Environmental Audit Committee: STUK’s Response
We spoke, the Environmental Audit Committee listened, will the government take action?
Shade the UK's take-aways from the Environmental Audit Committee’s recommendations report on ‘Heat Resilience and Sustainable Cooling’.
What does it mean to build the resilience of individuals and communities in a warming, changing climate? Shade the UK advocates that for any approach to be meaningful, we need to adopt a human-rights lens that leaves no one behind. Climate justice and the support of the most vulnerable needs to form our immediate priority. In the long-term, we need to be addressing the structural and social-root causes of vulnerability (such as deprivation and poverty, low quality accommodation and homelessness, reduced access to quality social infrastructure) to create the conditions for thriving communities, lives, and livelihoods for all.
The latest National Adaptation Programme (NAP3) largely brushed aside the social dimensions of vulnerability [1] and failed to put forward proposals in support of the most vulnerable [2].
So when an open call was put out last summer to submit written evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee's inquiry on 'Heat Resilience and Sustainable Cooling', with one of the questions being around the effectiveness of the NAP3, Shade the UK felt this was an opportunity to speak out about this severe failing, affecting us all.
Our key proposals to the Committee were that the Government needs to:
Ensure priority is given to the homes of disadvantaged communities in deploying the national housing retrofit programme urgently needed to support the transition to net zero (which is yet come).
Ensure that the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, worth 2.6 billion, prioritises adaptation interventions within deprived neighbourhoods
Secure sustainable, long-term funding at the scale needed to support local authorities, healthcare, and education providers to improve their services and capacity in deprived areas.
We were by no means the only ones from those that responded to the inquiry who raised similar points; and judging from the Committee's report, they listened.
The Committee endorsed the criticisms raised for NAP3, and in response included a dedicated section in their report on 'protecting the vulnerable'. We see this as a win; albeit the section is relatively weak and is the only part that doesn't put a direct demand on the Government.
The Committee instead calls on the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to develop and publish "advice to central government and local authorities on a suite of practical initiatives which can be taken to support the populations which are particularly vulnerable to extreme heat". This is good news as equity in climate action is a key focus and priority for UKHSA [3].
Issues of climate justice have also filtered through elsewhere in the Committee's recommendations when they call on Government to:
“take action to expand urban green space, particularly in disadvantaged areas” which are 'currently underserved’' [4].
Establish a "comprehensive national retrofit programme to adapt UK's housing stock for both net zero and thermal comfort" that puts priority on vulnerable households [5].
Secure "adequate long-term funding" for local authorities whom they put forward as the best placed to deliver the retrofit programme [5].
In light of the above, and the many written and oral responses from various stakeholders within the report, it is clear that there is consensus over what we need to do, where the priorities lie, the fact that local authorities are uniquely placed to deliver adaptation programmes, and that there is dire need for long-term secure funding to support their work.
Our understanding that climate resilience is inextricably linked to equity, social prosperity, and community cohesion also seems stronger than ever [6]. And it remains to be seen whether this or the next Government will listen to all voices advocating for urgent, meaningful action.
Shade the UK is part of the ongoing discussion on what it will take to make our cities resilient to climate change and prioritise the most vulnerable whilst trying to bring their voices and lived experiences to the table.
See our full response to the Committee’s inquiry here.
[1] Although not all regions of the UK are missing the mark; in stark contrast is the Second Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme 2019-2024 which adopts a human rights-based approach, and places climate justice and the support to vulnerable communities at its core.
[2] It failed in many other ways and has received severe criticism by many respondents about not setting the UK up for the action that's urgently needed. The Committee summarises this in their report as follows: "Whilst NAP3 is an improvement on previous iterations, and identifies the right areas where action is required, it is mainly a compilation of existing policy and initiatives and does not demonstrate sufficient urgency or ambition with regards to heat resilience measures." See Shade the UK’s full response of NAP3 here.
[3] Familiarising ourselves a bit more with the work of UKHSA and especially their report "Health Effects of Climate Change (HECC) in the UK, State of the evidence 2023", the Committee's proposal is probably wise (albeit the only one that doesn't portray Government as a responsible party for action). UKHSA have recently established the Centre for Climate and Health Security and are already establishing initiatives, that bring together multiple partners across government departments (education, transport, environment agency, science and technology), local authorities, and other stakeholders, working hard to ensure a joined-up aligned approach across sectors and governance stakeholders.
[4] Summary, par. 36 and Conclusions par.4. According to Natural England's Green Infrastructure Database (par. 32 of the report) only 3% of people have access to green space in the 200 most disadvantaged urban Lower Super Output Areas (LSOA).
[5] Conclusions and recommendations, par. 10 and par. 67 in the main text. The importance of secure, long-term and adequate funding cannot be overstated in the context of the current economic reality, where long-term withdrawal of government support is leading local authorities to declare bankruptcy, and leaving them unable to provide basic social services.
[6] The importance of resilience interventions supporting social cohesion was made loud and clear by Eleni Myrivili: "Social cohesion is the best way of responding to crisis, including heat. We have the Chicago report that came from a heatwave at the end of the 1990s, which showed that the communities that were close-knit and could help each other lost fewer people to heat."
Written by Marietta Gontikaki
