Issue details

Proposed decision:   

Adoption of the Kent County Council Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2025-2028.

Reason for the decision

Kent County Council (KCC) recognised the UK climate and environmental emergency on 23rd May 2019, acknowledging the significant threats posed and opportunities presented by climate change. In response, the Council committed to developing and adopting the Kent & Medway Climate Change Adaptation Implementation Plan.

Background

Commitment to ensuring that Kent is well placed to adapt to climate change was made in  KCC’s Strategic Statement Framing Kent’s Future 2022 - 2026. ‘Impacts of Climate Change on KCC Services’ is identified as a risk on KCC’s Corporate Risk Register and accompanied by the action title ‘Adaptation Programme actions’. The adoption of the Kent County Council Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2025-2028 will contribute towards delivering KCC’s response to the UK climate and environmental emergency, Framing Kent’s Future, and reduce KCC’s risk to climate change. Securing Kent’s Future has been considered during the development and proposed delivery of the Climate Change Adaptation Plan.

The Climate Change Adaptation Plan focuses on the assets that KCC manages, the services it delivers and the areas it can influence across Kent. The plan aims to ensure that KCC is resilient to the negative impacts and well-positioned to benefit from any opportunities that arise from Kent’s changing climate. To achieve this, the Climate Change Adaptation Plan will deliver on the following objectives:

·         Raise awareness of the risks and opportunities of climate change across KCC.

·         Integrate climate change adaptation into KCC’s decision-making and service delivery.

·         Explore opportunities to act upon climate risks and impacts affecting services.

·         Encourage climate change adaptation through KCC activity across Kent.

The Climate Change Adaptation Plan has been prepared by the KCC Energy & Climate Change team and includes input from divisions across KCC, including; Environment & Circular Economy, Commercial and Procurement, Growth & Communities, Highways & Transport, Infrastructure, Public Health, Adult Social Care Transformation and Delivery, Education Planning & Access.

Options

1. Do nothing - continue with a business-as-usual approach and allow climate change impacts to affect KCC and Kent as and when they happen without a strategic approach to mitigating them.
2. Revise and adopt The Climate Adaptation Programme for Kent and Medway – adopt a strategy that takes a sector-based approach to adaptation across Kent, but lacks clearly defined roles and governance structures and would require significant financial resourcing.
3. Adopt the Kent County Council Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2025-2028 – which will integrate climate risk management into KCC service delivery, encourage climate adaptation across Kent through work that KCC delivers and has defined roles, responsibilities and governance structures.

Preferred Option

Option 3 is the preferred option, as it not only provides a structured approach to climate adaptation but is also realistic given the financial context that KCC is currently operating within and the role that the council has within Kent.

The adoption of the Climate Change Adaptation Plan supports the delivery of the KCC Environment Plan, which lists adapting to climate change as one of six priority areas of environmental work that the council delivers. It also meets outcomes of priority 3 of Framing Kent’s Future 2022-2026, ‘Environmental Step Change’, which seeks to ensure that the county is well placed to adapt to climate change.