Government climate change adaptation plan ‘deficient’, High Court told

The Government’s plan to adapt to the risks posed by climate change is “deficient” and fails to provide effective protection to the rights of vulnerable people, the High Court has been told.

Labour ministers are defending against legal action brought by activist Kevin Jordan, who lost his home due to coastal erosion, and disability campaigner Doug Paulley, whose health problems are exacerbated by severe heat.

On Tuesday, lawyers for the two men, who are bringing their case alongside environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth, argued the former Tory government’s July 2023 National Adaptation Programme (NAP) fails to properly respond to 61 climate change risks.

These include the health risks posed by high temperatures, the threat to communities and buildings from coastal flooding, erosion and extreme weather events, and the potential issues for forestry and farming due to changing climate conditions, the court was told.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is opposing the legal challenge at a two-day hearing in London.

David Wolfe KC, representing campaigners, said in written arguments: “How the defendant responds to these climate risks has far-reaching consequences for society, including the safety of at-risk individuals from harm.

“Unfortunately, climate change is predicted to worsen for the foreseeable future.”

He said a failure to produce “a comprehensive response” to climate risks means British people, especially the vulnerable, were “subject to specific threats or adverse effects of climate change on their life, health, well-being and quality of life”.

The barrister said the NAP, which is required every five years under the 2008 Climate Change Act, “perpetuated” ministers’ “history of failure in climate adaptation” and should be quashed and rewritten.

He said “inadequacies were not addressed” and certain risks “de-prioritised” amid a “breakdown” of the Defra-led drafting process.

Mr Wolfe said the Government had unlawfully failed to set out “adaptation objectives” in its plan, instead setting “risk reduction goals”.

The law required “concrete outcomes” to be achieved rather than “a generic aim simply to reduce risks”, a judge was told.

The Government also failed to consider the risks to the delivery of the policies and proposals in the NAP, Mr Wolfe said.

Mr Jordan was made homeless shortly before Christmas 2023, after his house in Hemsby, Norfolk, was demolished after coastal erosion put it in severe danger of falling into the sea.

He said before the hearing: “The Government’s adaptation plans are completely inadequate for dealing with the threat that climate change pose to people and the economy.”

Mr Paulley, who lives in a care home and has health conditions which are being exacerbated by increasingly hot summer temperatures, previously warned disabled communities were “disproportionately affected” by climate change and that he was “fearful that in an emergency disabled people won’t be properly protected”.

The two men, who attended court on Tuesday, were “victims” of “unlawful interferences” with their human rights, with there being a “pressing need to ensure their individual protection, owing to the absence or inadequacy of reasonable measures to reduce harm,” Mr Wolfe said.

Mark Westmoreland Smith KC, for Defra, said in written arguments that the campaigners’ case was based on “fundamental factual errors” and was a “unfair characterisation” of the approach taken by ministers.

He said the Environment Secretary – a role currently held by Labour’s Steve Reed – had “broad discretion” over the NAP’s objectives and was “politically accountable to Parliament for them”.

“The nature, ambition and framing of the objectives within the programme are matters for the judgment of the secretary of state,” the barrister said.

He said campaigners were making “semantic” arguments and that ministers had not misunderstood the law.

Mr Westmoreland Smith said consideration of the “uncertainties” for addressing risks was “hard-wired” into NAP and “clearly taken into account”.

He added that “factors related to delivery such as current policy status, funding, timeframes and constraints, and ‘achievability of actions’ were considered throughout”.

The legal action comes in the wake of the European Court of Human Rights ruling in April that countries must protect their citizens from the consequences of climate change in a decision that sided with a group of 2,000 Swiss women against their government.

Mr Westmoreland Smith said the situation in the UK was “entirely different” to that case, which concerned “mitigation targets” rather than adaptation plans, and “does not fall to be considered here”.

The hearing before Mr Justice Chamberlain is due to end on Wednesday, with a ruling expected at a later date.