In our climate change strategy we identified the need to:
"consider the actions we can take to build our resilience and that of our natural systems to adapt to the inevitable climate changes we will experience"
All teams will need to play their part and here you'll find some of the most important information.
Why this is important
Climate change impacts the communities we serve. Forecasts for Derbyshire are that we'll see hotter and drier summers, warmer and wetter winters, and an increased frequency of extreme weather of any kind.
There are significant advantages to adapting to climate change. Firstly, it will be cheaper to adapt than to pay for costly emergency works if we don't prepare. Secondly, there are additional benefits such as improved local environments, more resilient local communities and a stronger local economy.
What we're doing
The climate change team has held workshops with each department to identify the main risks from climate change to programmes and services. This is being used in departmental risk registers as well as service plans.
We have a natural capital strategy and are developing a local nature recovery plan which look at how we can best protect our natural habitats to ensure that they are resilient to change.
Other actions we're taking:
- preparing messages and information for residents for extreme weather events
- supporting opportunities for natural flood management (for example at Grassmoor Country Park)
- discussing climate adaptation in our training, and encouraging teams to assess what adaptations need to be made within their service
- produced a planning and climate change guidance and assessment tool to guide local planning policy
What you can do - top tips
Discuss with your team:
- what the impacts of climate change on your services will be
- who will be affected and how
- what you can do to respond and adapt
Book Climate Change - Everybody's Business training to increase your understanding of climate change and adaptation, and learn more about what we're doing.
Managers
You can help your team to have discussions. Discussion materials and resources can be requested from the climate change team, email climate.change@derbyshire.gov.uk
We're also keen to know what you have done, so that we can learn from good practice across the council.
Lead by example and book Climate Change - Everybody's Business training.