Adapt or cry: 12 random thoughts on climate adaptation

Where to start with the Climate Change Committee's (CCC) new report on climate adaptation? This is a genuine question given it is 554 pages long and covers the full spectrum of escalating climate risks, a vast range of potential responses, and every corner of the modern economy. It is extremely difficult to condense such a wide-ranging piece of work down to its fundamentals, especially when pretty much every point it makes is important and every proposal it offers would have significant real world implications. Our attempt to provide a 'need to know' guide to the report still ran to over 4,000 words.

One of the many challenges arising from the climate crisis is that it is simply too big. It is a hyperobject, to borrow Timothy Morton's phrase. Getting a grip on climate adaptation requires us to wrestle with climate science, climate mitigation, climate resilience, the full complexity of modern economies, the history of human civilisation, and the essential unknowability of the future. It is about the economy and the environment and even philosophy, which is to say it is about everything. Today's report is over 550 pages long, but the CCC would be the first to acknowledge it is far from comprehensive.

With all that taken as a given (and with apologies to the journalist Jonn Elledge who is the master of listicles that double as opinion pieces), what follows are 12 unconnected thoughts on a report that deserves a wide audience among business leaders and policymakers:

1. The CCC's authority lies in large part in its world leading research capabilities, deft policy analysis, and sober tone. The careful explanation of what 2C of warming by 2050 or 4C by 2100 would mean in practice is all the more powerful when delivered without the faintest hint of scaremongering.

2. But I'm not constrained by civil service style guides - this report is absolutely fucking terrifying and anyone who reads it and doesn't feel scared doesn't understand it.

3. Just take this single factoid: the amount of high-quality farmland is predicted to drop from around 40 per cent of land in England and Wales between 1961 to 1990 to just over 10 per cent by 2050 unless widespread adaptation measures are undertaken. Think about what that means in practice. We have already seen wheat and oat production fall by 10 per cent in 2025 as a result of the record hot, dry summer and much worse summers are on the way. Food security is under pressure like never before. 

4. And this is not just a UK story. The pressure on food systems is global, as shown by a new report this week from ECIU detailing how recent food price inflation is driven to a large extent by climate impacts on cocoa, coffee, and beef and dairy production. Food system collapse really is a plausible scenario, and we are dangerously under-prepared for such an eventuality. As the CCC argues, food stockpiling should be on the agenda. It is truly mad that this is not leading bulletins.

5. The outlook for buildings is only slightly less scary. The CCC reckons that by 2050 over 90 per cent of existing buildings will frequently overheat during the summer months. This is bad enough for millions of homes, but the real pain point is for those who are most vulnerable in schools and hospitals. If I make it to 2060 there is a good chance my future will involve slowly expiring in a painfully hot care home, which is a cheery thought.

6. We can and must adapt, but as the report reminds us there are limits to adaptation. Maximum temperature rules for workplaces will be required to keep people safe and the economic impact every summer will be unavoidable. Some coastal communities, some homes in flood plains, and some rail lines and road links will have to be relocated. Good luck to the politicians tasked with making the hard and expensive choices on this front. 

7. What any discussion of climate risk and resilience struggles to get across is each of these discrete impacts are worrying, but the real terror comes from the way these risks are concurrent and interconnected. The crop failures are happening at the same time as overheating hospitals and the urban wildfires. They are happening in the wake of deadly hurricanes and crop destroying winter flooding. They are all happening against a backdrop of increased global migration and conflicts over water supplies or desertification.

8. None of this is alarmism. It is extremely alarming.

9. As an act of self care if nothing else, let's try and end on a positive note. There are things that can be done to avoid these worse case scenarios, over and above the essential need to get to net zero emissions as quickly as possible. We know how to deploy technical and passive cooling systems. We know how to embrace sustainable farming and nature recovery practices that can protect yields and slash flood risks. We know how to ensure infrastructure and retrofit projects are specced to cope with the climate we will have, rather than the climate we had 20 years ago. Humans are adaptable and we can adapt. And best of all, if the CCC's estimate that climate adaptation can be delivered through an investment programme worth £11bn a year then it is both entirely affordable and an absolute bargain.

10. The CCC is a genuinely inspiring institution. The government really should listen to it and urgently accept policy recommendations and targets that are completely feasible and would deliver obvious and attractive returns on a modest near term investment. This really is a case where common sense should apply. If we can't afford £11bn a year to make the country secure in the face of the biggest long term threat the world faces then what are we even doing here?

11. And yet, British politics is now so utterly insane that two supposedly serious political parties that may well form the next government want to ignore all these warnings, repeal the Climate Change Act, and disband the Climate Change Committee. It is an act of vandalism. A case of arsonists firing the firefighters. It is as shameful as it is deeply unserious.  

12. Sorry, I wanted to finish on a positive note, but couldn't quite manage it today.