Northern Ireland’s third Climate Change Adaptation Programme published
Northern Ireland’s third action plan for building climate change resilience was launched today by DAERA Minister Andrew Muir. The third Northern Ireland Climate Change Adaptation Programme (NICCAP3) takes a whole society approach with over 280 actions included from a range of stakeholders across the public and private sector including Translink, NI Water, local councils, academia, the community and voluntary sector and businesses.
Minister Muir told the launch of the action plan: “We are already experiencing first-hand the impacts of Climate Change through the frequent and severe storms we are witnessing and more frequent and extreme flooding events. We have seen new climate sensitive animal diseases arriving on our shores and more intense wildfires – all of which are impacting upon our communities, businesses and environment.”
The adaptation action plan brings together actions from across government and a range of key stakeholders in response to the latest UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA).
The action plan was welcomed by Ciaran Fox, Director of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects and Chair of Climate NI who said: “Adapting to the changes we are seeing in our climate is not something that can be achieved working in isolation, and NICCAP3 is a testament to the joined-up collaboration which is needed to build our resilience to the impacts of climate change.”
The plan sets out over 280 actions to help all sectors of society to adapt to and improve NI’s resilience to the impacts of climate change. The cross-sectoral NICCAP3 contains a range of climate actions, covering areas within natural capital. infrastructure and business sectors as well as many others.
Climate NI worked with DAERA to gather input to NICCAP3 from organisations across local government, civil society, academia, NGOs and the private business sector. The inclusion of these actions alongside actions from government departments shows the important work and contributions to climate adaptation that all sectors make to building climate resilience across Northern Ireland. Climate NI aims to engage NICCAP contributors and other stakeholders to enable climate adaptation awareness and action.
