Climate Change Risk Assessment Independent Assessment (CCRA4-IA) Technical Report

Informing the next Climate Change Risk Assessment Independent Assessment (CCRA4-IA) Technical Report.

The Fourth UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA4) is due to be laid in Parliament by the UK Government in January 2027. CCRA4 is the basis for the UK Government and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, to create National Adaptation Plans and Programmes. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) are coordinating the Independent Assessment (CCRA4-IA) that will be published in 2026, and will form the basis of CCRA4. 

CCRA4-IA will consist of two separate reports: 

  • The Technical Report will synthesise the most up-to-date evidence on the risks and opportunities the UK faces from climate change and assess the urgency of taking additional action to respond to these. The CCRA4-IA Technical Report is being delivered by a consortium of experts, led by the Met Office. 

  • The Well-Adapted UK Report is a new output for CCRA4-IA. The Well-Adapted UK Report will set out how to address the risks assessed as urgent within the Technical Report, including proposing quantitative targets for adaptation outcomes. The CCRA4-IA Well Adapted UK Report is being delivered by the CCC. 

For both the Technical Report and the Well-Adapted UK Report, the Call for Evidence is critical for improving the robustness and transparency of the methodology. For the Technical Report, the Met Office ran the first Call for Evidence, requesting general information on the risks and opportunities the UK faces from climate change.

We are now running a second Call for Evidence which is open until 31 March 2025. We are requesting more targeted information to inform the Technical Report, as well as requesting evidence for the Well-Adapted UK Report for the first time.

For both reports, the most useful evidence is that which is based on high-quality data and robust analytical techniques, with a preference for peer-reviewed literature. Additional information from the grey literature eg. a PhD or Master’s thesis, conference proceedings, project reports, webinars, internal presentations or reports, blogs, etc would also be welcomed. The Call for Evidence can be used to submit evidence relevant for the whole of the UK, individual nations or more local regions.  

Technical Report questions

The Technical Report will assess 45 risks and opportunities from climate change, as set out in Table 1 below. In the assessment, the consortium consider how the risks and opportunities will materialise from present-day until 2080, and also how existing and planned government and non-government adaptation will moderate the risks. 

For each of these risks and opportunities, the consortium invite new evidence (published since June 2020, the last independent assessment) in the following areas: 

  • The impact of the risk materialising. To be most useful in our scoring, it is helpful if evidence refers to the same criteria as in Table 2 below, or where impacts have been monetised. 

  • Existing government and non-government adaptation actions that have been implemented in the last five years, and the measurable impact of risk and other benefits. 

  • Government and non-government adaptation actions that are planned, along with expected impacts on risk and other benefits. 

The consortium would be particularly interested in receiving submissions for risks where the initial assessment suggests evidence is lacking, noted in Table 1 in red. 

Table 1: CCRA4-IA risk descriptors and interim assessment of evidence base 

Accessible version: Table 1: CCRA4-IA risk descriptors and interim assessment of evidence base 

Table 2 : Quantitative metrics used in assessing the magnitude of risks 

Area of impact 

Metric(s) 

Economic  

  • Economic damage (£) 

  • Economic disruption or foregone opportunities (£) 

Health 

  • Deaths (number of) 

  • Major health impacts (number of) 

  • People affected, minor health impacts (number of) 

Natural environment 

  • Land lost or severely damaged (hectares) 

  • Extent of rivers affected (km) 

  • Extent of water bodies affected (km2) 

  • Loss of valued habitat or landscape type (%) 

  • Loss of natural capital asset and associated good and services (%) 

  • Loss of species groups (number) 

Culture 

  • Loss of nationally iconic heritage assets (number) 

  • Damage to nationally iconic heritage assets (%) 

 

Well-Adapted UK questions 

The Well-Adapted UK Report will build on the CCC’s monitoring framework to set out what is needed to address the urgent risks identified in the Technical Report and deliver a  well-adapted UK. For each key societal system that faces climate risks, the CCC will assess: 

  • Adaptation ambition – what an affordable and acceptable level of resilience might be. 

  • Adaptation action – understanding the most effective actions for managing the risks and opportunities assessed as urgent in the Technical Report. 

  • Enablers – considering the barriers to and enablers of adaptation action, including finance, and any policies needed to create a supportive enabling environment. 

  • Monitoring progress – setting out the indicators and processes for iteratively improving the adaptation response over time. 

Through this Call for Evidence, the CCC would be interested in cross-sectoral evidence as it relates to each of these four areas (ambition, action, enablers, monitoring). The CCC would also be interested in information for each risk in Table 1 on:  

  • Which adaptation actions are most effective in addressing the risk? The CCC would be interested in evidence of the impact of those actions, both in terms of risk reduction and any other synergies or trade-offs associated with the actions. 

  • What is the required scale of deployment of those adaptation actions for the UK to be considered well-adapted, including investment need? 

  • What level of residual risk might need to be tolerated around the UK even in a well-adapted future?  

  • What are the barriers to these adaptation actions being deployed? 

  • How can government policy create a supportive enabling environment for those adaptation actions to be deployed? 

For all these questions we would value evidence that demonstrate how any of these factors might vary across the UK – particularly at the level of the UK’s Devolved Administrations.  

Call for Evidence 

If you would like to get involved in the second Call for evidence, please complete the survey by 31 March 2025.

If you have any difficulties or questions, please get in touch by emailing [email protected] 

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