Adapting to climate change means adapting our behaviour and lifestyle to respond to the impacts of inevitable climate change. It means not only protecting against negative impacts, but also making us better able to take advantage of any benefits.

It's not just policies and industries that need to be more climate-friendly, each individual has an impact on his or her environment. Choices that we make in our day-to-day lives can affect the climate.

Adaptation involves all kinds of methods, from designing in flood protection when designing an extension, to planning for changed outside temperatures when purchasing new heating and cooling systems. With warmer summers, cooling will need to be considered in the same way as heating is installed now. All of these can help minimise the effects of climate change

UK Climate Impacts Programme

The UK Climate Impacts Programme has undertaken a series of regional studies for each part of the UK, and identified a range of possible future impacts ranging from best to worst case scenarios. The major consequences that UKCIP has identified are:

• an increase in the risk of flooding and erosion

• greater pressure on drainage systems

• increased likelihood of winter storm damage

• loss of habitat for wildlife

• summer water shortages and low stream flows

• increased risk of subsidence (in areas where subsidence is already a problem)

• increased demand for summer cooling

• buildings becoming uncomfortably hot

• a range of health issues.

Visit the UKCIP website to find further examples - www.ukcip.org.uk These scenarios are to be updated later in 2009.

General climate change predictions

In general, greater warming is expected in the southeast than the northwest of the UK, and there may be more warming in the summer and autumn than winter and spring. Under a 'High Emissions' scenario, the southeast may be up to 5°C warmer in the summer by the 2080s.

Offshore waters in the English Channel could be up to 4.5°C warmer in the 2080s under a high emissions scenario.

The temperature of UK coastal waters will also increase, although not as rapidly as the temperatures on land. Again, the greatest warming is expected to be in the south. Sea levels are also expected to rise; by the 2080s the rise in the south-east could be between 14 and 74 cm above the average levels between 1961 and 1990.

Annual average rainfall across the UK may decrease slightly by between 0 and 15 per cent by the 2080s.

But while this is the average, there will be a big change in rainfall between the seasons, with winters becoming wetter and summers drier. Under the 'High Emissions' scenario, by the 2080s, rainfall in the southeast may be 50 per cent lower in the summer and 30 per cent higher in the winter. This may lead to areas that have never been subject to flood, becoming inundated.

Snowfall amounts may decrease significantly throughout the UK.

By the 2080s, the amount of snowfall is expected to decrease significantly throughout the UK. It is likely to be at least 30 per cent lower, and could decrease by as much as 90 per cent.

Extreme weather events are likely to become more common.

High summer temperatures and dry conditions are likely to become more common. For example, research published by the Met Office Hadley Centre suggests that the summer heatwave we experienced in 2003 could become a normal event by the 2040s: by the 2060s, such a summer would be considered cool according to some models. And though very cold winters will become increasingly rare, extreme winter rainfall will become more frequent. This will have massive implications on household and office cooling with all the associated issues surrounding fuel poverty, energy use and CO2 emissions.

Green house gases growing 15% faster than expected

A new report from the Joint Research Centre (JRC) says that man-made global greenhouse gas emissions increased by 15% between 2000 and 2005, a sharp increase in the expected rate of growth. It also shows that global annual emissions of greenhouse gases increased from 24 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents in 1970 to 33 billion tonnes in 1990 and 41 billion tonnes in 2005.

The new report takes its figures from EDGAR (the 'Emission database for global atmospheric research'), a joint project between the JRC and the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL).

EDGAR is a detailed overview of 35 years (from 1970 to 2005) of greenhouse gas emissions by country and emission sector. It covers not only carbon dioxide but also other groups of chemical compounds known to have a detrimental effect on the environment, such as hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs).

EDGAR used the latest international statistics and data on greenhouse gas emissions to model emissions for every country in the world. It reports on energy production and consumption, industrial manufacturing, agricultural production, disposal of waste materials and the burning of biomass. It also provides data on greenhouse-gas emissions for the 20 years preceding the 1990 Kyoto protocol.

The EDGAR database shows conclusively that greenhouse gas emissions have been rising faster in developing countries than in industrialised ones since 2004, even though developing countries emit lower levels of the gases. Levels of emissions in developing countries are now 3 times higher than they were in 1970 (from 7 billion tonnes in 1970 to approximately 21 billion tonnes in 2005). At the same time, man-made emission levels from industrialised countries have slowed down.

Carbon dioxide showed the greatest growth, but levels of gases such as methane and nitrous oxide have also increased. Emissions of fluorinated greenhouse gases (such as hydrofluorocarbons, which are extremely powerful and long lasting in the atmosphere) have increased by up to 40%.

The EDGAR database fills a gap in current greenhouse gas statistics as it gives consistent information on both industrialised and developing countries. Previous versions of EDGAR have been used for the past 15 years, but information on emission rates in developing countries has been inconsistent in terms of both amount and quality.

The EDGAR statistics will be used to provide a global perspective on worldwide trends in greenhouse gas emissions at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15), which will take place in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Date Updated: 12/10/09