Develop a climate change adaptation plan in conjunction with relevant partner organisations and involve those communities most likely to be affected

1. This is easiest developed in a step by step process:

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1. Get started: identify the appropriate organisations/individuals to be involved – remember those least interested (whether across local authority departments or hard to reach communities) are often those whose involvement is most important.
2. Increase awareness of climate change adaptation: within your local authority, organisation and community, especially vulnerable communities and the groups working with them.
3. Identify the local situation: using existing tools such as a LCLIP or the ClimateJust resources.
4. Identify who will be impacted: using the data in the ClimateJust map tool supplemented with local knowledge – local context is of key importance and should be used to refine the national analysis provided.
5. Identify the action needed: which will best address the risks using existing tools and examples from elsewhere.
6. Identify success criteria and identify appropriate metrics. Success criteria should relate directly to the risks being addressed and the vulnerability of the communities involved. Examples include: having an established community plan in place and identified community champions that local people know they can go to for advice and support; including climate change resilience as a corporate commitment; reducing the incidence of overheating in care homes; or increasing the resilience of a number of properties known to be at flood risk through the installation of Property Level Protection.
7. Deliver actions: involving the communities that are affected throughout the process to support and improve their resilience.
8. Monitor effects and alter actions: adaptation should be adaptive; that is, capable of being adapted in the future as climate risks become more certain and/or additional research and information is available. Monitoring should be a ‘real time’ continuous process that starts as soon as delivery commences so that actions can be adapted over time as required.

2. Throughout the climate change adaptation process, the following principles are important to help ensure that adaptation will be effective in meeting the needs and increasing the resilience of those communities that are most vulnerable:

• The responsibility for adapting to climate change should be embedded across local authority departments and within other local organisations - climate change is not just an environmental issue, but has major economic and social impacts.
• Climate change impacts will be context-specific and the development of actions and mode of delivery should be tailored to the needs of specific localities and specific communities that are most vulnerable to its impacts.
• Climate change adaptation needs to be communicated appropriately to ensure it is relevant to the target audience and understood to be the responsibility of everyone not just those with climate change in their job title. This also involves targeted engagement with vulnerable groups that may be less willing or able to participate to ensure that their views are heard and taken into account.
• Climate change adaptation actions need to be flexible and have the potential to be adapted in the future as the effects of their delivery are realised and more information is available regarding the impacts of future climate change.
• Learning from others is essential to provide cost-effective solutions that avoid re-inventing the wheel and minimise problems.