Government’s proposed approach to the second round of the Adaptation Reporting Power

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing society today.  We must avoid making the problem worse, so cutting emissions is a priority, but we already face continued global warming over many decades to come that will impact on the UK. Building the UK’s resilience to climate change is an economic, social and environmental challenge that cuts across every sector of society.

The Climate Change Act (2008) gives the Secretary of State the power to direct Reporting Authorities (organisations with functions of a public nature and statutory undertakers) to produce reports detailing:

• the current and future predicted impacts of climate change on their organisation;
• proposals for adapting to climate change;
• an assessment of progress towards implementing the policies and proposals set out in previous reports.

This is known as the Adaptation Reporting Power (ARP). The ARP aims to:
(a) ensure climate change risk management is systematically undertaken by Reporting Authorities; (b) help ensure public service and infrastructure are resilient to climate change; and (c) monitor the level of preparedness of key sectors to climate change.

In 2009, the Secretary of State laid before Parliament a report on the approach to exercising this power for the first time. We consulted on our approach to the second round of the Adaptation Reporting Power (ARP), which is looking to further build the country’s resilience to a changing climate.

In the second round of reporting the Government has proposed a voluntary approach - we will invite key organisations to report their assessment of their current and predicted climate change threats and opportunities as well as proposals and policies for adapting to climate change. Government is therefore not intending to issue directions under the second round of the ARP.

Whilst an Impact Assessment is not mandatory given the voluntary approach to this round of reporting, we have produced one to support this consultation. This was undertaken as an instance of good practice in evidence based policy making. We also sought views on the analysis and conclusions of the IA.

Adapting to climate change