Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Official Report 514KB pdf

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Draft Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme

Our final item is on the Scottish Government’s draft Scottish climate change adaptation programme. Our panel of witnesses consists of Kay Jenkinson, a communications specialist with the UK climate impacts programme; Professor John Rowan, professor of physical geography at the University of Dundee; and David Thompson, senior analyst at the Committee on Climate Change. I welcome you all.

There are a number of themes that we wish to examine. They are broad ranging, so questions will flow from the initial points on each theme. As regards the impacts on Scotland, can you summarise the scale of the challenge that Scotland faces in adapting to the climate change that we are currently expecting?

I do not know whether you are aware of the report that the Committee on Climate Change published a couple of years ago, “How well is Scotland preparing for climate change?” In that report, which was published in November 2011, we summarised at quite a high level some of the key threats, and indeed opportunities, that face Scotland with a changing climate. Without going into all the detail, we highlighted the potential opportunities that come with higher average temperatures. That is not just for Scotland—it is UK-wide. There could be fewer winter deaths and lower demand for heating. There are potential positive implications for energy bills. There is also the potential for new crops or new types of crops, and for an expansion of the area that is currently suitable for agriculture. We need to be careful there, as there may be some negative implications if that results in soil carbon being lost from the cultivation of peat soils, but there is still an opportunity. The melting of the Arctic ice sheet will have negative consequences in many ways, but it could result in new or enhanced trade opportunities. There may, however, also be risks from expanded shipping. We should not be blind to the fact that there may well be some opportunities with the change in climate, although there will be a number of threats.

One thing that our committee highlighted in its 2011 report illustrates the approach that it tends to take when assessing risk, using an understanding of the scale of vulnerability to current climate and weather conditions. We noted that a number of social, economic and environmental characteristics are likely to increase the vulnerability of Scotland to climate hazards. At a high level, they include the uneven spread of population. There are pockets of densely built-up areas that are at risk from flooding, particularly surface-water flooding, and some very remote communities are vulnerable to disruption of transport links and critical services from any increase in the frequency and magnitude of storms.

There is an ageing population. That is not unique to Scotland, but it is a particular issue. There are also health challenges, particularly among communities with deprivation, which means that the vulnerability to climate hazards, particularly flooding, is generally higher.

A number of economic sectors, such as food and drink, tourism and energy, are sensitive to climate. Indeed, the global nature of Scotland’s economy, which has large export businesses—in 2011, the value of exports to the Scottish economy was in the region of £21 billion a year—means that there is the potential for exposure to international impacts of climate change, which need to be considered.

A number of the critical national infrastructure networks—transport, energy and information and communication technology—are concentrated in strategic corridors. That means that they are exposed to severe weather events such as landslips. A number of ports are also potentially at risk.

Of course, Scotland has a wealth of natural resources, such as forest area, moorlands and peatlands. I think that Scotland contains more than half of the UK’s deep peat soil resources, which are not only important culturally and economically but highly sensitive to any changes in climatic conditions.

A range of vulnerabilities could be of increasing significance with a changing climate and need to be considered in any response to climate change.

I endorse everything that David Thompson said. That gives the physical framework, but alongside the physical impacts of a changing climate are the demands that it puts on our society to accommodate the change in attitudes and behaviours. We really need to take citizens with us on the journey to adaptation.

In the research in which we have been involved, we also found that there are many interdependencies in the impacts on infrastructure. It is challenging to unpick those interdependencies, but it is also necessary to do so to ensure that a failure in one sector does not cascade and create failures in other areas.

Will you expand on that a little?

One example that we have quoted is that, when there are lots of school closures because of heavy snow, the national health service suffers because many of its staff have to stay at home to look after their kids. We need to unpick interdependencies that, like that one, are not obvious, but others are a bit clearer. For example, a water pumping station is dependent on energy supply so, if that energy supply is under threat, the station may have problems if it does not have sufficient back-up power. There are interdependencies like that, but it is also important to think about ones like the link between school closures and the NHS.

Thank you for the examples.

Both my colleagues gave a clear summary. The other classic example of cascade concerns a power station or emergency services facilities in a flood plain. If a flood hits a police or fire station, the emergency response is consequently compromised thereafter.

Regarding the most significant threats and opportunities for Scotland, we have already seen examples in marine fisheries, which are important for Scotland. For instance, the mackerel and herring stocks are moving further north. It is considered that they are following their food, and their movement has caused problems with Iceland and the Faroes over fishing in certain areas. If the seawater temperatures continue to rise, what further impact will that have on fish stocks that are important to Scotland now? Will there be any movement of fish stocks from southern seas into the Scottish areas?

I must confess that I am not an expert on marine matters, but one of the obvious consequences of climate change is the migration of species into new climate spaces. As the cold water species move north and move into the territorial domain around Iceland, other warmer water dwelling species move north. For example, we see the movement of bass further up the coast than has hitherto been the case. I think that that is an inevitable consequence.

Could the introduction of those species be commercially viable for the Scottish fleet?

Potentially, but it raises issues about whether the current regulatory framework and trade agreements are flexible enough to cope with changes that could be driven in part by climate. We do not necessarily know that changes in fish distribution are solely due to climatic changes; they could be due to fishing practices. I, too, am not an expert in fisheries or marine matters, but I would like to highlight the fact that, whatever the cause, changes in fish stocks mean that there needs to be a more flexible approach to the regulatory framework for managing fish stocks.

I want to be clear on something. Taking account of the impact of climate change not just domestically but beyond these islands as it would impact on Scotland, do you think it fair to say that the negative aspects of climate change greatly outweigh the positive opportunities that you have touched on?

I am thinking about the stuff that I have seen in academic literature and other grey literature in the media. For many communities, wherever you are, the negative consequences are the ones that we have seen most widely reported. There will clearly be some opportunities but, from where we are now, most of it looks pretty negative.

On a global scale, the overall picture is more negative. Let us take agriculture as an example. There will certainly be some parts of the world—including, perhaps, north-west Europe—that in the shortish term, over the next 20 or 30 years, may benefit from an increase in temperatures by 1° or 2°, and the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere could also increase yields. Other parts of the world that are heavily reliant on rainwater for irrigation clearly will not benefit, so there could be shifts in global food production as a result. However, even in areas that could benefit from increased temperatures and CO2 concentrations, there may be other issues that make it harder to exploit those opportunities, such as the availability of water. It is never a straightforward picture, but most experts and academics would suggest that, on balance, the risks and threats outweigh the opportunities.

A lot also depends on our response to the change. If we are able to minimise the change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and if we can adapt to accommodate the changes, the negative impacts may be minimised. If we are not good at doing either or both of those things, clearly the consequences will be more severe.

So if we adopt a wait-and-see approach, as opposed to being extremely proactive now, we will be storing up considerable problems for ourselves.

That is unquestionable. There are clearly opportunities to increase production in agriculture and forestry, and it is often said that there could be positive benefits for tourism, and those are to be grasped. Similarly, there are major opportunities in embracing the low-carbon economy and in creating business and enterprise around enabling technologies and cultural practices to make that happen. However, the risks of inaction or delayed action are universally agreed to far outweigh the benefits.

11:30

That does not mean that a do-nothing or wait-and-see approach is always wrong. It may sometimes be appropriate and proportionate not to take a great deal of action as long as we are continually thinking about and monitoring the impacts over the long term.

As long as the decision makers are explicitly considering the risks and not turning a blind eye, a wait-and-see approach could be an option, so I would not discount it completely. There are measures that can be taken now across almost all the sectors that are vulnerable to climate change and its impacts in order to build resilience. The key issue—which our committee is always trying to understand in assessing progress on adaptation—is whether the level of uptake of those measures is where we would expect it to be, given the risks from climate change.

We found in our analysis in England that some measures had not attracted the uptake that we expected. Property-level flood protection measures are one example, as there was a very low uptake in England despite the flood risk to more than 1 million houses. In a well-adapting society, we would perhaps see greater uptake of such measures now as well as in the future.

The witnesses mentioned that places such as ports are at risk, as is anything that has been built on a flood plain, which is not surprising. Have any geographical areas in Scotland been identified as more vulnerable than others?

I will answer that first. When we did our report in 2011, we tried to answer that question as far as possible and to understand spatially where the highest levels of vulnerability and risk were located. However, we struggled to find much of the data. That was two years ago, so perhaps things have improved—I know that the Scottish Environment Protection Agency has done more work on flood-risk mapping since our report was published.

Generally, however, we found it difficult to quantify risk in specific locations. We said in our report that improvements could be made to enable us to better understand and quantify risk.

There are particularities of Scottish geography, such as the significant upland ranges and the coastal and island maritime areas in the west and the northern isles, that increase susceptibility to such issues. For example, one major concern might be the ferry communications with the Western Isles and the northern isles, and there are major issues that are critical to the stability of the deep peat in the Cairngorms in the Highlands.

As David Thompson mentioned with regard to infrastructure and communications, we have a dense population that is concentrated in the central belt, with major arterial connections between centres of population that are particularly susceptible to problems such as landslides that block power lines and damage roads and railway communications.

This may not answer the question that you are asking, but the groups in a community that would be severely affected by climate change are those who have been identified as vulnerable, such as the elderly, the very young and the sick. Climate change just adds to their vulnerability. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has done quite a lot of work on climate justice, which is the idea that the impacts of climate change are not felt uniformly throughout society but are felt disproportionately among the most vulnerable. That approach is about the characteristics of communities and groups in society, not just the physical landscape.

It would be interesting for the committee to see the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s work on that.

Indeed. I am thinking about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s approach in its report. One scenario that has been discussed involves the gulf stream and the north Atlantic drift weakening, Scotland getting colder and the pelagic fish that have gone north coming back down south, which is entirely possible. As the climate would be colder, we would need to produce more electricity if we do not insulate our houses. We would need to adapt to various aspects of that scenario.

Do the IPCC’s estimates and calculations allow us to plan for specific policies that would enable us to cope with those potentials between now and the end of the century?

My colleagues are probably better qualified than I am to talk about this, but I think that there has always been an envelope of risk and probability with climate projections. There is also natural variability, which always throws in, say, an unusually warm winter, a very cool summer or whatever. It is not that temperatures are moving up and things are getting warmer, but that our kind of personal envelope of risk is getting broader. Because of natural variability, we will still have cold winters—indeed, we have seen as much recently—but I think that, as far as risk is concerned, we will just have to be better prepared.

I agree. With regard to decision making, particularly in the long term, there is a huge amount of uncertainty about the precise nature of future climate projections. Even if we did not see the weakening of the north Atlantic drift that the convener referred to, there is still uncertainty about the range of temperature rise and, in fact, a lot more uncertainty about what that would mean for rainfall. When making decisions in the face of such uncertainty, particularly decisions that will have long-lasting consequences—for example, the provision of infrastructure that will last 100 years—decision makers must as far as possible consider the different range of climate futures in any decisions that they make today. That might sound straightforward, but it is not often easy to do in practice.

I also point out that only one of the three IPCC reports—the science report—has been published so far. The next report, which is, I think, due at the end of March next year, will look more at impacts and vulnerabilities. Although it will not be on a nation scale, it will give a better idea of what, according to scientists and their modelling, the update of the science that was published last month will mean for actual impacts. That is where I think more information will emerge about the potential weakening of not just the north Atlantic drift but global ocean currents and what that might mean. It is a good example of the need to plan for a range of futures as much as possible.

There are also accepted ways in which organisations can look forward at and have foresight of such issues. For example, in the adaptation workstream of ClimateXChange, which is the centre of climate change expertise that the Scottish Government has set up, research is under way on scenarios on futures to allow us to look at possible climate projections from the UK climate impacts programme—UKCIP—the IPCC and others and put together an envelope of climatic futures. We can superimpose on that an understanding of socioeconomic futures through scenario analysis and then bring the two domains together to see how, say, a nature@work, command-and-control or business-as-usual socioeconomic environment would play against those climate futures. By examining the interplay of both, we will be able to look at the range of possibilities and take on board the flexible adaptation pathway principle that will allow us to make some response. As long as we are monitoring and keeping an eye on what is going on, we will, I hope, be able to anticipate short-term shocks or longer-term chronic changes.

Indeed, the flip-flopping associated with the relocation of the north Atlantic drift is a classic example. As that might happen, we need to ensure that we are at a certain level of preparedness and have thought through some response options.

I would like to develop the discussion a little bit. In recent years, we seem to have moved away from stating with absolute certainty that things will happen to saying that things are highly likely or just likely to occur; indeed, in some cases, we talk about percentages of probability. The UK climate projections for Scotland, which are broken down into three geographical areas, predict an annual temperature increase by 2050 of between 1.9 and 2.2°C, and we even have figures for sea-level rises at various coastal locations, including a pretty specific increase of up to 24cm at Lerwick. What is the percentage of likelihood that such figures are accurate in real terms?

I cannot give you a percentage figure in that respect, but I know that the idea behind the UK climate projections 2009—UKCP09—exercise was to give a range, which it does. It is modelling, so the modelling process will come up with quite a precise number. I think that the modelling for the rise in sea levels is generally more certain than that for temperature or rainfall—precipitation. The model can be quite precise in its projections for rising sea levels.

The Met Office is currently examining the most up-to-date climate models that were used or referenced in the most recent IPCC report. It is doing a project for DEFRA in which it is looking at whether there is a need to update UKCP09. I do not have the details of or timescale for that, but if there is a need to update the projections, the idea is that those will feed into the next climate change risk assessment, which is due in 2017. There is therefore an on-going process of improving the modelling.

To be fair, there has always been—but particularly more recently—the language of uncertainty, as it were, in which people try not to be too precise in the language that they use in order to ensure a general awareness that there is a range of possibilities. However, the modelling comes up with some quite precise numbers, and I can understand how that can sometimes be a bit counterintuitive.

I asked the question more from a point of view that recognises that there are still a number—although it is a smaller number—of people out there who deny that there is a climate change issue. However, there are some pretty scary climate change figures and I think that most of us understand that there is a big problem. I am just trying, for the benefit of that smaller number of people, to get a handle on whether it is likely or highly likely that the figures to which I referred are accurate.

The consensus is that the evidence is pretty unequivocal. The other issue about models is that modelling is a whole culture, with particular applications and a group of people who have particular skill sets. One of the characteristics of the modern modelling approach is that it does not rely on a single model that has its own particular data assumptions and data inputs and its own boundary conditions that set it up. In the big international collaborations, we increasingly see what is called an ensemble approach, in which we run multiple models, which often have conflicting principles built in, and then we generate uncertainty envelopes. For example, we might run 50 different models over a range of timescales with different inputs of data, which would generate a cloud of maximum and minimum responses from which we would then take a median line. In the case of UKCIP, for example, we get 90 per cent and 10 per cent limits that indicate the best and worst cases and what we probably have to plan for, on the basis that it is the most likely case.

One can enter into that through an act of scientific faith, because some of the finest minds on the planet are doing things to the best of their ability—some of the climate modelling is, in fact, rocket science in some respects. Ultimately, however, the policy implications are about taking the precautionary principle because we see what is likely to happen.

A lot of work has been going on to look at the sea-level response in Scotland, which involves quite complicated stuff that is not only about the oceanic response and thermal expansion, but about the local conditions that exist because the Scottish crust—the land mass itself—is still rebounding from ice loading, so we have an isostatic uplift. For the most part, the Scottish land mass is rising and oceanic sea levels are rising, so we have a sort of dynamic equilibrium in Scotland. However, that is not necessarily the case in every other part of the world, so we need models that are locally calibrated and take into account the best science to give us a framework within which we can set our policies and plans.

11:45

I was involved in the communications around UKCP09. We spent many hours discussing internally how we would present the information. The idea behind presenting a range of probabilities is that that allows decision makers to take a flexible approach.

For instance, if a local authority is thinking about the gritting of icy roads—this is probably not the best example, but let us go with it anyway—it would want to ensure that it protects the roads that lead to, say, the hospital’s accident and emergency department. It would be most cautious about gritting those roads. Even if the risk of ice was only slight, it would still grit those roads because its attitude would be not to take many risks. However, it might not really care about the road that goes to the swimming pool, so it might not grit that road. In some ways, a range of options is provided to try to help people to make flexible decisions, so there is not a one-size-fits-all response.

I do not know whether that helps to address your question.

It does indeed.

Further to David Thompson’s earlier point about planning for 100 years ahead, what would you say to local authorities that, when issuing planning consents for major developments, accept road drainage standards that meet only current demands, despite the fact that rainfall may potentially increase in the east of Scotland by 10 per cent by 2050? Should the message be that local authorities need to think further ahead about what is coming down the track, rather than just cater for the now?

Certainly, yes. When we did an analysis of how local development plans in England deal with decisions on whether to locate new developments in areas of flood risk, we found that there was, to be fair, a mixed picture. We looked at around 50 plans in total so, although we did not examine the plans of all local authorities in England, we covered a fair sample. We found that around 10 or so had clearly and transparently decided that, where a development needed to be located in an area of high flood risk because there was no alternative—which is often the case—they would ensure that the development was built to high standards of resilience, such as by incorporating sustainable urban drainage systems and other measures.

However, we also found examples where we could not find evidence of that decision-making process. To us, that suggested that, even though the policy framework rightly requires local authorities in England to think about the long-term costs and benefits of locating in areas of high flood risk and to apply climate scenarios or projections to that, actual implementation on the ground was mixed. I do not know whether that is the case in Scotland, as that example comes from England.

David Thompson also used the interesting word “proportionate”, which should apply to the response. You are absolutely right that any new major infrastructure development needs to take into account what the possible climate futures will look like, so people need to think about the development’s functionality under the anticipated changes. Obviously, the precautionary principle suggests that it is always better to err on the side of safety, but we should add a little caveat about the concept of maladaptation and ensure that the measures that we put in place are cost effective.

To take a classic example, when providing new hard flood defences such as flood embankments in a river valley, you might anticipate that, due to climate change, there will be more frequent high-magnitude flood events, which will increase the local flood risk. Consequently, you might build a flood wall that is designed to the current standard—that is, for a once-in-200-year flood. However, given that we can see that the risk will increase, in anticipation of that change and to provide flexibility downstream, you might put in a bigger foundation at the beginning that would allow the wall to be built a little bit higher. As that involves more up-front capital cost, there needs to be quite a nuanced set of thinking, and we need to ensure that, in anticipating such actions, the response is proportionate.

You mentioned the need to calibrate local models, which is an important point. As well as the causeways that have been built more recently in the Western Isles, there are the Churchill barriers that go between North Uist, Benbecula and South Uist. Fairly recently, five people lost their lives in a storm surge, so I believe that people are already looking at access to higher ground. An increase in sea levels of 18cm around the Western Isles is surely a worrying feature, particularly in relation to those causeways and barriers, which I imagine must be very vulnerable to a rise in sea levels.

I have been involved in research on the issue in the Western Isles, which looked at the south ford basin between North Uist and Benbecula, particularly in the context of the incident in 2005, when the family that you mentioned unfortunately lost their lives. One of the big questions was whether the construction of the causeway had led to a change in the tidal dynamics of the bay, changing the wave environment and causing larger waves to propagate on to the shore.

Superimposed on that is the issue of climate change, which means that extreme events are more frequent, and superimposed on that is the issue of sea-level rise. There are therefore multiple conflicting factors at play, which might explain whether risk is going up or down in a particular location. In the example that I am talking about, Western Isles Council invested a significant sum of money in undertaking the fundamental research that is needed to calibrate local models and understand the risk. Of course, it is incredibly challenging to do that for every location, so it is important that we try to extract the general principles of the work that is done and think things through in terms of national risks.

In its most recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that sea-level rise will probably be higher than it anticipated in the previous report. The eustatic or global sea-level response is now estimated to be somewhere between 28 and 82 cm—approaching a meter—towards the end of the century. Of course, that is a global response. We have to put that into the context of the Scottish response, which is conditioned by—I hesitate to say this—Scotland’s dynamic land surface, which is still responding to the legacy of glaciation.

Surely such a rise would take in an enormous acreage of flat land.

It very much depends on the configuration of the coastal zone, the shoreline and, fundamentally, local exposure in terms of how waves generate a coastal flooding problem.

I was a member for the Highlands and Islands, as was Jamie McGrigor, at the time of the flood that you mentioned. The bit that you are talking about is between Benbecula and South Uist.

Yes.

You said, “North Uist”.

Sorry. Forgive me—

No, no, it is all right. I am just making sure that we are talking about the same place. However, everywhere is affected. We have islands that are punched out by the ocean, and causeways were put between them with only a narrow outlet to enable the water to get through. That is the adaptation issue par excellence in that area.

That is a classic example. I suspect that when that particular causeway was put in place we had not properly thought through some of the issues.

That is interesting.

I believe that the causeways were put in place during the war, for defence purposes.

The ones further south were, as were the Churchill barriers in Orkney.

Yes, those too. Wartime activity led to that work. We have learned since then, to our cost.

We will move on. Dick Lyle will ask about approaches to date.

Good morning to the panel—it is still morning. Our summary of UKCP09 makes for grim reading. It talks about drier summers and changes in soil conditions, climate, coastal evolution and water temperature—I could go on and on. What are panel members’ views on Scotland’s approach to date to preparing for the impacts that are associated with climate change? What more could we be doing now?

We looked at the issue two years ago and assessed what was then Scotland’s adaptation framework, which is evolving into the climate change programme. We talked to a lot of key people in Scotland, including leads in the Scottish Government, agencies such as SEPA and SNH, local government, businesses and water companies. At the time—this was in 2011—we found that there had been good progress, particularly in raising awareness of adaptation and the need to build key organisations’ capacity to think about long-term climate issues, which has not been on people’s radars until fairly recently—the past five or 10 years or so.

We saw evidence that, as we talked about earlier, the policy frameworks in a number of areas such as land-use planning, building regulations, marine planning and forestry are thinking long term and about the uncertainties around climate change as part of their planning processes, particularly long-term planning. It is good news that the issue is being thought about in many sectors. However, we did not see that in all sectors. We did not see much evidence of thinking about the uncertainties of climate change in the provision of infrastructure, particularly the renewable energy programme and broadband roll-out. It could be argued that those are on shorter timescales but, even so, we did not see much evidence of such consideration, even of the implications of climate change for the siting of new developments and new infrastructure, which we thought was concerning.

We felt that the framework at the time did not give sufficient weight to the important contribution that Scotland makes to global efforts to safeguard peat carbon stores, and that the need for peatland restoration was somewhat underrepresented. That is a key issue when it comes to adaptation to climate change because if peatlands are in poor condition, for a variety of reasons, they will not be resilient to changes in the climate and they are more likely to haemorrhage carbon rather than lose it gradually.

As in England, we saw a mixed picture on the uptake of resilience measures. For example, as in England, there was low uptake of property-level flood protection measures, although there was high uptake of drainage in urban areas, which was encouraging.

One of the key issues—although it never sounds that exciting—is that it was not clear what is being put in place to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of adaptation, the adaptation framework and the programme in helping to build a more resilient Scotland. There is more work to be done in thinking about the ways in which to monitor and evaluate whether the adaptation policies are effective. That could be through developing the sort of indicators that we in the Committee on Climate Change and ClimateXChange are working on, which can really tell us what is happening on vulnerability in key sectors. Are decisions being made that are increasing vulnerability to climate risks in future, or, as I mentioned, are we seeing uptake of the sorts of measures that we would expect to see to reduce vulnerability? It is difficult to know, because in many cases we do not have the data or the indicators—or we cannot populate the indicators—to tell us what is happening.

That is a key gap, and it exists not just in Scotland but in England and, I am sure, elsewhere. In fact, many countries across the world such as Germany, Canada and the European Commission—that is not a country, I know—are looking at ways of developing adaptation indicators. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is considering the issue for its member countries. So in many respects, it is a hot topic. Any country’s climate change programme needs to think about it at the outset. Monitoring and evaluation should not be added on once a policy is in place; they should be built into the programme at the outset. That is important.

I echo David Thompson’s comments on monitoring and evaluation. UKCIP sees a lot of the work that is going on at ClimateXChange and adaptation Scotland. There is a good research resource in Scotland. UKCIP is host to the adaptation and resilience to a changing climate network, which is a network of research projects that is funded by the research councils. There is a lot of activity. Many of the projects are across the UK, but a lot of them include research that is going on at Heriot-Watt University, the University of Edinburgh and many other institutions.

There is a huge resource of knowledge in Scotland on adaptation generally, but we really need to embed the monitoring into the programme to have an understanding of the progress that is being made and to learn the lessons. It is important that there is on-going evaluation so that if we undertake a particular activity or policy in one direction and suddenly it is not quite working, there is an opportunity to change it, to start again or to shift something. It is important to be flexible. As David Thompson said, globally, the UK as a whole is perhaps further ahead than other countries, but we are still finding our way. We have to be brave and embrace that.

12:00

That idea of bravery is an important thing, to my mind. Politically, Scotland and the UK have bold and ambitious targets for mitigation, so there has been a tremendous political drive around carbon reduction and the move to the low-carbon economy. In some respects, adaptation has been not necessarily a Cinderella but a little bit left behind because the political priorities have been around the targets for mitigation. Adaptation is much more at the beginning of its journey in Scotland. It is a journey that goes on indefinitely, as it does not have an end point but is constantly under review, reflection and evolution.

Both of my colleagues spoke about the various frameworks that brought us to where we are. The adaptation programme that is in front of us could do with being set on some firmer foundations and principles, and I think that it could have a bit more ambition and vision within it.

Thank you for that. Graeme Dey said that there are a lot of sceptics out there. Scotland is leading, and the UK is looking at the issues. We are admitting it, but other countries are not, such as China and America. From a humble politician’s point of view, I ask what the scientists are doing to convince the politicians in other parts of the world that we need to change and had better change now or we will not be able to change in 50 or 100 years’ time.

I guess that the scientists are trying to do it through the IPCC process and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, with mixed success. I mentioned the IPCC report earlier. We have only seen a third of it so far, but more will be coming out in the next six months or so. The next report, in March, will highlight even more than has been done so far the risks, impacts and threats, as well as some of the opportunities that we have talked about.

The science is telling us what the world faces. I suppose that scientists can only do so much. They are there to put the information out, and they are doing the best that they can in many respects. Let us see what more comes out from the IPCC over the next six months.

Thank you.

I am very interested in all that you have said. Returning to the idea of modelling, which Professor Rowan mentioned, it seems to me—I declare a chemical engineering background—that if we want to model what happens to water in flooding, we can do that. Water is something that we understand pretty well. It does not go away, we know its density and viscosity and we can do lots of things to model it pretty accurately. There are some second-order effects about temperature, to which you alluded, but we can get pretty accurate numbers out of that work.

However, you also mentioned socioeconomic modelling and the responses of societies. I have to say that I know nothing about that. It sounds interesting, but it sounds virtually impossible to do in the same way as we model water. Will you explain the fundamental theory behind that? How accurate can it be and what can it tell us?

I will start with an example that is based on my experience. I have been involved with the national ecosystem assessment, which is a UK-wide initiative to try to understand the value of natural capital. It says that environmental processes are the foundation of our lives. Where water moves through a drainage basin, if we slow down the flow, it will perhaps prevent flooding, or if we put the water through a wetland, that will perhaps detoxify any pollutants that are in it, and so on. Multiple benefits flow from good environmental management, including increased biodiversity and amenity value.

The NEA was charged with trying to understand the value of natural capital in the UK and, specifically, to think about how we might respond to changes and the different drivers of pressures on the natural environment and mitigate them to allow these natural functions to thrive. Part of that comes into the whole socioeconomic realm.

Members will have to forgive me; as a physical geographer, I do not have particular expertise in socioeconomic situations. However, what characterises socioeconomic narratives and scenarios is their description of a possible future or a series of possible worlds built on certain banking, welfare state or international trade relationship principles; you can characterise societies depending on their functions and forms, develop multiple societal pictures and look at them again, say, in 2050 or at the end of the century to see where you have reached. In short, you use future scenarios of how people might live their lives to find out how we make the journey from where we are now towards where we should be going, and the scenario analysis and climate projection add complexity with regard to how that journey might be made.

Have I made that clear?

I see the drift of where you are going but what intrigues me is the idea that you—not you personally, but anyone—can say anything terribly precise about this. There are lots of precise things that we can say about water, for example, but surely we do not have terribly good models for the behaviour of societies—or do we? Are there people who really know how these things work?

I, too, am not an expert on this but an analogy is sometimes drawn with the Treasury’s economic models, which cover what people are going to buy and so on. In the same way that we cannot predict what the climate is going to be like in future but we have lots of information to help us take out some of the outliers, socioeconomic scenarios and models help us to envision a certain pattern for the future. I have to say that I do not how well used they are.

I think that they are well used. Questions of levels of precision and uncertainty are not appropriate here; instead, you are trying to characterise what the world might look like. In fact, the two polar examples in the national ecosystem assessment are labelled that way. In the “Green and Pleasant Land” scenario, there is an emphasis on localism and local food production; it is very much in the low-carbon spirit and features very strong community relationships and good relationships with Government. In short, the environment is working for us and people are living in harmony with it. The “World Markets” scenario, however, features an entirely capitalist framework in which everything is driven by the minimum cost. The market is completely global and connected, and we do not necessarily care about the consequences of our taking goods, services or human resources from other parts of the world to fuel our local economic need.

In one respect, you might characterise the second scenario as market-driven and very much optimised around money, while the first is about harmony, good governance, fairness and equality, education and greenness. In that sense, when we talk about a fairer, smarter, happier and greener Scotland, we can see the way we want to go and the future that we want for the population, and what we have to do is to examine that path and understand how the different climate projections play into our journey towards that future.

Does that make sense?

Yes. Thank you.

I have a question to ask in passing. Professor Rowan talked about the need for bravery and ambition with regard to adaptation, but would those things not flow if we had the means of measuring the adaptation in place? We measure CO2 emissions and set ourselves targets on them, and we beat ourselves up if we fail to hit those targets, which is great. However, we do not have targets for, or measures of, adaptation, so it is harder to show the ambition. If we were better able to say, “We’ve done X and Y; these are the reasons why we did them and this has been the impact,” that would suddenly provide the driver for the ambition. Am I wrong about that?

I accept entirely what you have said. An issue with the draft programme that needs to be resolved is that a much clearer understanding is required of the need to measure and monitor. A much stronger focus on the importance of targets—aspirational or fixed—is also needed. The enabling mechanisms and resources must be put in place to ensure that that happens.

I will draw a contrast. On the mitigation side—in RPP2 and the carbon reduction targets—we can see that, in the second phase, a lot of enabling structures are put in place. We are still at the beginning of adaptation, so monitoring and reporting need to be fleshed out.

It is the job of the Committee on Climate Change to monitor the national adaptation programme in England; we are likely also to be required to do that in Scotland, although that is up for debate. If the Scottish ministers ask us to do that, we will have a role to play in both countries in making the tricky assessment of progress and measuring progress. Our committee’s view is that that is doable, because the indicators that we develop will show us trends. We can then make a judgment on how well—or not—we are preparing.

It would help if the objectives that are set out in the programmes for England and Scotland were as outcome focused as possible. That can be difficult, but they should give clear outcomes for what they seek to achieve, and they should give timescales. A number of objectives in the draft programme are laudable—it uses terms such as “increased resilience”, so we could measure whether resilience is being increased—but there could be more specific outcomes.

For example, an objective might be to ensure that flood risk does not increase, even with climate change. We can measure whether flood risk is increasing over time with climate change and whether there are factors that increase or decrease flood risk. As I mentioned, we could consider whether there is the expected level of uptake of flood resilience measures, and whether decisions are being made that are likely to increase flood risk by, for example, developing in areas of high flood risk.

It could be argued that some outcomes could be more measurable; either way, the CCC feels that we could still come to a judgment. We would report to the Westminster Parliament and the Scottish Parliament on progress. That would be as objective an assessment as possible, which would use the indicators that we are looking to develop.

We have had quite a number of bites at the cherry of the draft Scottish adaptation programme.

I am interested to hear about the monitoring and evaluation and about looking at outcomes on things such as resilience. As our convener said, you have covered a lot of issues that relate to the draft adaptation programme. Do you have further comments on whether it reflects the impacts that Scotland faces as a result of climate change? I do not dare to use the word “accurately” after the discussions today, but are the impacts broadly reflected?

The ClimateXChange—the centre of expertise on climate change—was given the task of working on baselines and indicators. The approach that has been taken in the work that has been done has looked at the major risks, as identified by the climate change risk assessment as it pertains to Scotland. The aim has been to develop a set of indicators on risk exposure and local vulnerability, and to put that in the context of possible and real examples of impacts. Further to that, process indicators are being looked at, which concerns how effective, tailored, appropriate and proportionate are the response measures.

As part of the ClimateXChange, people at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and at my institution—the University of Dundee—have been doing that work for a couple of years with the James Hutton Institute, and I think that we are making significant progress. Initially, a sectoral approach was taken, whereby an attempt was made to look at the levels of adaptive behaviour and response in each of the 12 sectors of the economy in the original framework, but following dialogue with the policy teams, we are now looking much more thematically at the natural infrastructure and society framing the key themes that are coming through in the adaptation programme.

12:15

We have a prototype set of indicators in place, and we are working closely with the adaptations sub-committee to ensure that they are appropriate. Ensuring that we can get timely access to data is an on-going issue. We want to be as parsimonious as possible—as light an approach as possible makes for the most effective means of communication.

Work is continuing. We have a target to deliver the indicators for the natural environment section in the form of an annual report by the end of this year. Next year, we will move on to look at transport, infrastructure and the built environment.

Do you foresee any budgetary implications? You used the word “parsimonious”. I am not quite sure whether you were using it in relation to budgetary constraints.

I was using it in relation to simplicity of communication. It is clear that I did not succeed in using simplicity of communication in that instance.

I have a further question about the budgetary implications for research. I am not asking for numbers, but will there be a future need to carry out more research?

The whole area of monitoring and evaluation is extremely dynamic at the moment. This morning, UKCIP launched a report, which we co-wrote, on monitoring and evaluation. It is a live area. My colleagues will correct me if I am wrong, but it feels as if there is no “This is how you do it” sort of thing available at the moment. Many people have carried out monitoring and evaluation, and tools and models are available, so I believe that it will be an area of continuing research for some time.

As an academic, I would always say that we need more money for research. You would expect me to say that.

More resources will help to deliver the right tools as quickly as possible. A process of dialogue is going on, which involves David Thompson’s group and Kay Jenkinson’s organisations. International dialogue is going on, too; there have been discussions with Canada, Australia and Finland about their approaches to indicators and monitoring. I think that we are homing in on the answers, so I hope that we will be able to deliver something useful.

I support that. There are costs involved in development of indicators, because the data are often not available in the format that would be ideal for us to use as indicators. In England, we have found that there has been a cost—I am not talking about huge amounts of money, in the scale of things—of developing and populating the indicators that the CCC will use in 2015, when we will report to the Westminster Parliament. I envision the situation being similar in Scotland.

I would like to touch on how the draft Scottish programme has been set out. The fact that it involves three themes and nine objectives is very neat; the ordering is extremely logical. The English programme has seven themes, 31 objectives and 374 individual actions—I know that, because I have been through all of them. What I like about the draft Scottish programme is that it is clear and well ordered. For each of the three themes, there is a similar objective on improving understanding of the effects of climate change, which involves research into impacts.

We could certainly do some evaluation on just how effective research is in terms of our understanding and improving our knowledge of impacts. Even though objectives are not always outcome specific, there are ways to monitor progress on implementation and on whether the programme is doing what it needs to do, which is basically to enable the building of resilience in Scotland.

I would say of one or two climate threats that it is not immediately clear how they are being picked up, although that is a personal view. I do not see, in how the objectives have been set out, how issues around resilience of businesses and supply chains are dealt with. The issue that we touched on earlier, around social vulnerability and equity issues, is, I presume, in the society theme, but at the moment it is not completely clear how those threats and potential opportunities are picked up.

I am interested to hear you raise that point, because I was about to ask about it. In the adaptation programme, there are references on page 51 to communities and on page 52 to businesses, but it seems to be quite thin, in the climate-ready society theme, in relation to communities or families on low incomes. I do not see very much about that in terms of resilience, although I was quite heartened when you talked about your

“green and pleasant land”

in Scotland. I was concerned when I looked at the programme that there is not much identification of the problem that some people might face. Do you have comments on that?

As I understand it, in the evolution of the adaptation programme, there was at one time to be a separate section on economics and business, but I think that it did not gain sufficient traction in terms of the process and has been folded into the society section.

I also thought that the threats with respect to business could be developed more fully, and that social dimensions of environmental change and the vulnerability issues with respect to communities and individuals, which Claudia Beamish spoke of, could have attached to them more weight within a revised version of the programme.

Very good.

I would like to come back to a point that David Thompson made earlier. We want in the adaptation programme to ensure that we have resilient low-carbon power. You remarked earlier—I did not want to go into detail at the time—on your concerns about siting of renewable energy projects. What is that about?

In our 2011 report we considered sectors that make decisions on long time frames. Generally, decisions about siting and design of infrastructure and their associated networks are quite long-term decisions. Some are more long-term than others; for example, the construction of a rail bridge has a 150-year time frame, whereas—arguably, perhaps—ICT and some forms of renewable energy are not based on such timescales, and are more like 20 or 30 years. We could not find much evidence to suggest that decisions that are made about siting and design of some types of infrastructure assets—low-carbon renewable energy and ICT—explicitly considered how the risks of climate change may impact on them. In other sectors—land use planning, building regulations and forestry—it is clear that the long-term climate impacts are being explicitly considered and accounted for.

I am concerned about siting. We talk about offshore wind, onshore wind and wave and tidal power. Which are you concerned about?

We did not go into that level of specificity.

It would be helpful to know.

One of the problems is that some climate projections are very uncertain. They are all uncertain, as we said earlier, but they are very uncertain when it comes to implications for wind speed, and to some degree in forecasting the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events such as storms. It is harder to apply such projections in long-term decision-making than it is to project other climate impacts. We did not see any explicit evidence that that was even considered in the first place. It was an issue that we raised in our report in 2011. We feel that the Scottish Government and relevant actors—Ofgem and others—need to consider in more detail and depth than we were able to do, in what was quite a high level report, those issues in their decisions.

We will reflect on that. Thank you very much. It is quite useful to use this round-table approach. Your evidence has been very valuable. We have a series of panels to welcome here before we write to the minister about what we think of his adaptation programmes. Your work on that is very welcome.

Our next meeting is tomorrow, 10 October, when we will hear from the Minister for Environment and Climate Change on the draft budget.

Meeting closed at 12:26.