Cardiff shares learning about climate change risks

September 2009

Cardiff Council used the evidence gathered by the Local Climate Impacts Profile to alert senior management to current vulnerabilities to weather events and shared their experience with other Welsh authorities.

The LCLIP project was an initial stage of the Changing climate, changing places project (pdf, 60 KB), whereby Cardiff Council was one of a representative selection of 4 Welsh Local Authorities completing climate impact profiles in parallel.

An external researcher was recruited, through Science Shops Wales (based at the University of Glamorgan), for the 3 month LCLIP project searching media and council records for incidents caused by extreme weather. The researcher then interviewed key staff members to gather data about the impacts of these incidents on the council and community; in terms of financial cost, service delivery and reputation.

Though the profile did not uncover substantial amounts of cost or statistical data the qualitative information collected was very informative on how services were coping with current weather events.

This information was then presented to service heads and a management response was requested, in particular on how they thought their service was coping compared to the evidence gathered. The extent to which levels of vulnerability differed from those anticipated by service heads was found to be a powerful engagement tool.

Cardiff Council, along with the other pilot authorities, held an information sharing event for other Welsh authorities via the Sustainable Development Coordinators Cymru network. This informed them of the positive outcomes and the challenges of the Changing Climate, Changing Places project, including the initial LCLIP stage.

They acknowledged that, without the help of the external researcher it is unlikely that the LCLIP project stage could have got off the ground. The scope of the LCLIP was also discussed as, for Cardiff, the 5-year media trawl span did not include all potentially significant forms of weather event.

The key outcome from Cardiff’s LCLIP is that services are coping (just) with current weather events, but that if these events are to become more severe or frequent (as with climate change) then there is need to start adaptation planning now.

Following on from the LCLIP, Cardiff Council are utilising the Business Area Climate Impact Assessment Tool (BACLIAT) to investigate the impacts to services in terms of threats and opportunities. The intention is then to use existing local authority risk assessment methodology on the impacts identified and to incorporate significant risks into the Corporate Risk Register, which in turn feeds into the Council’s business planning process.