12. Thinking for tomorrow, acting
today [replace photo with Lowestoft picture from last week]
Editor's Notes
ABI and leading insurers have been involved in climate change debate for over a decade – and the reinsurers around twice that We reached a significant tipping point last year, through the leadership that the Prime Minister brought, putting climate change at the heart of the international political process This leadership, together with the commissioning of important studies like the Stern Review, has led to much wider acceptance of the reality of climate change, the impacts it will bring and the need for urgent action The work of UKCIP and its stakeholders, many of whom are present today, has laid the foundations for managing climate risks and the effects they will have on our daily lives This study is ABI’s latest contribution to that important work
There remain uncertainties over some aspects of climate science – as there are on long term economic growth, technological advances and so many other issues on which we happily take decisions every day. However, there is a good deal of certainty now on both temperature rise over the next half century, and the resulting sea level rise, driven by thermal expansion of existing waters and the addition of meltwaters from land glaciers. In this study we have used UKCIP2002 estimates of sea level rise over the next century. More recent work by UKCIP and others suggest these probably underestimate the speed of this rise. We have not ascribed dates to these changes but have simply modelled today’s conditions, and base sea level rises of 0.1m, 0.2m and 0.4m The uncertainty here is not whether these will happen, but when. 0.4m sea level rise could happen as early as the 2040s if recent observed trends hold. We have not made any assumptions over other climate impacts such as increased severity or frequency of storms.
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and their aftermath are still fresh in our minds. But we have our own version of this threat here in the UK. The events of 1953 still resonate with many living and working in Eastern England at the time. My own father-in-law recalls working to put coastal defences in place as an Air Ministry quantity surveyor, redeployed to assist in the crisis. Many others have memories of personal loss. Some communities are said to have had their futures permanently changed by events on 31 January and 1 February 1953. We have used insurance catastrophe models to simulate a repeat of the 1953 storm, which had a probability of around 1:200 or 250, at the four different sea levels described. And we have looked at 2 other similar storms that cross the coast at slightly different points – the Humber estuary and the Thames estuary.
Our study area stretched from Holderness on the Yorkshire coast to Deal on the Kent coast. We looked chiefly at the regional effects of the modelled storm surges, but also at five more local studies to understand the impacts on communities and how these might best be managed. One of these, Hastings, is outside the main study area, but we wanted to consider possible effects elsewhere on our coastline.
Around 270,000 homes and businesses would be affected by flooding if a storm surge similar to those modelled happened today. This is equivalent to about 1% of the housing stock being lost. Overnight. Or put another way, it’s as if Autumn 2000 happened 25 times over, all at once. Above the obvious human cost this would cause, it would stretch the emergency response to breaking point, with 40% of fire stations in the affected areas within the flood zone, along with 15% of police stations, [20%] of hospitals and 12% of community halls and leisure centres, typically used as emergency centres. Critical infrastructure such as trunk roads, railway lines, [15%] of electricity sub-stations and []% of sewerage treatment plants would be out of action.
The number of homes and businesses affected would rise to over 404,000 if a similar event occurred after 0.4m sea level rise This could mean ¾ million people or more homeless – and possibly jobless, with over 50,000 commercial properties affected. The increase varies by location, doubling in Essex and increasing by 77% in Norfolk Vital services would be even more adversely affected with over 2/3 of fire stations, [etc……]
We looked at the effect of improving flood defences by raising the standard for small towns to 1:200, larger towns to 1:500 and strategically important areas in the Thames estuary to 1:10,000 – all at today’s probabilities. The effect is essentially to return long term risk levels to just above current levels, with about 287,400 properties likely to be flooded The number of properties facing a signficant risk of flooding within this total also declines. And the improved coastal defences would also limit the depth and speed of flow – many houses were severely damaged in 1953 due to the deep and fast flooding. And in the period prior to sea level rise the effect is even more dramatic, bring numbers of properties at risk down from 270,000 to 170,800, including 20,000 commercial properties. There will be many other regional and national benefits, such as keeping the main East coast ports handling half of the UK’s container traffic operational, along with major gas, oil and chemical storage and processing facilities, regional transport routes and preserving confidence in the tourism industry central to the East Coast economy.
The cost of these events varies – as you can see, the 1953 storm surge would be relatively benign in its effects. These figures include damage to property and indirect losses such as emergency response costs, agricultural losses and road and rail disruption. Not surprisingly the 1953 surge, which focussed on the Norfolk coast, would have less impact on either the Humber or Thames estuaries than surges focussed on those areas. However, a perhaps surprising finding of this work is that a surge focussed on the Thames, whilst less damaging along the Suffolk coast than the 1953 storm, would be more damaging along the Wash and Lincolnshire coast than either of the other storms modelled here. A surge focussed on the Thames occurring today would be more costly than either of the other events for several decades to come, even after 0.2m sea level rise. A Thames event would cost around £6bn today and rise to £16bn after 0.4m sea level rise. A 1953-type event would cost £2.5bn today and around £8bn following sea level rise.
Spending around £6-£8.5bnon improving coastal defences has a substantial impact on damages, both now and in the future. The savings are most apparent effective in limiting the damage from a Thames event, reducing the modelled costs by nearly £7bn. In other words, they virtually pay for themselves in a single incident, ignoring the wider social and economic costs that arise in regional damage of this scale. But of course sea defences do not simply operate on a sole occasion. In reality these defences would prevent many less severe storm surges from causing damage. Typically this type of capital investment delivers 7 times the value in benefits over its lifetime – that is more cost effective than any other public sector investment. And if the frequency of storms along the East Coast increases in line with UKCIP’s modelling of possible future events at Immingham, then the events we have modelled here will not occur with a probability of 1:200-250. Later this century they could have a 50% chance of happening within an 80 year lifetime. So the benefits from this investment would be even greater.
All of our modelling and costings have assumed that the world stands still, that settlement patterns do not change, that there is no increase in property or other asset values. In reality every local community will seek to prosper and grow. In addition to the Government’s growth areas along the Thames Gateway, there are many regeneration plans in coastal communities. The current projections for local authorities on the East Coast suggest population growth of 14%, on averag,e up to 2028. For some local authorities, particularly those in vulnerable areas such as the Wash and Lincolnshire coast, growth is even higher at 30% or more. Beyond this, projections vary according to socio-economic scenario. Those developed by the BESEECH project, based on UKCIP scenarios, suggest anything from a near static population by the middle of the century to increases to 70m people and 36m households by the 2050s. Of particular concern is the growth in the number of older people living in these communities. Overall the number of over 75 year olds will increase by 75% to 2028. In many areas the number doubles, and in parts of Essex the increase is 140%. As Katrina showed, vulnerable groups like the elderly bear a disproportionate share of the loss in such events.
In conclusion, the threat facing our coastal communities is likely to rise substantially, by around 50%, as a result of 0.4m sea level rise. This could occur as early as the 2040s, not as an end-loaded step change, but as a gradual and sustained process. We need to prepare for this by investing in the protection we give our coastal communities and the critical national infrastructure that sits on the coast. And we have around 25-30 years to put this all in place if we are to keep the risk at around today’s levels. Meanwhile we will reap the benefits of this investment – both because it will prevent many less severe storms from causing significant damage and it will enable continued investment in these communities by providing reassurance to business on the containment of risk. We need to take a long-term, strategic assessment of risk and we need to make a start on the investment – and the development of the infrastructure and capacity to deliver the whole programme – now. In the current CSR. At the same time we need to ensure that our land-use planning system is also able to develop the strategic and long-term vision that makes our coastal communities more resilient, migrating critical services and infrastructure and vulnerable people out of harm’s way.
Now as a former Treasury official I can well imagine the discussions around the timing of this investment. Sir Nick Stern pointed out in his report on the economics of climate change last week “Adaptation is the only response to impacts that will occur over the next several decades before mitigation measures can have an effect………..Governments can contribute through long term policies for climate-sensitive public goods, including………coastal protection and emergency preparedness.” Within days an onshore gale brought the highest tide at Lowestoft for the last couple of decades, causing some flooding of properties, disruption of road traffic and damage to the railway embankment causing closure of services to Norwich. As this report shows, we must think about tomorrow and its risks, and we must act to manage these escalating risks today.
![Climate change impacts: sea
level rise
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