The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy is today
publishing the Government’s response to its report, Readiness for
storms ahead? Critical National Infrastructure in an age of
climate change, which was published in October 2022.
The report called on the Government to get a ‘proper grip’ on the
major national security risks posed by the effects of climate
change on critical national infrastructure (CNI). The Chair of
the Committee, Dame , warned when the report
was published that there was a disturbing lack of evidence that
anyone in Government was responsible for situations in which
climate change was affecting multiple CNI sectors at the same
time, creating “cascading crises”.
The Government’s response included input from the Cabinet Office,
other government departments (including the new Department for
Energy and Net Zero), and bodies such as the Met Office.
It described the Government’s work to capture the linkages
between the UK’s most critical infrastructure, to identify and
mitigate against risks, including through a ‘CNI Knowledge Base’
tool.
The government’s response to the report is published in full
here.
Commenting on the report and the Government’s recent publication
of its Resilience Framework, which also deals with CNI, Committee
Chair Dame said:
“We welcome many aspects of the Government’s response to our
report on infrastructure and climate adaptation, including its
ongoing work to identify interdependencies between infrastructure
sectors, developing work on energy resilience, and improvements
to climate prediction and modelling.
“We are also looking forward to engaging with Ministers on
the forthcoming National Adaptation Plan, which we understand
will address some of our recommendations.
“We are concerned, however, that the Government is not
treating this issue with the urgency that it requires. The
long-awaited Resilience Framework, published in December,
included some positive actions, particularly on local resilience
forums and cross-government risk management. The Government is
choosing, however, to delay imposing any new resilience
regulations on operators of critical national infrastructure
until the end of this decade.
“This is akin to organising a fire safety awareness course to
respond to a blazing fire.
“Ministers should accelerate this timetable to ensure that
our vital infrastructure is properly adapted to the changing
climate, and resilient to the more frequent extreme weather
events that we are already experiencing, both globally and in the
UK.”
Further information
