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Include adaptation questions in addition to existing decarbonisation questions in annual ‘service delivery plans’ reporting for local authorities. | 2024 | Community Preparedness and Response | Finance and Local Government; Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Develop adaptation guidance and templates for local authorities and public service boards to support consistent adaptation assessment and reporting. | 2025 | Community Preparedness and Response | Finance and Local Government; Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Develop and regularly update information on existing government and non-government funding streams available to local actors, such as local authorities and public service boards. | 2024 | Community Preparedness and Response | Finance and Local Government |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Create targeted funds for local actors to undertake risk assessment and adaptation planning at a local level. This could include financing for community adaptation. | 2024 | Community Preparedness and Response | Finance and Local Government |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Ensure that Corporate Joint Committees embed adaptation and mitigation at the core of engagement and all eventual plans. | From 2023 | Community Preparedness and Response | Finance and Local Government; Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Conduct a regular survey of public perceptions of risk, resilience and preparedness to better understand requirements for support and identify what interventions should be prioritised. | From 2024 | Community Preparedness and Response | Health and Social Services; Social Partnership |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Include community engagement activities (such as citizens assemblies) in the next adaptation programme, to put fairness at the centre of efforts to implement a vision for a well-adapted Wales. This engagement programme should focus on exploring issues of fairness in some of the most challenging aspects of adaptation and in the provision of public funding for adaptation. | 2025 | Community Preparedness and Response | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Provide dedicated resource for climate adaptation in the Cultural Heritage sector. | 2024 | Community Preparedness and Response | Economy; Arts, Sport and Tourism |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Review cultural heritage indicators in the next adaptation programme to ensure they accurately reflect the way information can be gathered and reported. This could include considering joint indicators with government stakeholders outside Welsh Government. | 2024 | Community Preparedness and Response | Economy; Arts, Sport and Tourism |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Include actions to embed climate resilience into planning for energy infrastructure in next national adaptation plan. | 2024 | Energy | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Collate national data on weather-related outages, including the frequency and duration of outage and the number of properties and businesses affected. | 2024 | Energy | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Work with UK Government on recommendations from CCC’s Progress in adapting to Climate Change 2023 Report to Parliament as they relate to Wales. | 2025 | Energy | Climate Change; Rural Affairs and North Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Include finance more centrally in the next national adaptation plan and engage with financial institutions in its development. | 2024 | Finance | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Development Bank of Wales should promote adaptation business actions within its Green Business Loan Scheme. | 2024 | Finance | Development Bank of Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Include adaptation in investment frameworks utilised for major development strategies including city growth deals. | Ongoing | Finance | Economy |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Engage with UK public financial institutions (such as the UK Infrastructure Bank, British Business Bank, UK Export Finance, and British International Investment) to create adaptation finance strategies, setting out how they will independently and collectively ensure that no viable UK climate adaptation project fails for lack of finance or insurance. | 2023 | Finance | Economy |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Engage with UK Government to strengthen adaptation reporting requirements across the Sustainability Disclosure Requirements. | 2023 | Finance | Economy |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Include consideration of climate risks to food security in the development of the community food strategy. | 2026 | Food security | Rural Affairs and North Wales; Economy |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Review the potential to require reporting on how climate risks are being managed from large food and feed companies operating in Wales as part of other climate change reporting mechanisms. | 2024 | Food security | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Develop a long-term cross-sector approach to address risks in the social care sector. This could be as part of the Net Zero social care route map, where adaptation action should be integrated into plans for decarbonisation and actioned from the start. | 2023 | Health | Health and Social Services |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Make available long-term, protected funding to adapt hospitals, care homes and other healthcare buildings to the impacts of climate change. | Ongoing | Health | Health and Social Services |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Develop, agree and implement a health and social care indicator suite. | 2025 | Health | Health and Social Services |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Ensure a joined-up approach between mitigation and adaptation to ensure there is not an increasing demand on the health sector. | Ongoing | Health | Health and Social Services |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Ensure that the next adaptation programme includes consideration of telecoms and ICT networks within its infrastructure objectives. | 2024 | ICT and Telecoms | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Conduct research to identify telecoms and ICT infrastructure assets at risk from extreme weather and understand adaptation progress. | 2024 | ICT and Telecoms | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Engage with UK Government to ensure that Ofcom is given a climate resilience remit across the UK, including all devolved administrations. | 2024 | ICT and Telecoms | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | In coordination with DSIT, advocate to set minimum resilience standards for operators in Wales to streamline the adaptation objectives in highly privatised sectors. | 2025 | ICT and Telecoms | Economy |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Integrate adaptation into the delivery of the Digital Strategy for Wales. | 2024 | ICT and Telecoms | Economy |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | There is a need of better monitoring and evaluation of habitats and species, including their condition and response to climate change. | 2024 | Nature | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Create a coherent and resilient ecological network of protected sites that is resilient to the effects of climate change. | Ongoing | Nature | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Create statutory targets for biodiversity and mainstream nature recovery and climate adaptation in all relevant Government policies and plans. These should be implemented in plans and policies connected to terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems. | 2024 | Nature | Climate Change; Rural Affairs and North Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Ensure that the new Sustainable Farming Scheme includes opportunities to deliver and restore freshwater ecosystems. This includes reducing pollution from slurry, sewage and agriculture that enters rivers, lakes and groundwater. | 2025 | Nature | Rural Affairs and North Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Identify measures and deliver a plan for threatened freshwater species. | 2024 | Nature | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Implement INNS regulations through Wales level contingency plans and deliver collaborative catchment-scale projects through the Area Statement process. | 2025 | Nature | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | There needs to be a proper investigation, monitoring and evaluation of the underlying causes of poor feature conditions and sufficient action taken to address the drivers. Measures to improve the habitats should be identified in the next River Basin Management Plans, Sustainable Farming Scheme and Marine Protected Areas. | Ongoing | Nature | Climate Change; Rural Affairs and North Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Integrate climate change adaptation measures into the various steps of the River Basin Management Plans. Example of these measures are outlined in Guidance document No 24 – River basin management in a changing climate.[i] | 2024 | Nature | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Improve incentives for tree planting to dramatically upscale woodland creation efforts to reach future targets, while ensuring the right tree is planted in the right place to minimise maladaptation and increase adaptation co-benefits for nature. | Ongoing | Nature | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Develop and implement a strategy for how Wales will reach the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 30x30 protected area target and the CBD target to halt biodiversity loss by 2030. | 2024 | Nature | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Address causes of reduced connectivity within terrestrial, freshwater and marine and coastal habitats. | 2024 | Nature | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Dramatically increase funding available for addressing the climate and nature emergencies, including schemes for research, monitoring and implementation. | Ongoing | Nature | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Planning policy should be reformed to ensure that climate resilience is a priority, with mandatory adaptation consideration for all climate risks on built-environment projects and development plans. | 2026 | Towns and cities | Finance and Local Government; Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | The Welsh Government should implement TAN 15 to ensure that assessments for built development include, at a minimum, a full assessment of current and future flood and erosion risk, considering climate change and adaptation measures where development is allowed to proceed. | 2023 | Towns and cities | Finance and Local Government; Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | The Welsh Government should address the proposals from the Flood and Coastal Erosion Committee on the maintenance and monitoring responsibilities for flood and coastal risk management authorities and seek to clarify roles and legal responsibility. | 2023 | Towns and cities | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | The Sustainable Farming Scheme should incentivise practices to manage water flow across catchments and reduce flood risk. | 2023 | Towns and cities | Rural Affairs and North Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | The Welsh Government should respond to the recommendations for the review of the implementation of Schedule 3 and set out a plan to update implementation of the policy. | 2024 | Towns and cities | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Local government SuDS Approval Bodies must be provided with a framework to report on and monitor the location, type and standard of SuDS installed in their areas. | 2023 | Towns and cities | Climate Change; Finance and Local Government |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | The Welsh Government should investigate and consult on strategy to address and monitor urban heat risks in towns and cities. | 2024 | Towns and cities | Climate Change; Health and Social Services |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | The Welsh Government should consider making Shoreline Management Plans statutory, ensuring that the most recent erosion mapping is used and roles and responsibilities for carrying out actions and evaluation in the plans are clear. | 2024 | Towns and cities | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | The Welsh Government should investigate mechanisms to leverage retrofitting adaptation measures into the built environment. This should include investigating frameworks for private funding and partnership funding to help embed adaptation during other routine work. | 2024 | Towns and cities | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Road, rail, airport and port operators should conduct risk assessments that identify current and future climate change risks to services, based on UKCP18 projections, and create adaptation action plans that address the high-risk areas that are identified in the risk assessment. | Ongoing | Transport | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Oversee that road, rail, airport and port operators conduct regular monitoring of existing infrastructure and improve maintenance practices. For new infrastructure, climate change adaptation and resilience should be embedded into planning standards and design to avoid costs of retrofitting in future. | Ongoing | Transport | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Engage with UK Government to designate transport sector regulators with consistent remits for climate resilience. | 2030 latest | Transport | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Require mandatory reporting of climate risks and adaptation progress by all key transport operators, including ports and airports. | 2025 | Transport | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Conduct research to understand household water use profile and consider setting a target to reduce consumption. | 2025 | Water | Climate Change; Natural Resources Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Review whether it would be appropriate to introduce a 1 in 500 year drought resilience target. | 2025 | Water | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Embed latest UK Climate Projections (UKCP18) into all long-term water strategies and project planning, to inform a refreshed and coherent Water Strategy that achieves reduced household demand, improved system performance and increased supply. | 2024 | Water | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Contribute to the evidence base on the level and end-use of private water supply and on vulnerability assessments to inform multi-sector and regional water resources planning. | 2024 | Water | Climate Change |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Welsh Government should ensure there is provision to address the policy gap between the cessation of the current Glastir agri-environment scheme arrangements, due to end in 2023, and the implementation of the Sustainable Farming Scheme, in 2025. | Q3 2023 | Working lands and seas | Rural Affairs and North Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Significantly more investment is needed in data, monitoring, innovation, skills training, advisory services, and R&D in the agricultural, forestry and fisheries sectors to improve climate resilience. In particular, increase investment in the collection of data to help assess the extent and effectiveness of actions taken by the individual sectors to adapt to the impacts of climate change. | Ongoing | Working lands and seas | Rural Affairs and North Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Undertake risk assessments of the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sector dependencies on internationally sourced inputs and how these could change under various climate scenarios and develop plans to mitigate supply chain risks. | Ongoing | Working lands and seas | Rural Affairs and North Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Welsh Government should implement key actions in the Woodland for Wales Strategy to ensure that the commercial forestry sector is resilient to future climate risks, including improving species diversity of tree planting and dealing with wildfire risk. | 2024 | Working lands and seas | Climate Change; Rural Affairs and North Wales |
| Wales 2023 Adaptation progress report | Welsh Government need to progress on initiatives that aim to understand and urgent address the status of fish and shellfish stocks and the environmental impacts of fisheries. | 2024 | Working lands and seas | Rural Affairs and North Wales |
5. Supporting information, charts and data
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