Understanding the co-benefits and trade-offs of UK climate actions

Climate change remains one of the most pressing challenges of our time, and a recent report from the Climate Services for a Net Zero Resilient World (CS-N0W) programme highlights the crucial need for strategies that reduce emissions and increase resilience concurrently.

CS-N0W is a £5.5 million research programme that uses the latest scientific knowledge to inform UK climate policy and help us meet our global decarbonisation ambitions. Through its consortium members, including Ricardo, CS-N0W aims to enhance the scientific understanding of climate impacts, decarbonisation, and climate action and improve accessibility to the UK’s climate data.

Co-benefits and Trade-offs of UK Climate Actions

A recent report from the programme, Co-benefits and trade-offs of UK climate actions, aims to inform the Government’s efforts to promote decarbonisation and resilience. It is intended that knowledge of co-benefits and trade-offs will aid the Government in identifying no/low regret actions.

No/low regret actions are activities with little or no trade-offs for either adaptation or mitigation outcomes. Choosing climate actions that have low or no regret is essential as these strategies may provide benefits regardless of future climate uncertainties. They also minimise the risk of compounding climate change and its impacts, ensuring that efforts to reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts have greatest chance of leading to positive outcomes, such as improved public health, economic resilience, and environmental protection, even if the climate changes in ways that are not yet projected.

Methodology

To identify these actions, the CS-N0W team consisting of Ricardo Plc and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology:

1. Identified UK climate actions for assessment from the UK Net Zero Strategy and the Independent Assessment of UK Climate Risk: Advice to Government for the UK’s Third Climate Change Risk Assessment.
2. Carried out a systematic Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) to identify and extract relevant evidence regarding UK climate actions from peer-reviewed literature and governmental reports.
3. Based on the evidence assembled by the REA, rated the effect of UK climate actions on UK mitigation and UK adaptation outcomes, and determined confidence in these ratings.
4. Based on the ratings of the effects of UK climate actions, identified key overall findings and caveats, and recommended which actions should be the subject of detailed case studies.
5. Developed case studies for two low/no-regret actions identified:

a.    Soil conservation. 
b.    Aim to reduce direct emissions from public sector buildings by 75% by 2037 compared to 2017.

Key Takeaways: 

Strong co-benefits, no trade-offs

A key takeaway from the report is that nature-based solutions offered the highest co-benefits and no trade-offs in terms of the adaptation and mitigation outcomes assessed in this study. In particular, active habitat management to increase resilience, such as natural regeneration of forests, pastureland conversion, wetland restoration or peatlands management, and soil conservation, have substantial positive effects on climate adaptation and mitigation.

While most of the climate actions identified as having the highest co-benefits and no identified trade-offs are nature-based, other actions, such as passive cooling measures and reducing direct emissions from public sector buildings by 75% by 2037 compared to 2017 (from the UK’s Net Zero Strategy) also have large co-benefits and no identified trade-offs. Nevertheless, both the latter actions encompass nature-based solutions, including urban greening/trees for passive cooling, and reducing emissions from public buildings can be achieved using green roofs. 

Strong co-benefits, high trade-offs

The report also highlighted some climate actions that have high trade-offs. For instance, engineered removals have a high carbon removal potential, but the analysis showed substantial negative impacts for adaptation around natural habitat, competition with farmland, and a high energy penalty.

Climate actions based on increased electrification only have mitigation benefits if further decarbonisation of the grid is realised. Otherwise, they potentially present substantial trade-offs, such as decreased adaptive capacity against extreme weather events that impact energy supply and demand.

Impact of time on co-benefits and trade-offs

Finally, while some actions were rated as having strong co-benefits and low or no trade-offs, these may vary over time. For example, while the action on suitable trees, crops, and livestock for future climate in appropriate locations has high co-benefits and no identified trade-offs, benefits for climate mitigation may only be delivered over time, especially regarding tree planting. Implementation of the action also needs to consider the increasing magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events, as well as incremental climate change, if it is not to lead to maladaptation.

Summary

“The project demonstrates that climate mitigation and climate adaptation are two sides of the same coin. Climate mitigation actions to reduce emissions need to be resilient and not increase other climate risks, while climate adaptation actions also need to reduce emissions, wherever possible,” Richard Smithers, Director of Climate Adaptation & Resilience, Ricardo Plc.

Balancing the benefits of climate actions for climate mitigation and climate adaptation with their potential trade-offs is crucial to ensure that emission reductions can be sustained and to transform for our society, economy and environment to a climate resilient future. Research like the Co-benefits and trade-offs of UK climate actions from CS-N0W is vital in helping to inform the Government’s climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.

Find out more on the CS-N0W website and download the full report.