Part 5: Government action and risk management

Risk management and contingency planning is, in the era of climate change, something of a fait accompli.

A spokesman for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) said that while businesses - such as the retail and manufacturing sectors - will ultimately make commercial decisions about how to embed sustainable development into their practices, they required clear guidance and financial and risk management incentives.

The DTI has launched a range of initiatives, though these appear to have been applied with a broad brush, rather than targeted at any particular sector of industry. They are broadly targeted at reducing CO2 emissions, and consequently reducing the likelihood of climate change, rather than planning for weather-related disasters.

Encouragement to business is provided by the climate change levy, a tax on the use of energy in industry, commerce and the public sector, with offsetting cuts in employers' National Insurance Contributions and additional support for energy efficiency schemes and renewable sources of energy.

Another is Action Energy, a programme designed to help organisations cut their energy bills by 10 - 20%. It provides independent advice for private and public sector organisations.

Contingency planning

The UK government is also working with its continental partners on contingency plans, particularly in the area of flooding. The European Commission is contemplating a 'floods directive’ telling member states to limit the potential risks posed by floods and plan for dealing with any that arise.

Legislation would require national governments to conduct flood-mapping exercises, using meteorological, geological and hydrological data to assess the risk of floods hitting their countries and where damage could be most serious. This information would be made available to the public, businesses, local authorities and emergency services.

The British Insurance Brokers' Association (BIBA) also offers a risk management service, which assists companies to review and establish sums insured and to report upon risk management issues in the context of weather. It has also urged the Government to step up flood defence improvements.

Risk management in connection with the weather is also about looking at taking a completely different approach to many things in the future, according to BIBA's head of technical services, Peter Staddon.

He told us: "The fact is we are going to have build and do things differently. Will insurers in the future insure a building on a flood plain? If it's built like today's properties the answer is no.

"We need to think differently - maybe it's about building on stilts or on rafts."