History of the CCRA

First Climate Change Risk Assessment (2012)

The Government published the first ever UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA1) on 25 January 2012. The Evidence Report assessed over 100 risks and opportunities, narrowed down from an initial list of over 700, and was prepared by a consortium led by the consultancy HR Wallingford. The accompanying Government Report set out the main priorities for adaptation in the UK under 5 key themes identified in the Evidence Report. It also described the policy context, and action already in place to tackle some of the risks in each area.

The CCRA1 Government Report, with links to the Evidence Report is available here.

Second Climate Change Risk Assessment (2017)

For the second CCRA, Defra asked the Climate Change Committee (CCC) to prepare the independent Evidence Report setting out the latest evidence on the risks and opportunities to the UK from climate change and updating the evidence base from CCRA1. The CCRA2 Evidence Report considered a smaller list of 56 priority risks and opportunities highlighted by the Government, and summarised the results using a slightly different method to CCRA1, focussing on the urgency of further action rather than the size of the different risks and opportunities. The Government again followed the publication of the Evidence Report (in 2016) with a Government Report summarising the main risks, opportunities and priorities for action, in January 2017. More information can be found on the Climate Change Committee’s website.

The UK Government’s 2017 assessment of UK climate risk is available here.