Adapting to climate change: Progress in Wales

The UK Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) first assessment of progress in delivering the current adaptation plan up to May 2023 of Prosperity for All: A Climate Conscious Wales (PfACCW).

Ruth Butterfield

19th Jun 2025
6 min read

Cardiff. — Photo: Taylor Floyd on Unsplash

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Summary

This report is the UK Climate Change Committee’s (CCC) first assessment of progress in delivering the current adaptation plan. All relevant policy development is assessed up to 2023 of Prosperity for All: A Climate Conscious Wales (PfACCW), whether or not it is formally included within the programme document. CCC found that there are some positive examples of plans in place, although this is not consistent across sectors. Delivery and implementation are more limited and assessing progress is hampered by significant data gaps. For more than 50% of adaptation outcomes, the lack of indicator data prevents a full assessment of progress.

Introduction

There is a clear need for a more effective response to climate change in Wales. February 2020 brought devastating flooding to Wales with record rainfall levels and successive storms, and in 2022, Wales recorded its highest temperature of 37.1°C at Harwarden Airport, Flintshire. Continued climate changes will bring hotter and drier summers and warmer and wetter winters alongside rising sea levels. These changes will bring risks across Wales’s ecosystems, infrastructure, communities and economy. The most recent Climate Change Risk Assessment identified 61 risks and opportunities from climate change to Wales, with around half requiring urgent action by the next adaptation plan to reduce future risks.

This report sets out the Climate Change Committee’s independent assessment of progress in adapting to climate change in Wales. We provide this assessment as requested under the current national adaptation plan, Prosperity for All: A Climate Conscious Wales (PfACCW), and ahead of the next national adaptation plan, which is expected in 2024.

Methodology

This report is the Committee’s first assessment of progress in delivering the current adaptation plan. We assess all relevant policy development from across the period of PfACCW, whether or not it is formally included within the programme document. This allows our assessment to provide more comprehensive coverage of all relevant aspects of adaptation policy and planning, beyond the PfACCW plan. We also consider adaptation planning and delivery beyond central government alone, reviewing progress across key public sector bodies in Wales.

Prosperity for All: A Climate Conscious Wales (PfACCW) was published in 2019 and sets out the range of policy measures the Welsh Government is taking to address the most urgent areas of climate risk.

The plan has a strong ambition to increase the capacity to adapt to impacts of climate change. It has good coverage of the identified climate risks and includes associated actions against each (Figure 1). It was supported by a positive monitoring and evaluation framework with clear links to the actions in the plan, to help assess progress.

A separate publication, CCC Adaptation Monitoring Framework explains in detail the approach of the updated assessment framework applied within each chapter of the report. All relevant policy development from 2019 to May 2023 was included in the assessment.

Each sector of the report (e.g., nature, water, health, buildings) includes sections on “Delivery and Implementation Progress” and “Policy and Planning Progress,” which detail specific barriers in those areas.

Figure 1 Key action areas of PfACCW. Source: Welsh Government (2019) Prosperity for All: Climate Conscious Wales Technical Annex. Notes: CCC graphic creation.

Adapting to climate change: Progress in Wales

There are some positive examples of plans in place, although this is not consistent across sectors. Delivery and implementation are more limited and assessing progress is hampered by significant data gaps.

Where policy levers are devolved, there is some good planning but limited implementation progress across adaptation outcomes with high climate risk.

There is credible or partial planning for adaptation for about a third of climate resilience outcomes where there is high climate risk and policy levers are largely devolved. This reflects a lack of clarity in responsibilities for responding to climate risks across the public sector. Across almost all areas, even where there is some good planning in place, monitoring and evaluation are limited or showing insufficient progress towards desired outcomes.

Data to assess progress in Wales across areas which are mostly reserved are extremely limited, despite the impacts of climate risks in these areas being felt across the nations.

Understanding and monitoring the impacts even for reserved policy areas in Wales is key to understanding the adaptation gap overall. There is a lower climate risk to water supply in Wales than in other parts of the UK, but delivery and implementation scores still show mostly insufficient progress.

The assessment was split into adaptation areas structured around assets or systems impacted by climate risks. Often key assets and systems are impacted by multiple risks and require joined up policy responses to manage them adequately.

Priorities for the next national adaptation plan

The next climate change adaptation plan for Wales is expected in 2024. It is essential that the next plan goes further than its predecessor, moving rapidly beyond research and capacity building, to deliver stronger action across sectors.

The key requirements for the next adaptation programme (see also table below) are:

Increased ambition and extending action beyond central government. The next adaptation plan must move from building a knowledge base and increasing understanding to delivering action on adaptation across all of the above areas. The plan should define a vision for adaptation in Wales that goes beyond central government, taking a ‘Team Wales’ approach, supporting and requiring action across the public sector, private sector and individuals.
Wider scope. Prosperity for All: A Climate Conscious Wales provided good coverage of identified climate risks from the previous CCRA. The next plan should build on this, as well as driving action across telecommunications and ICT networks; finance for adaptation for households and businesses; and interdependencies between sectors. Climate risks to these areas are missing from the current programme.
Clarified responsibility. Greater clarity is needed on risk owners and where responsibility for delivering adaptation action sits, to support clear decision making and urgent action. A range of public bodies have a role in realising adaptation outcomes, including Natural Resources Wales, the 22 local authorities, four local resilience forums, 28 risk management authorities, and 13 public service boards. The development of the next adaptation plan should engage with these organisations to define their roles and responsibilities.
Integration with other societal goals. Welsh Government should seek to align adaptation action with its other commitments on well-being, increasing biodiversity and reaching Net Zero, all of which will be at risk without appropriate consideration of the future climate. Our additional briefings on Adaptation and social justice; Adaptation and the nature emergency; and Adaptation and decarbonisation provide more advice on key principles for achieving this.
Strengthened monitoring and evaluation. The next monitoring and evaluation framework, and the data collected against it, will be essential to assess how climate risks are being managed. Indicators for the framework should be developed in collaboration with policy and delivery teams to ensure they are relevant, useful and feasible to collect. The Welsh Government should review how the reporting power could be used to collect information on climate risks and adaptation actions across organisations such as local authorities, water companies, transport providers and other infrastructure owners and operators in Wales.

Lessons Learned

PfACCW provides a good coverage of required research and potential actions across priority climate risk areas. The current national adaptation plan focuses on building a knowledge base and increasing understanding of climate risks in central government. It is accompanied by a monitoring and evaluation framework which aims to set out indicators relevant to the action areas.
There is insufficient progress in delivery and implementation of adaptation and monitoring is limited. We were unable to evaluate progress on delivery for more than half the adaptation outcomes. Across almost all areas, even where there is some good planning in place, monitoring and evaluation are limited or showing insufficient progress towards desired outcomes.
There are some positive examples of good plans in place, although this is not consistent across sectors. There is credible or partial planning for about a third of climate resilience outcomes. However, the variable score reflects a lack of clarity in responsibilities for responding to climate risks across the public sector.
The next national adaptation plan for Wales must go further to drive delivery across the public sector and more widely. Policies should aim to enable action within Government, across the public sector and elsewhere, taking a ‘Team Wales’ approach. To support clear decision making and urgent action, there is a need for greater clarity on risk owners and where responsibility for delivering adaptation action sits. The plan should also be accompanied by a strengthened monitoring and evaluation framework to enable assessment of progress against managing climate risks and delivering adaptation outcomes.
Welsh Government should embed adaptation into its plans for Net Zero, future well-being and increasing biodiversity. Without consideration of climate risks, these other societal goals will not be achieved. The next adaptation plan, as well as plans for other government objectives should recognise the overlaps, maximising co-benefits and minimising negative impacts where possible.