WHAT IS ADAPTATION & RESILIENCE?

OUR CLIMATE IS CHANGING NOW

UK-wide projections suggest we will experience warmer and wetter winters, hotter and drier summers, and more incidents of extreme heat and heavy rainfall. Manchester is no exception to these broader climatic forecasts.

It is likely we have already started to experience the effects of climate change in Manchester. Meteorological observations demonstrate that there has been an overall warming in the city’s year-round climate.

Whilst bold action of climate mitigation is vital. Urgent action to adapt, and build resilience, to this changing climate is essential. Adaptation and resilience forms an integral part of the city’s climate change strategy.

See the latest projections from the Met Office on Manchester’s future climate here.

Our headline objective:

To adapt the city’s buildings, infrastructure, and natural environment to the changing climate and to increase the climate resilience of our residents and organisations.

Manchester Climate Change Framework 2020-25

What is…

  • Climate Change

    “Climate change refers to long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. These shifts may be natural, such as through variations in the solar cycle. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.”

    United Nations

    Learn more about climate change here.

  • Resilience

    “The capacity of social, economic, and environmental systems to cope with a hazardous event or trend or disturbance, responding or reorganizing in ways that maintain their essential function, identity, and structure, while also maintaining the capacity for adaptation, learning, and transformation.”

    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2014

  • Climate Vulnerability

    “The degree to which a system is susceptible to, or unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate change, including climate variability and extremes.”

    Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

  • Adaptation

    “Adaptation to climate change refers to adjustments in ecological, social, or economic systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli and their effects or impacts. It refers to changes in processes, practices, and structures to moderate potential damages or to benefit from opportunities associated with climate change.”

    United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)

  • Climate Risk

    “The potential for adverse consequences for human or ecological systems. In the context of climate change, risks can arise from potential impacts of climate change as well as human responses to climate change.

    Relevant adverse consequences include those on lives, livelihoods, health and wellbeing, economic, social and cultural assets and investments, infrastructure, services, ecosystem and species.”

    Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change

Manchester Climate Risk & Vulnerability

In 2021, MCCA undertook work to understand Manchester’s climate risk and climate vulnerability.

Manchester’s climate risk: a framework for understanding hazards & vulnerability identifies the key weather-related hazards in Manchester and how these will be amplified by climate change.

It sets out the direct impacts these hazards are likely to have on the city’s people, communities, health, transport and other critical infrastructure, water supply, buildings, economic activity, and environment.

Manchester Climate Ready: Devloping Progressive Resilience

Manchester Climate Ready: Devloping Progressive Resilience summarises the global to local policy drivers on climate adaptation, proposes a broad vision for progressive climate resilience in Manchester, identifies the key characteristics of a resilient city, and outlines seven principles to guide both ambition and practical action across the city.

Our vision for progressive climate resilience

Our vision for a more climate resilient Manchester will enhance the capacity of the entire city - our buildings, infrastructure, green and blue space, businesses, and people - to adapt to future climate shocks and stresses.

Our pursuit of climate resilience will be aligned with other progressive agendas that aspire to create a healthier, happier, and a more socially just city, and to produce sustainable, inclusive, and green economic growth.

Seven Principles of Progressive Resilience

  • Creating a city that is better able to deal with our projected future climate and associated weather shocks through progressive resilience and adaptive interventions will, first and foremost, require ambition, innovation, agile leadership, and strategic co-ordination across Manchester, the city region (Greater Manchester) and beyond. Individuals and organisations must meet the challenge of climate change, and champion ambitious action for city-wide resilience and adaptation.

  • Effective climate resilience and adaptation action must be informed by a detailed, and where appropriate, spatial understanding of climate risk. Ultimately, this will assist in determining targeted resilience interventions and will demonstrate our progress towards creating a more climate resilient city.

  • We must develop plans for how climate resilience and adaptation can be harnessed to create a Manchester better equipped for all the challenges of the future. This should be place-based and include an understanding of practical action that could be taken to embed resilience in everyday life, in organisational practice and in our buildings, places and communities. This should be integrated into a coherent plan for adaptation across the city.

  • As our understanding of climate risk and the range of potential means to address it expand, the capacity to act with speed and at scale must be bolstered. Although some adaptation measures are relatively straightforward, the creation of a more resilient Manchester requires foresight, innovation, ambition, and co-operation. It also requires technical expertise and financing.

  • Manchester’s green and blue spaces serve a vital purpose not only in assisting with climate mitigation and adaptation, but in improving the liveability and the social and health well-being of the city. We must both protect the climate functionality of these existing spaces and ensure that new spaces that embolden climate resilience are integrated at scale into the city.

  • Many of the buildings and much of the infrastructure that is currently being financed, planned, and constructed across Manchester is likely to still be in use throughout this century and beyond. Similarly, we have inherited much of our current and future risk due to decisions taken by past generations. We must, therefore, consider the likely future impacts of climate change into the planning of the city through climate sensitive land use and development control decisions. We must also take steps to retrofit our current built environment and infrastructure to ensure they are fit for purpose in the future. This includes the use of innovative design and material in construction, innovative building management, and through the integration of green and blue infrastructure in the urban and built environment.

  • We must harness the knowledge and expertise in our universities, the technical abilities and entrepreneurial spirit of our private sector, the creativity of our arts and cultural sectors, and the energy of our people through youth groups, civil society and impassioned, engaged communities to build a more resilient, more adaptive Manchester.