Developing an adaptation strategy

Liverpool City Council has led development of a risk-based adaptation framework on behalf of Liverpool First, the city’s local strategic partnership (LSP). Climate change is now a focus of the partnership’s new Sustainable Communities strategy, and the local area agreement (LAA) includes a commitment to NI 188 – ‘adapting to the known effects of climate change’. 

• Key learnings
• Background to the council
• Who was involved?
• The problems and how we tackled them
• Outcomes and impact
• What could we have done better?
• Next steps
• Further information

The council thought this would be a practical way to communicate about climatic patterns now taking place to service deliverers. The national indicator (NI) runs from Level 0 to Level 4, and last March we started by reaching Level 1.

Key learnings

It’s important to have the support of the chief executive and senior directors.

Workshops with more than 100 senior staff and partners were extremely useful for getting people to start to look at and identify their own issues and experiences. Five workshops, each for 20 people, were held. This was more effective than just presenting them with an independent risk-management framework.

Be prepared to discuss mitigation measures as well. Once people start thinking about climate change and how it affects their work, it is hard to just insist that only adaptation measures are discussed.

The Local Climate Impacts Profile (LCIP) – getting the local news stories – is an important part of the picture to make some reality of the national climate statistics.

Background to the council

Liverpool First, the city’s LSP, has recently refreshed its Sustainable Communities strategy to include more emphasis on tackling climate change. The partnership’s Environmental and Sustainability Task Group is developing an overarching Climate Change strategy, covering both mitigation and adaptation.  And the city’s commitment to 2009 as Year of the Environment provides useful opportunities to promote climate change work.

Climate change work has strong support from the leader and a number of keen elected members, and is being led by the chief executive.

Who was involved?

• Consultants to bring in necessary expertise 
• One hundred senior officers from the council and partner organisations.

The problems and how we tackled them

In November 2008, Liverpool City Council commissioned consultants to develop a climate impacts and vulnerabilities framework.

The first phase of the study involved desk research including:

• a mini LCLIP
• analysis of UK Climate Impact Profiles 2002 (UKCIP02) and future flood risk scenarios
• research on Liverpool City Council’s current approach to climate change and risk management
• a review of good practice
• a benchmarking process on adaptation work by other local authorities.

The council had already begun identifying and prioritising climate change risks and impacts. Some of the initiatives which were already underway or in place included:

• the formation of a Liverpool City Council Severe Weather and Flood Group by the Emergency Planning Unit
• work on the recommendations of the Pitt Review
• participation in the Local Resilience Forum
• the development of risk registers at corporate, service and business unit levels
• preparation of business and service continuity plans for all business units across the council
• preparation of a strategic flood-risk assessment (SFRA), which considers how flood risk zones are likely to expand as climate change proceeds
• participation in workshops on parks and highways and transport run by UKCIP for the Core Cities Group.

In addition, the consultants ran a series of workshops with stakeholders including 100 senior officers from the council and partner organisations. Stakeholders assessed and prioritised climate change risks for their service area, using the council’s own risk management methodology. They identified existing and potential adaptation responses. 

Outcomes and impact

The outputs from the stakeholder workshops, combined with desk research, informed an analysis of climate change impacts, risks and vulnerabilities. A draft report, presented in March 2009, identified priority risks and set out a framework for action to meet successive levels of NI 188 over the next few years. Following a consultation period, the report was finalised in June 2009. 

This work has already enabled Liverpool City Council to reach Level 1, and almost Level 2, on NI 188. It has established a solid framework for reaching Levels 2 to 4 in future years. The stakeholder workshops:

• raised awareness of the issues in and outside the council
• brought in local, service-based expertise
• generated ownership of the emerging framework for action. 

In addition to risks and opportunities common to other parts of the UK, the study identified a wide number of general issues and several issues specific to Liverpool, including:

• Liverpool is relatively well located for future water supplies and natural cooling, by virtue of its coastal location close to the Cumbrian mountains
• given the city’s historically declining population, inward migration associated with climate change refugees may have some advantages for the city
• current risks from flooding – tidal, river-related and rain-related – are significant but lower than some other parts of Merseyside
• rising sea-level will increase future tidal flooding risks, with implications for the spatial development and regeneration of the city’s waterfront
• high winds and storms already cause damage to buildings and occasional personal injury and deaths in the city: climate change may increase these risks
• climate change presents opportunities for local businesses, particularly through increased tourism, leisure and the low-carbon economy – including wind or tidal power in the Mersey Estuary.

What could we have done better?

Clearer messages on climate change mitigation could have been delivered if there had been more coordination between this work and the emerging City Council Carbon Trust Management Mitigation programme. However, this was not practical at the time.

The work has raised issues about the broad-brush nature of the NI, as the process within the city council was very thorough and builds a solid future platform. However, if it was just the Level 1 accreditation that was being sought, that level could have been gained using far fewer resources or a less thorough approach.

Next steps

Greater clarity is needed going forwards on the extent to which adaptation can be developed on its own – primarily focusing on the NI 188 indicator and targets. Or how much it needs to develop within the context of high-level support for sustainable development and climate change generally. 

The study identified potential conflicts between the longer-term needs of adapting to climate change and shorter-term financial considerations. Challenges for the council include development proposals for coastal areas which may face long-term flooding risks, and the potential cost of incorporating resilience measures into new housing and renovation projects. Further work is likely to be needed on the robustness of local and national climate predictions, to enable responsible management of long-term financial risks.

It was hard to close down the debate on how extensive and representative initial partner involvement should be. Some partners have, inevitably, not yet been included. As the work develops, operational boundaries will need to be kept under review.

The first stage report was approved by the Liverpool First Partnership in July 2009.

Further information

Interview with Christine Darbyshire, Team Leader for Urban Regeneration at Liverpool City Council, who talks about the relationship between environmental sustainability and economic development.

Economic or environmental?

The Sustainable Communities strategy – on the Liverpool First website

The North West Climate Change Action Plan – on the Climate Change Northwest website

Contact

Christine Darbyshire
Team Leader, Urban Environment Regeneration
Liverpool City Council
telephone: 0151 233 8260
email: christine.darbyshire@liverpool.gov.uk

Page published September 2009.