Water Supply: Climate Change

(asked on 17th March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with reference to the Adaptation Committee’s recommendations on page 28 of the Climate Change Committee's report of June 2021 entitled, Progress in adapting to climate change: 2021 Report to Parliament, what plans his Department has to take steps to mitigate the implications on water management of a two degrees Celsius warming scenario.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 30th March 2022

Adapting to climate change is essential if we are to meet the 25 Year Environment Plan goal of achieving clean and plentiful water.

The Climate Change Committee’s Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk offers a detailed insight into the growing risks and opportunities the UK and its natural environment faces from climate change. This evidence has informed our third Climate Change Risk Assessment, which we laid in Parliament on 17 January 2022, and will inform the development of the third National Adaptation Programme, expected to run between 2023 to 2028. NAP3 will address the risks and opportunities for a 2ºC warming scenario, to continue to build a more resilient country, with a focus on enhanced ambition, implementation, and evaluation.

The Environment Agency is committed to designing an approach to working with regulated industries around impacts (including those related to water scarcity) associated with a 4°C rise in global mean temperature by 2100.

The Environment Agency’s National Framework sets out how we expect to see improved collaboration to aid the environment and the sustainable use of water resources. This approach will inform water companies’ statutory water resources management plans, which set out how they will secure water supplies in the long term. The statutory plans must take account of future pressures, including climate change and drought resilience improvements. To further improve water demand management, the Government is consulting on a water demand target under the Environment Act 2021.

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