Parliamentarians launch inquiry into climate risks to UK national security

The Parliamentary committee dealing with national security issues has launched an inquiry into the dangers posed by climate change to UK national security.

The inquiry, by the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy chaired by Dame Margaret Beckett, is entitled: Critical national infrastructure and climate adaptation. ‘Adaptation’ in this context refers to the planning and measures needed to cope with the impacts of climate change.

An August 2021 report by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that over the next 20 years, global temperature is expected to rise by at least 1.5 degrees Celsius. A more recent report, by the UN Environment Programme, said this could rise to 2.7 degrees this century.

According to the UK Committee on Climate Change (CCC), an independent body, this will cause higher temperatures in the UK, higher average sea levels and more extremes of weather – all of which would have a critical impact on many aspects of life.

The CCC’s most recent report to Parliament said in June 2021 that there are “increasing risks to infrastructure in England from high temperatures, flooding, drought, coastal erosion and, potentially, wildfire in the coming decades”. Among the risks identified are the potential for flooding, buckling railway lines, sagging power cables, shortages of water and damaged digital infrastructure.

Former foreign secretary, Dame Margaret Beckett said: “In the wake of COP26, recent media and government attention has focused on the path to net zero, but the effects of climate change are already with us. The independent Climate Change Committee said recently that climate resilience remains a second-order issue, if it is considered at all by the Government, and this must be addressed.

Our recent report on the National Security Machinery of Government found that risk management across Government was loose, unstructured and lacking in central oversight. We plan to re-look at this issue through the lens of a key risk: the threat to our critical national infrastructure from the effects of climate change.

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown how vital it is for the Government to think through the knock-on effects of a crisis for other sectors. It is crucial that the risks to our critical national infrastructure are managed in a joined-up way: the effects of flooding, for example, can affect sectors such as transport, power, emergency services and water supply in complex and interconnected ways. The importance of these issues cannot be over-emphasised.”