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 firsthand 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).

Minister Muir said: “The plan demonstrates the positive collaboration taking place across all government departments, as well as in partnership with a range of key external stakeholders, who recognise that building resilience to the current and future projected impacts of climate needs action from across our whole society.”

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 range of climate actions contained within NICCAP3 is significant including a new Peatlands Strategy for NI, City Draining Plans for Derry/Londonderry and Belfast, a Sustainable Agriculture Programme and a new Food Strategy Framework which will set out a long‑term vision for a fair, secure, and sustainable food system for Northern Ireland.

Dr Lisa McIlvenna, Managing Director at Business in the Community NI, stressed the importance of climate adaptation for the economy. Dr McIlvenna observed: “The 2025 NI Environmental Benchmarking Survey report showed that 67% of respondents from businesses had experienced direct or indirect impacts from climate change in the past five years. The impacts of climate change on businesses are escalating, disrupting productivity and supply chains, damaging premises and infrastructure, increasing insurance costs, and posing physical health risks to employees through severe weather and flooding.

"Many businesses across Northern Ireland are already experiencing the damaging effects of these events, and climate projections suggest the risks will only increase. Building resilience to climate change now is critical to protecting our business sector and the wider economy.”

Notes to editors:

1. NICCAP3 seeks to build upon the progress made under the previous two adaptation programmes to continue to adapt to and build our resilience to the impacts of climate change – both those which are now locked in and those which are projected under the MET Office's UK Climate Change Projections.
2. In June 2025 DAERA launched an 8 week public consultation which sought feedback and views on the draft NICCAP3. A summary of responses to the consultation was published on the DAERA website 30 October 2025.
3. The consultation found that 83% of respondents supported the alignment of the structure of NICCAP3 to the CCC's monitoring framework, 89% supported the inclusion of actions from outside of departments and an average of 72.4% of respondents feeling that the actions outlined across each of the 13 thematic areas within NICCAP3 would support a well-adapted Northern Ireland.
4. Following completion of the public consultation exercise DAERA carried out in August 2025, in consultation with other Departments, DAERA made a number of refinements to the draft NICCAP3 prior to seeking Executive agreement to lay it in the Assembly.