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Local Climate Impacts Profile for Sandwell 2010 1 The Sandwell Declaration on Climate Change Sandwell Council acknowledges that • Evidence shows that climate change is occurring. • Climate change will continue to have far reaching effects on the UK’s people and places, economy, society and environment. Sandwell Council is aware of the • Social, economic and environmental benefits which come from combating climate change. • Emissions targets agreed by central government and the programme for delivering change, as set out in the UK Climate Change Programme. • Opportunity for local government to lead the response at a local level, encouraging and helping local residents, local businesses and other organisations - to reduce their energy costs, to reduce congestion, to adapt to the impacts of climate change, to improve the local environment and to deal with fuel poverty in our communities. • Endorsement of this declaration by central government. We commit our Council from 2007 to • Work with central government to contribute, at a local level, to the delivery of the UK Climate Change Programme, the Kyoto Protocol and the target for carbon dioxide reduction by 2010 and beyond. • Participate in local and regional networks for support. • Within the next two years develop plans with our partners and local communities to progressively address the causes and the impacts of climate change, according to our local priorities, securing maximum benefit for our communities. • Publicly declare, within appropriate plans and strategies, the commitment to achieve a significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from our own authority’s operations, especially energy sourcing and use, travel and transport, waste production and disposal and the purchasing of goods and services. • Assess the risk associated with climate change and the implications for our services and our communities of climate change impacts and adapt accordingly. • Encourage all sectors in our local community to take the opportunity to adapt to the impacts of climate change, to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions and to make public their commitment to action. • Monitor the progress of our plans against the actions needed and publish the results. SANDWELL METROPOLITAN BOROUGH COUNCIL acknowledges the increasing impact that climate change will have on our community during the 21st century and commits itself to tackling the causes and effects of a changing climate on our borough. 2 Cabinet Member’s Foreword Tackling climate change must be central to Sandwell’s vision for its communities. Councils across the country have a key role to play in the development and delivery of action to curb the threat of climate change, particularly through cutting emissions of carbon dioxide, but also by adapting services and communities to the effects of climate change. Sandwell Council has publicly committed to fulfilling this ambition by signing the Sandwell Climate Change Declaration. Adapting to Climate Change means we need to identify the action that we must take to address the inevitable impacts of climate change. These will protect our communities by making them resilient to, on the one hand, water shortages and, on the other flooding and in a similar way heat waves and cold snaps. The Local Climate Impacts Profile shows the many ways in which a number of Sandwell Council’s Services have already had to adapt to severe weather. It highlights the problems that have been caused by such extremes which we expect will only increase as the climate changes over the next thirty years and beyond. This document gives an indication of how services could be affected by climate change which will, in turn, give service providers and managers an idea of how their services might need to adapt over time. Please take time to think about how severe weather often impacts your daily life, your journey to work for example, and the life of members of your family, young and old, as well as how you think it could affect them in the future. Together we can build a well adapted community for all of the residents of Sandwell to be comfortable and prosperous for many years to come. Councillor Derek Rowley (Cabinet Member for Safer Neighbourhoods) 3 CONTENTS 1. Executive Summary Next Steps 2. Introduction Aims and Objectives What is Climate Change? Planning for the Future The Character of Sandwell 3. Future Climate Projections Temperature Rainfall Position 4. Preparing the Local Climate Impacts Profile Service Area Interviews Weather Events Database 5. Significant Weather The implications of Climate Change for Public Health River Flooding Surface Water Flooding Lightning 6. Significant Weather Case Studies The Highways Winter Maintenance Sandwell Valley Country Park Appendix 1: Resources and Contributions Appendix 2: Significant Weather Appendix 3: Sandwell Valley Country Park Expenditure 4 1. Executive Summary The purpose of this report is to examine the potential impact of climate change on the community of Sandwell. It will do this by assessing the impacts that recent extreme weather events have had. With climate change it is likely that the frequency of these extreme events will increase and so this study will also consider the potential impact that it may have on our buildings and services. Climate change is resulting from increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere which have now reached levels unprecedented for tens of thousands of years. Depending on the extent of future emissions global temperatures are likely to rise between 1.1 and 6.4°C above 1990 levels by the end of this century. The temperature rise will bring changes to weather patterns and will see continued melting of ice caps, glaciers and sea ice, changes in rainfall and the intensification of tropical cyclones. Across the globe, there will be more intense heat waves, droughts and more flooding. For the UK, climate change is likely to mean hotter, drier summers (more heat waves), milder wetter winters, higher sea levels and an increased flood risk to coastal areas. Sandwell is likely to experience some major changes in temperature and precipitation, even by 2049, with rainfall showing a strong seasonal pattern and temperatures set to increase by nearly 2°C. Worryingly, the forecast for 2080 is much more severe with temperatures possibly increasing by 3°C and winter rainfall increasing by up to 20% from 1990 levels. Importantly, even the lowest emissions scenario still predicts large changes in both rainfall and temperature that Sandwell needs to prepare for if is to be resilient to the effects of climate change. It is difficult to understand what these weather changes will mean to our way of life so the best way to analyse this is to look at the impact of localised extreme weather events that have taken place in the recent past. These give the best indication of what will happen more frequently in the future. Analysing how weather has already impacted on the work of the council can give us a reasonable indication of how it may continue to do so in the future and what action will therefore need to be taken to adapt to their impact. Central and Local government have agreed that Local Authorities and Local Strategic Partnerships should lead the local actions on adapting to climate change. An agreed methodology has been established through the UK Climate Impacts Programme and this will help to assess the progress that is made in becoming more resilient to Climate Change. The Council has recognised that climate change poses significant risks to its business and has, therefore, identified it as a Strategic Risk within the Corporate Risk register. A series of measures need to be put in place to manage this risk. It is evident that the response to the risks of climate change will vary across Council services with some having to deal with a greater impact than others. A risk based approach will be able to identify these services and prioritise the response. It is proposed that one service area will be used as a pilot to test this approach and also to provide tangible actions which will assist others in understanding the issues that are involved. This Local Climate Change Impact Profile has gathered information from service area interviews, reports in local newspapers of weather events, library archives and the insurance claims database. This range of sources ensures a good indication and understanding of the potential impacts that may occur. The potential health implications have been drawn from recent regional studies with the key findings being: • The impact is based on a mean temperature increase of between 1.5°C - 4.5°C in the summer • Death rates are likely to be up by 2% in the summer but down by 6.5% in winter mainly due to heart/ circulation and respiratory diseases. 5 • Illness rates from food poisoning may be up by 12%. Hay fever and allergies will continue to increase and skin cancer cases could become more common. • Due to the impact of the urban ‘heat island’ effect the temperatures will be higher in the urban areas and this will impact negatively on health. • It is likely that more deprived communities, such as Sandwell, will face greater impacts as they are located in areas with the greatest temperature increase. They have the smallest potential to adapt and they are generally less healthy and would be more susceptible even if exposure to change is equal. The health service already has plans in place to deal with the life threatening impact of heatwaves on people. River and surface water flooding have both a regional and localised impact but are very disruptive and stressful for those affected. The report examines where fooding incidents have taken place recently and the actions taken to reduce further occurrences, together with work that the Council and partners are undertaking to reduce potential future problems.

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