Author Archives: sferg

Getting adaptation into practice – reflections from ECCA 2017

When someone wants to sell you something – chocolate or shampoo, for example – they present their product in a shop or on a website, and then tell you about it through advertisements on the TV, radio, in print or online. Why is this relevant, you ask? Because we should do the same for adaptation – we need to present our products and advertise in places where people who need our services will find them, rather than expecting people to come to us.

I’ve recently returned from three days at the European Climate Change Adaptation Conference in Glasgow (5-8 June) where two of the main messages I heard were:

Stakeholders really matter

and

More high-touch, less high-tech

What’s the best way to engage with stakeholders such as communities, business and local government? And is there an optimum time to begin that process?

After Hurricane Sandy, the New York authorities increased the scale and urgency of adaptation measures such as flood defences. At a community level, it led to an understanding and acceptance of measures that would have previously met with resistance. People recognised the need to adapt, and now.

While people are experiencing the after-effects of an extreme weather event is a good time to engage stakeholders. This needs to happen within 12 to 24 months of the event so that it is still fresh in peoples’ memories.

How do we do more high-touch – and with a small adjustment to the quote – WITH high-tech?

In my experience of working with textile and food and drink businesses in the forerunner of the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and the Carbon Trust, I provided advice on energy efficiency, waste minimisation and water management. I walked around factories and then sat down with the management and employees to explore together how to alter processes to save money, waste and make the company more competitive – which occasionally led to the discovery of new innovations. We tailor-made solutions for a number of businesses and published the lessons learned in case studies that were shared across the sector. The sharing consisted of attending sector events, articles in the programme newsletter and trade magazines, and peer-to-peer through company open days.

As adaptation practitioners, we need to listen to users’ priorities – which may not be related to adaptation – and create tailor-made solutions that fit with their particular ways of working and strategic direction. We can learn from this process, from both the stakeholder and intermediary perspectives, and share these lessons with other communities, businesses and sectors that may have similar problems.

When UKCIP was part of the UK Climate Projections 2009 delivery team, we ran a series of training courses that were trialled, adjusted, put online, and rolled out across the country to help users make the most of the new projections – a great example of high-touch WITH high-tech.

Conclusion

How do you engage with stakeholders? Find out what their priorities are, and if they have been affected by extreme weather events – the long time scales of climate change are off-putting, and can be discussed later – and develop tailor-made solutions that fit with their ways of working. The ideal timing for this is within 2 years of an extreme event.

How do you get the message out? Explore from where the community, sector or local government gathers information they find useful, and share your messages in that environment, in a variety of modes – events, articles, site visits, online – and in language that they are familiar with, using terms that they know and, if needs be, translated into other languages to reach particular groups.

l could fill a whole forum with stories of things that didn’t work…

Climate change adaptation is an area of innovation that doesn’t always go according to plan. However, when it comes to talking about adaptation (particularly in public forums), the focus often centres on ‘success stories’.

Although these narratives are inspiring, they can sometimes lack the deeper learning that practitioners and decision-makers can gain from each other through discussing what didn’t work and why. These useful, and at times entertaining narratives, are key to the development of adaptation communication practice. This is an area that is often overlooked at conferences, yet is something that is relevant for all those engaged in science, policy and practice.

For those working to drive climate action, how you talk about the issue is extremely important, especially when we’re not even sure if it is socially acceptable to challenge climate denial. So this session will take stock of practical and conceptual shortcomings of climate change communication, with respect to issues including:

  • climate change communication characteristics
  • the role of communication in adaptation policy
  • value-driven communication
  • practical examples of tool development and reaching new audiences
  • insights in relation to how our responses to risk can make it difficult to communicate climate change.

Most importantly, this session will be a frank discussion from both the speakers and attendees around failures to communicate particular outcomes, and how those setbacks informed and shaped later practice.

Effective engagement starts by understanding how people’s values underpin their views about climate change, an issue that has been shaped by political and cultural factors in a way few others have. This practical ‘how-to’ session introduces the concept of values-based communication for adaptation based on social research. Delivery of this session will be through a So what? now what? approach that will engage researchers, practitioners, communication professionals and managers across all areas of adaptation.

This session has been brought together by an international team of communication professionals; don’t miss hearing from Climate Outreach, Stockholm Environment Institute, Adaptation Scotland, University of Colorado, UKCIP, and Victoria University.

What makes a risk assessment useful for policymakers?

Are you a policymaker involved in developing adaptation plans at the national or urban level? Or an expert or researcher looking to produce climate change risk and vulnerability information that is well-tailored and practical for policymakers?

If so, join our session at ECCA 2017 to hear about lessons learnt and key elements that make climate change impact, vulnerability and risk assessments useful to feed into national and local adaptation plans.

Governments across Europe are carrying out national assessments of climate change impacts, vulnerability and risks. These assessments are intended to be used by policymakers to develop national-level adaptation strategies and plans, while also helping to inform urban decision-makers in preparing local adaptation (and mitigation) plans. The information feeding into these plans share common points as well as differences, particularly when looking across countries and planning cultures in Europe. The processes and methods used, the impact, vulnerability and risk metrics, and the format of the information feeding into adaptation plans vary depending on factors such as the scale of the plan, policy context, and location-specific risks, as well as capabilities and availability of resources.

This interactive session will discuss whether the information currently produced at national and local level is fit-for-purpose, and what the main information needs are. We will begin with a series of presentations from a panel to cover the main points of difference and commonality across countries, as well as at the national versus local scale. Presentations will focus on the main barriers or information gaps, as well as the interlinkages with mitigation plans, i.e. potential gains or benefits from information provided or needed for mitigation plans. The panellists will introduce two pan-European studies on these topics as well as country-specific analyses carried out for the UK, Germany, and Italy.

Panel presentations will be followed by audience participation providing an opportunity to share reflections and perspectives on information needs, and whether they are fit-for purpose.

Panel members:

  • Hans-Martin Füssel, European Environment Agency (EEA)
  • Petra Mahrenholz, Federal Environment Agency (UBA), Germany
  • Francesca Giordano, Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA)
  • Jaroslav Mysiak, Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change (CMC)
  • Manuela Di Mauro, UK Committee on Climate Change
  • André Jol, European Environment Agency (EEA)
  • Diana Reckien, University of Twente, NL

 

Measuring adaptation in light of the Paris Agreement: reflections from the Adaptation Metrics Conference

How can adaptation actions be measured and for what purpose? Impressions from the Adaptation Metrics Conference which informed COP22.

The Paris Agreement calls for enhanced transparency on adaptation action. Countries are asked to provide information on actual adaptation achievements, e.g. progress towards adaptation targets mentioned in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). In addition, a Global Stocktake will assess the collective progress of all Parties. Against this background, the Scientific Committee of COP22 organised the Adaptation Metrics Conference which took place in September 2016 in Morocco (pdf, 1.8 MB).

An impressive line-up of speakers and organisations addressed the objective to “advance the scientific and technical debate on the topic of assessing adaptation to climate change”. The sheer number and diversity of participants, from financial institutions to implementing agencies and from UN organisations to NGOs, demonstrates the strong desire to better assess and communicate adaptation results. With the Paris Agreement in force, and more national and international funding dedicated to climate resilient development, this issue is more pressing than ever.

So, what lessons can be drawn from the Adaptation Metrics Conference? First, there appears to be confusion on the purpose of adaptation metrics. Some want to use metrics to allocate funding, others to assess vulnerability, and again others to measure the performance of climate portfolios. Whilst these are all important issues, it is evident that no uniform set of indicators could sufficiently fulfil all of them at once. For example, simple quantitative indicators may satisfy basic accountability needs, but understanding the context-specific factors of vulnerability requires a much more nuanced set of indicators.

In fact, the appropriateness of monitoring and evaluation (M&E) methods, including indicators, depends on the specific purpose for which M&E is undertaken (the Adaptation M&E Navigator provides orientation).

Unfortunately, this important fact does not seem to have sunk in yet, since many are still searching for the holy grail of all-purpose adaptation indicators – just as I predicted in the UKCIP blog two years ago. In contrast, the conference once again testified that there is no single, generic and global adaptation metric that could be universally applied. After all, it was telling that only few metrics were presented at the metrics conference. Instead, there was strong agreement among presenters that adaptation is context-specific, and therefore generic indicators have limited applicability.

This does not mean that adaptation cannot be measured. In fact, the conference showcased several promising developments to assess adaptation. Important outcome metrics featured at the conference are avoided economic damages, value of assets made climate resilient, and avoided negative health impacts. Some of these have already been piloted in a coastal protection project in Viet Nam. The World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) also presented sectoral initiatives to advance tracking of adaptation actions, e.g. through climate and health country profiles. The World Bank also previewed its new methodology to assess the impact of extreme weather on poverty and the corresponding economic potential of adaptation.

Additional momentum comes from numerous countries which are developing national adaptation M&E systems to better track their adaptation progress. Whilst initially limited in their ability to assess effectiveness, and often lacking a link between national and subnational level, newly emerging adaptation M&E systems increasingly focus on adaptation outcomes, as the example of South Africa shows (pdf, 2 MB). Reporting, monitoring and review also form a core element of the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) process, helping countries to implement their adaptation-related NDC targets (pdf, 400 KB).

Overall, the Adaptation Metrics Conference underscored the importance of assessing and communicating adaptation outcomes. To comply with the transparency demands of the Paris Agreement, it is no longer sufficient to rely on simple input (finance) or output (“Number of XY”) metrics, because they do not address the essential question: how far have climate vulnerabilities been reduced? Over the coming years, it is imperative to continue developing, testing and sharing approaches to meaningfully quantify adaptation in ways that are responsive to different M&E purposes. And some people, I am sure, will continue to search for the holy grail of one-size-fits-all adaptation metrics.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of GIZ or BMZ.

Know your audience: watermelon or c’onservative?

Tanya Wilkins, UKCIP

In the majority of mainstream communication thinking, ‘know your audience’ is repeated ad nauseam, almost as a mantra. My recent attendance at a climate change masterclass with @climategeorge from Climate Outreach, left me with the sense that, as communicators, we had forgotten our own discipline.

I was reminded in no uncertain terms that it is not about using language that resonates with the ‘watermelons’, rather that we need to understand the values of the majority centre-right population who need mobilisation to take action against the impacts of a changing climate.

Okay, so firstly … I suspect you’re asking ‘what is a watermelon?’

I wasn’t aware of this term, but it refers to a greenie on the outside with an inner red just screaming to come out. Humorous? Yes … but it’s a barrier in contemporary climate change communication.

And c’onservative? Let me explain that too – it is a new word, invented by Mr Marshall himself to explain the centre-right who have conservative values but do not necessarily vote for the Conservative party.

So now down to the very necessary understanding of a values-based approach to communicating with this large proportion of the constituency.

In the facts and figures that George threw at us during the intensive masterclass, it became apparent that a large portion of those who sit amongst the ‘middle’ of the charts actually know that something is up with the climate, but lack a conviction in the science. In creating long-term social and political change to positively impact on the planet, there needs to be a far greater emphasis on reaching c’onservative values.

And what are these values? The research into these shows far less emphasis on the ‘big business’ that is often attributed to c’onservative folk. Instead, there exists a very strong narrative around aspirations of enjoyment and happiness, of people making a go of it themselves, standing on their own two feet, of consistency and respect for authority.

In considering this against previous climate change communication, with images of stranded polar bears, cracked earth surfaces and children telling the adults off, you can perhaps start to see that the climate change community haven’t really understood their audience at all.

With c’onservatives generally being sceptical of grand theories and ideologies, using the polar bears and big statements about intergenerational equity just misses the mark … time and time again.

Part of the problem with climate change (as outlined in George Marshall’s fabulous book Don’t even think about it – which he personally signed for me!) is that it is a ‘wicked problem’. It hits on so many cognitive struggles that we have as humans; invisible, slow-moving, and without a defined enemy. It has become everyone’s individual responsibility through our rates of consumption, but it hasn’t been communicated in a way that creates a conviction in everyone.

Words like ‘environment’, ‘eco’, ‘planet’, ‘green’, ‘justice’ have been used in campaigns … but the research says no, no, no and no to all of these reaching the c’onservatives.

So what are some of the values that can be used in future campaigns? If you are looking at a broad climate change campaign, then consider using ‘the changing climate’, which is a much less polluted word (excuse the pun). Consider the health and wellbeing impacts of taking action to reduce our use of fossil fuels, to protect the beautiful things that we love – including our family and the landscape around us. It is important to establish synergies between the natural environment that sustained this country during the industrial revolution, and the natural resources that we are still so rich in to enable us to meet these new challenges.

When looking at a more specific subject like energy efficiency, then avoid making it about the cost, rather consider a more traditional approach of ‘don’t be wasteful’, with emphasis on the common sense of not using what isn’t needed, of what can be done for the family and home if money is saved on energy.

A campaign that captured the essence of c’onservative communication was the Mastercard ‘Priceless’ campaign: it attributed values of family, of enjoyment, happiness and conscientiousness in the space of a short advertising campaign.

A final word on what struck me about communicating to this audience was how wrong you can be in assuming values to be important when in fact they are not. Our teachers always said in class “the only stupid question is the one you don’t ask;” this rings true in communication as well, so find out about who you are communicating to, test your assumptions with them, and find out what does work!

  • Cost of a marketing flyer: £50
  • Research into your audience: £1000
  • Establishing a shared and ongoing approach for tackling climate change: PRICELESS

Watermelon man

Public awareness and difficult decisions: what can we learn from George and Joey?

Patrick Pringle, UKCIP

In his budget speech earlier this week, one phrase leapt out. In announcing a tax on sugary drinks Chancellor George Osborne said: “I am not prepared to look back at my time here in this Parliament, doing this job and say to my children’s generation: ‘I’m sorry – we knew there was a problem with sugary drinks. We knew it caused disease. But we ducked the difficult decisions and we did nothing’.” Great, I thought to myself, a politician acknowledging the need for bold moves now in order to help future generations. A recognition of the need for actions that will bear fruit long after we have forgotten why Matt LeBlanc of Friends fame was pulling donuts in a car not too far from the Chancellor’s window as he drafted his budget. Indeed long after we have forgotten all about both George and Joey. But why does climate change feel so similar, yet so different?

As with the health implications of too much sugar, the science is pretty much settled on the fact that our global carbon diet is unsustainable. And like climate change, unhealthy eating will have inter-generational implications and require actions now to avoid costs later. Yet climate change seems to be treated quite differently. Firstly, it seems the Government are more comfortable to talk of ‘difficult decisions’ and costs when it comes to Dr Pepper and his friends, but more reticent when in comes to climate change. This approach is reinforced by broader climate policy language of low cost options, ‘win-wins’ and ‘low-hanging fruit’. It is well researched that preaching fear on climate change can lead to paralysis, but are we avoiding an honest dialogue with the public by over-sweetening the debate on action? Is it time to make the case for keeping global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees C, warts and all, rather than showing so little faith in the publics’ ability to comprehend and support action?

Such a dialogue requires the public to be properly informed, which brings me to my second point. The effects of climate change are already being felt yet efforts to engage the public are left to the media or to an expectation that they will wade through dense policy documents. Surely the Government should play a key role in informing it’s own citizens? The last year, the Committee on Climate Change stated that “the available evidence suggests that public awareness of how climate-related risks are changing is patchy” (page 115) yet the Government rejected (page 23) their recommendation that responsibility for public awareness of climate risks should be assigned to a single Government Department. So when the electorate hear of yet another record being broken (Just days ago, NASA reported that February exceeded historical average temperatures by more than any month in history, a whopping 1.35 degrees C above the norm, albeit supercharged by El Niño) they are left to their own devices to interpret what this means for the UK, their communities, their streets and their homes. This failure to engage and inform the public regarding climate change impacts was evident during the 2013–14 floods; talk of dredging filled the airwaves yet the silence on the risks of future flood events due to climate change was deafening. The reality of the argument that awareness-raising is everyone’s responsibility is that it rapidly becomes no one’s responsibility.

The Government’s recent statement on the need to enshrine the Paris commitment to net zero emissions in UK law appears a positive step. Energy minister Andrea Leadsom told Parliament that “The question is not whether but how we do it.” I would have thought more critical are “how and when”. If we are serious about 1.5 degrees C, the nature and timing of the changes required will need the support from the electorate to make them happen. Which means engaging and informing us in a serious and considered way. It will also require strong leadership, and the language of ‘tough decisions’ and inter-generational responsibilities, not just of ‘win-wins’ and low costs. The sort of language we’ve heard on sugary drinks earlier this week.

If he reflects on his budget statement and on climate change, the Chancellor may want to consider a quote from his new Friend Joey Tribianni: “It’s not what you said, but the way you said it.”

 

Building adaptive capacity in Scotland

In 2014, Adaptation Scotland ran a six-month pilot programme called the Adaptation Learning Exchange (ALE). The initiative was set up to support public sector groups with all aspects of adaptation. Now in its second year, this approach is about bringing individuals together to collaborate on tasks, encouraging learning and networking opportunities, and creating a positive working environment to allow participants to make progress with adaptation. The programme allows Adaptation Scotland to provide more support across Scotland’s 142 public bodies than the more traditional one-to-one approach.

The ALE is a collaborative process, supporting organisations with adaptation planning through the sharing of knowledge and ideas, highlighting good practice and increasing learning and networking opportunities. The ALE introductory programme runs on an annual cycle and organisations from the public sector are invited to join the six-month programme through an application process in the late spring of each year. Of the successful applicant organisations, two staff members from different departments have the opportunity to attend three workshops on different adaptation themes. The focus of these workshops vary depending on the adaptation needs of the participants, but have included topics such as developing a business case, and identifying and using peoples values to communicate on adaptation. On completing the programme, participants are invited to be part of the ALE network on an on-going basis.

What makes the ALE programme so unique is that it does not prescribe an exact formula to adaptation. We offer the participants a number of tools and resources that are available to support them with adaptation, including Adaptation Scotland’s five step guidance to managing climate risks (pdf, 1.8 MB), though these are not used to structure the programme. Our experience is that adaptation requires a flexible and iterative approach. It needs to be tailored based on the participant’s unique context and there are very few tools that allow for this flexibility.

One of the challenging aspects of delivering the ALE is tailoring the workshops to make it relevant to everyone given the diversity of the participants involved. We do this by inviting a range of external speakers to present on a particular adaptation initiative and by offering task groups to the more advanced members to allow them to progress with a specific adaptation goal. For the task groups time is allocated to work on, for example, a climate risk assessment, and participants must come prepared to work intensively on the task at hand. The task groups add another dynamic to ALE from it being a learning and networking opportunity to it also being a mechanism for participants to achieve their goals within a set timeframe. As the ALE members come from a wide range of backgrounds, from engineers, planners and risk and resilience managers, when they come together on the task groups, they pool their expertise to strengthen the result of the adaptation challenge.

The ALE has also raised awareness of the need for – and promoted – collaborative working between public bodies. On evaluating the 2014 programme, all of the participants commented that the networking opportunity was one of the most valuable aspects of the ALE, and that ‘the workshops reinforced the need for collaboration.’ With this feedback, we have encouraged dialogue between participants who are facing similar challenges, have aligning goals, or based on their geographic location. This has allowed one council to work with Transport Scotland to tackle problems with landslides on the roads and another council to work collaboratively with a university in the same area for a more joined up approach to managing the risks from climate change.

As we come to the end of the second ALE programme, we are looking for ways to improve our approach by reflecting on what worked well and what was challenging. Our experience is that the overall success of programmes such as these is based on the trust and rapport developed among participants and this can only be achieved over time and through face-to-face interactions. We are already noticing an increase in adaptation progress and confidence from our first year ALE members and we hope that this year’s members will continue to thrive with the starting point we have provided for them.

To find out more about the ALE and details of the workshops please visit the Adaptation Scotland website.

Time to get radical – why the current NAP falls short

New report suggests the vision for adaptation in the UK needs more ambition, alongside much more meaningful action to reduce our vulnerability to climate change.

Ouch. Dig below the surface and the new report from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) doesn’t pull its punches. The National Adaptation Programme (NAP) is intended to give the UK an action plan to address the ever-growing risks of climate change. Yet the CCC found that it “gives little sense of strategic purpose… [and] does not amount to a coherent programme” (Adaptation Progress Report 2015, p29). This is worrying. The CCC’s Adaptation Progress Report highlights that as a nation we are becoming more, rather than less, vulnerable to a number of key climate risks, including flooding and heat, and it suggests the NAP is falling short.

The evaluation does point to positive progress in the NAP, but many of these achievements are limited to the delivery of pre-existing activities. Critically, there is limited evidence that these policies and actions are having a meaningful impact in reducing our vulnerability to climate risks. At UKCIP we are drawn to the conclusion that the bar has been set too low. Our interpretation is that the CCC’s findings point to a need for a far clearer vision of the nature and extent of the adaptation challenge before us, and for a more ambitious set of actions than we have seen in the NAP to date.

Will the CCC’s recommendations alone be sufficient? At UKCIP, while we agree with much of what the CCC is proposing, we would welcome a much broader, integrated agenda. The challenge of climate change is on a huge scale, and we need to respond in kind.

For example, the recommendation to improve public awareness of climate risks is very welcome, but should this not include empowering future decision-makers by embedding the principles adaptation, and mitigation, in our education system? Why are ecosystems that provide essential services not considered as a part of the nation’s ‘critical infrastructure’ in the same way that a motorway might be?

We worry too that the phrase ‘cost-effective’ appears many, many times without clear explanation. Cost-effective for whom and over what time period? While adaptation needs to be proportionate, at UKCIP we worry that this is a potential weakness; a ‘get-out clause’ for those refusing to acknowledge the scale of the challenge we face, even in our own lifetimes.

However, it’s important to remember too that the very existence of this report from the CCC, which is a product of the Climate Change Act 2008, is something to be celebrated. When we talk to colleagues across Europe, the Act remains the envy of many, providing a critical foundation upon which the UK can build both adaptation and mitigation policies. Governments from around the world will be looking to the UK to see what we have achieved. Although progress is being made and the UK can rightly consider itself among the leaders in adaptation, we must be more ambitious. And we must turn words into action.

What next for adaptation in the UK?

While the outcome of the election was perhaps clearer than many expected, the picture for adaptation is, at best, opaque. Climate change barely figured in the election campaign, and the Conservative manifesto makes no direct mention of adaptation in the UK.

However, the Conservative manifesto outlines programmes that will demand effective adaptation planning, for example, investment in transport and communications infrastructure. There’s also a commitment to further spending on flood defences.

But there are plenty of other decisions that will demonstrate the new government’s commitment to and understanding of adaptation: will the government’s Climate Ready adaptation support programme for England be extended? How will the UK government work with the devolved administrations to deliver adaptation across the UK? The Climate Change Act 2008 is safe with the new administration, but looking ahead to further spending cuts, will the Act’s adaptation objectives continue to be adequately funded?

There’s plenty still to do before the UK can be said to be “adapting well” to climate change. UKCIP is looking forward to working with others to move significantly closer to that goal in the next five years.

Climate Local – helping local authorities become climate resilient

Despite climate change falling off the agenda in recent years, and in the face of growing budgetary constraints, local authorities across the UK are still delivering their adaptation aims. By working in partnership with others, councils are seeking to make their services more climate-resilient, whilst also encouraging their local communities and business to do the same.

The recent severe weather events we’ve experienced over the past few years (winter flooding as well as summer droughts), has helped bring to the fore the potential socio-economic impacts a changing climate can have on councils and the local communities they serve. The cross-party pledge on climate change that was announced earlier this year by the three major UK political parties, further signifies the growing importance of this agenda.

The Local Government sector continues to demonstrate its role in tackling climate change: Climate Local is a Local Government Association initiative, launched in June 2012 to support local authorities in delivering their climate change objectives, and providing a platform for the exchange of best practice and allow peer-to-peer learning. With support from the Environment Agency’s Climate Ready Support Service, the voluntary programme aims to provide useful tools and guidance for councils to help them embed climate resilience work in their core activities. Currently, 102 councils are signed up to the initiative, committing to over 1900 individual actions on climate change, of which 26% fall under the climate resilience theme. Adaptation activities that are delivered under the Climate Local banner range from strategic actions such as embedding climate change in council activities, to on-the-ground action such as delivering green infrastructure projects to combat flooding and address the urban heat island effect.

An important strength of the programme is the virtual network which reaches beyond the council signatories and provides the sector with an easily accessible wealth of knowledge on all things climate change. The Climate Local virtual network is 400+ members strong and growing, offering access to tools, guidance and events.

Looking ahead, Climate Local and partner organisations will be working more closely with councils to support them in developing a business case for embedding adaptation work, and will continue to promote the sharing of best practice on adaptation across the sector.

To find out more about the initiative and the work of council action on adaptation, please visit the Climate Local website.