Climate Adaptation
Community-led Climate Adaptation – our future programme to help your community become resilient to climate change
If you want to work with us – please make contact – see below
When people talk about climate change, they often focus on how to stop it by taking actions that produce less carbon – for example, switching from petrol cars to electric vehicles, using public transport, reducing energy use, or installing solar panels on your roof. This is called mitigation.
But there’s another very important part of addressing climate change: adaptation. That means learning how to live with the changes in our climate that are already happening. In the UK, we’re already seeing more extreme weather, like heatwaves and floods. So, we need to get ready for a different kind of future.
Adapting to a different climate is not new. In television nature shows—like those by David Attenborough—we have seen how animals adapt to new environments. For example, in the UK, some birds have changed their migration patterns due to milder winters, choosing to stay in Britain year-round instead of flying south, and even changing their diet to adapt to garden feeders and new food sources. People have always adapted too. The difference now is that the speed of change in our climate is increasing. We need to act quickly to keep our communities safe and strong.
Sadly, the people who are most affected by climate change impacts are often those who have the least—less money, poorer health, or fewer resources. We are also seeing an increase in climate anxiety because people are really worried about climate change. They see the risk to their communities and families from a rapidly changing climate and feel powerless to take decisions or actions that will keep them safer.
How can developments in the science help us?
The Met Office have been modelling the likely changes to climate in the UK and can provide projections from available information for 10, 30, or even 50 years. This gives us the likely changes in heat, rainfall, or other weather-related information. This information is similar to the weather reports we already use on our Weather App on mobile phones i.e. where we see ‘<5% chance of rain tomorrow’, but further ahead in time. This new information from the Met Office enables us to establish the level or percentage of ‘risk’ to our communities and provides data at the level of granularity individual communities can work with.
What needs to happen?
The provision of weather-related climate risk information is only one part of the solution to help us to adapt effectively. We also need to understand what those new weather patterns will mean for our communities. This information can then be delivered in a useful and practical way. It will help decision-makers across national, local and community levels to take timely and appropriate action as well as providing residents in communities with a clear understanding of what is possible and what they themselves can achieve.
That’s where The Greening Campaign comes in. We’re working with the Met Office and many other partners to develop a community Adaptation Resource to empower local people and local experts to help their own communities prepare for the future. We’re here to listen, learn, and support.
What We’re Doing
We are creating a programme to help and support communities:
Look at the past
How has your area been affected by things like floods or heatwaves? What’s happened to homes, businesses, and people? By identifying the real impacts of extreme weather events we can work out the indirect (often hidden and personal) impacts as well as the immediate direct impact.
Communities have the insight and power to gather this information at a local level, engaging local voices that will influence, inform and support better decision making at a local, regional and national level. The community will also decide whose voice is important – the older members, the vulnerable, those less able, local business, etc – not just decision makers’ voices or big business. When groups of communities undertake this process it can lead to an understanding of the true effect of weather impacts across a wider area- giving councils and government the information they need to act.
Plan for the future
With help from the Met Office, we will look at what weather impacts the changing climate might bring in the future, using data at a more granular scale to allow for community microclimates. Using the stories from the past, we will better understand how future traumatic climate events could cause disruption across the community. Met Office multi-sector stakeholder workshops will then support the identification of potential intervention points where action and changes now, or in the near future, can reduce the long-term effect that a changing climate has on people’s lives and homes.
We Will Support You to Take local action
Every community is different. We will help you figure out what works best for your area, using your local knowledge, skills, and resources. Once we have listened to past experience and mapped the likely impacts for the future, the community can produce a very simple, focused report and action plan using our template. This will provide information for residents of that community, identifying action for households; action at community level; at Parish or Town level; at Borough level; at County level and above – often working together.
For the Greening Campaign, the important role of the community is to make sure that everyone’s voice matters, and everyone has a voice in planning for a better, safer future for their own community.
Here are some examples of local actions:
Setting up cool spaces or shaded areas for vulnerable people during heatwaves.
Understanding the types of trees that will flourish in the future so you plant trees that can live in a new climate – we need to plant now to retain the recognised veteran tree lined streets and woodlands we all love.
Identifying older homes in the community that due to the building materials used will not tolerate the expansion and contraction of extreme heat and extreme wet; protecting these homes from disintegrating- insects that damage buildings are also likely to increase and we need to understand what that means.
Planting trees along roads to reduce heat island effect – where tarmac heats up during a very hot day and acts like a radiator when you try and sleep at night so your core cannot cool down, which is necessary to prevent heat exhaustion.
Setting up community energy projects to reduce risks of mass power cuts in storms and flooding, and maximise the energy reaching homes in hot weather.
Planning to change working hours so outdoor workers are not exposed to extreme temperatures in the middle of the day – what are the ramifications of these changes eg open gardens closing for 3 hours in the day?
Understanding and preparing for new diseases and new insects that carry them like mosquitos and ticks. How do we keep ourselves safe?
Work together: We will connect people at all levels—local, town, and county—to make sure efforts are joined up and effective.
Our Focus
We believe local people should be at the heart of adapting to a changing climate and effective planning. And we’re making sure that those who are most vulnerable are included, seen, heard, and supported, so that everyone can face the future with confidence.
Interested in running a campaign or finding out more?
Please contact the Greening Campaign and we will talk you through all the options. We want to support you to enjoy running The Greening Campaign - our future is your future - we all live on the same planet!
