Objectives Targets & Indicators for Adaptation to Climate Change

1. Objectives Targets & Indicators for Adaptation to Climate Change A presentation to the expert meeting on climate change vulnerability and adaptation indicators, 3-4 September 2008 Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe, 2000 Szentendre, Ady Endre út 9-11, Gerry Metcalf Knowledge Transfer Manager UKCIP UK Climate Impacts Programme

2. presentation themes Introduction • UKCIP • overview Objectives, Targets and Indicators at National/Regional Scale • Objectives set by an organisation’s aims and purposes • Limitations Performance Indicator for Local Authorities in England • NI188 • Guidance Notes • Structure, Content, Principles Targets at Project Scale • Some suggestions for further support

3. The UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) Mission: To help organisations assess how they might be affected by climate change, so that they can prepare for its impacts. Set up by UK Government in 1997 based at University of Oxford mostly Defra-funded 15 people now 20+ people soon current work-programme to 2011 works through: partnerships and programmes capacity building stakeholder-led research

4. UKCIP is a ‘boundary organisation’ UKCIP facilitates relationships between three groups of key actors UKCIP

5. UKCIP tools portfolio BRAIN LCLIP

6. overview Defra (UK Government) has tasked UKCIP to explore • Targets and Indicators at a national scale • Build upon AEAT study of December 2005 UKCIP (or at least most individuals at UKCIP) • Struggle to see the potential of this approach However, there are some parts of UKCIP decision-making sequence at which • Objectives, Targets and Indicators are indicated and appropriate Three examples of how UKCIP has embraced these concepts • Strategic Objectives • Performance Indicators • Targets at project scale Descriptive rather than analytical. No clear conclusions

7. (strategic) objectives at a national scale Strategic Objectives • Achieve the aims of the organisation eg Strategic Plan • In the face of changing weather and climate • Can exploit opportunities as well as managing threats • Can be monitored in terms of: business continuity, service delivery Examples • Chinese Regional Adaptation Strategy (Food? Income? Community cohesion?) • Local Authority Community Strategy (Systemic, Resilience) Commentary • Is aspirational but may not be achievable • Sets a clear mission without the need for elaborate decisions at the outset • Can use exiting performance indicators against which adaptation plans can be tested

8. performance indicator for local authorities New Performance Framework for Local Authorities • Includes a voluntary Performance Indicator on ‘Adaptation’ (NI 188) • One of a very few PIs that are ‘process based’ • Sets out 5 Levels of achievement, partial achievement in the early stages • Targets agreed for completion of specified levels at the end of Years 1, 2, 3 Advantages • Sets out a pathway which others can follow (or vary) in due course • Remains strategic in order to build a ‘well adapting’ local authority • Includes ‘Building Adaptive Capacity’ as well as ‘Delivering Adaptation Actions’ • Responds to pragmatic non-sequential progress through project management plan Needs • Clear examples of tools, methods, etc to define elements of achievement • Self-assessment tool as well as a top-down audit using thesame framework.

9. Key elements of achievement for levels in NI188 1. Taking a leadership role 2. Engaging partners 3. Assessing current vulnerability 4. Assessing future risk 5. Developing Adaptation Approach & Strategy 6. Completing Adaptation Action Plan 7. Implementing Adaptation Actions 8. Monitoring/ review and feedback Level 0 Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4 Partial achievement Comprehensive achievement

10. UKCIP tools portfolio BRAIN LCLIP

11. Targets and indicators at a project scale Benefits • Not just desirable, but a necessary part of decision-making at project scale • What are we trying to achieve? How might it be achieved? • At what cost? Over what time period? Issues • Some targets will derive from absolute specifications? • But even some apparent absolutes must ultimately be negotiable? • Involves concepts of ‘risk’ and ‘probability’. • Number of days over which a school must close each summer in 2050s? • Extent of protection to City of London in the face of specified surge in sea-level? Monitoring • Some targets may be set for the long term. • If these are quantified it should be possible to monitor interim progress

12. Targets: max number of school closure days Topic • School classrooms become unusable inside at 31o C outside Type of Target • specify the maximum number of days/summer that the school has to close Reasons for target • Seemingly health and safety but actually reputational/political Absolute Target or Pragmatic Target? • Zero days of closure per summer or 3 days of closure per summer? Evidence needed • Number of days where temperature exceeds 31o C outside (Weather Generator) • Technical adaptation responses and associated costs Informed Target Setting • We will seek no more than 5 days closure in the projected summers of 2020s

13. summary and conclusions Strategic Objectives • Doubts about application at a national scale • Particularly if intending to be ‘outcome based’ • Important though to set overall criteria for adaptation ‘Outcome Based’ or ‘Process Based’ • ‘Outcomes’ not realistic through multiple: time, place, receptors, weather-variables • ‘Process’ more realistic but not fashionable and dependent on well known and well-specified elements of stages in the process Targets • OK at project scale. Can this approach be developed for more strategic planning? • Should a target driven approach be developed at all? • Some serious problems experienced in UK with target-driven approaches in other policy areas.

14. www.ukcip.org.uk