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The assessment and management of risks related to climate change have become increasingly important and more frequently practised across many sectors of society. At the same time, there has been a rapid increase of guidance documents designed to help public, private, and civil society organisations conduct these activities.
Such documents can help organisations adopt good climate risk management practices and promote internal and external accountability. For example, the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) framework, published in 2003, provides climate risk management guidelines to organisations and decision-makers both in the UK and internationally. However, in early 2021, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published a new global standard for climate risk assessment development, known as ISO 14091.
This study assesses the consistency of the UKCIP framework and three different implementations of climate risk management in the UK — UK—CCRA2 (Climate Change Risk Assessment 2), TE2100 (Thames Estuary 2100), and Oasis LMF (Oasis Loss Modelling Framework) — to this new ISO standard.
The study aims to help organisations in the UK determine which guidance documents are most appropriate for their purposes and whether existing documents might be updated to reduce inconsistencies and strengthen weaknesses. The UK Climate Resilience Programme, supported by the UKRI Strategic Priorities Fund, provided funding for the research.
Pamina Smith
Robert J. Lempert
