Welcome

Hope you've been enjoying the late September warmth. It's been a while since the last East Midlands Adaptation Network e-newsletter, so there is a lot of news to cram into this one! If you have any comments or questions, please contact Alex.Hopkinson@emcouncils.gov.uk

Adaptation and Planning

As part of the Climate East Midlands Skills Programme, a series of free workshops providing adaptation training for Planners is being held across the East Midlands. Find out more here

"Planning for Climate Change" is a new free online resource for communities to enable them to make informed decisions and have meaningful input to planning consultations. Find out more here

Online Adaptation Resource

Climate East Midlands' free online Adaptation Resource can help you to make the most of the adaptation learning accumulated in the East Midlands, and also draws on evidence and good practice nationally.

Find information on how the climate is likely to change, the consequences this will have and how you can take action to adapt, learning from the work that has already been done in the East Midlands. Information is also available for specific sectors and themes, such as agriculture, business, biodiversity and the built environment.

The Adaptation Resource is constantly being updated. If you have any comments or know of anything that ought to be included, please contact Alex.Hopkinson@emcouncils.gov.uk

Business engagement

A new project to help businesses in the East Midlands become more resilient to climate change has just got underway.

Funded by the Environment Agency and delivered in partnership with the West Midlands, the project will help business to benchmark where they are now, and take steps to improve their resilience to climate change through workshops and peer-support networks. The benchmark tool and survey will be publicised shortly. For more information contact Alex.Hopkinson@emcouncils.gov.uk

Climate change and the East Midlands economy

The East Midlands Development Agency (emda) commissioned the Met Office to examine the way weather has influenced the economy of the East Midlands in recent years, and consider how climate change may influence these relationships throughout the 21st century.

Critical issues identified in the report include:

• The East Midlands is a major producer of energy, and energy production and consumption are sensitive to climate change in a number of ways.
• Manufacturing is vitally important to the region, and is vulnerable to extreme temperatures and flooding. Water-dependent sectors can be affected by drought, and changing temperatures can affect demand for different products.
• Road networks are vulnerable to climate change and severe weather. The 2007 floods caused sections of the M1 to close.
• Agriculture accounts for around three quarters of land use in the East Midlands, producing a fifth of England's total crop output. The 2003 heatwave caused an average 20% reduction in yield across Europe.

The report was published in 2010 and is available from the emda Knowledge Bank, an online searchable database of emda's legacy documents. For ease, the report is also available to download from the Climate East Midlands website.

Opportunity to help shape adaptation support

From 1st October 2011, the Environment Agency is taking on a new role as the Government's lead delivery body on climate change adaptation. They are seeking input via a short online survey, to find out what kinds of adaptation support and advice would be most useful.

More information about the EA's adaptation programme is available on their website.

Measuring progress on adaptation

The Adaptation Sub-Committee (ASC) has published its second progress report to Parliament. The headline messages are:

• While the UK is coping with the current climate, some sectors such as water supply are near their limits.
• A study of nine local authorities suggests that vulnerability is potentially increasing due to patterns of development in some areas and demographic trends.
• Low-regret adaptation options are often not being taken up, reflecting barriers and a need for new policy approaches.
• There is a need for adaptation to be more fully embedded into strategic decision-making, and the report looks at three key sectors.

Download the report here

Construction in a changing climate film

An intriguing new film called "Construction in a changing climate: building for resilience" has been made available online for free. It features on-site case studies, in which a range of industry players demonstrate how adapting to climate change has been integrated into the development, design and construction of their sites.  View the film here