Purpose

Proposed decision:   
 
Adoption of the Kent County
Council Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2025-2028.
 
 
Reason for the decision
Kent County Council
(KCC) recognised the UK climate and environmental emergency on 23rd
May 2019, acknowledging the significant threats posed and
opportunities presented by climate change. In response, the Council
committed to developing and adopting the Kent & Medway Climate
Change Adaptation Implementation Plan.
 
Background
Commitment to ensuring
that Kent is well placed to adapt to climate change was made
in  KCC’s Strategic Statement
Framing Kent’s Future 2022 - 2026. ‘Impacts of Climate
Change on KCC Services’ is identified as a risk on
KCC’s Corporate Risk Register and accompanied by the action
title ‘Adaptation Programme actions’. The adoption of
the Kent County Council Climate Change Adaptation Plan 2025-2028
will contribute towards delivering KCC’s response to the UK
climate and environmental emergency, Framing Kent’s Future,
and reduce KCC’s risk to climate change. Securing
Kent’s Future has been considered during the development and
proposed delivery of the Climate Change Adaptation Plan.
 
The Climate Change
Adaptation Plan focuses on the assets that KCC manages, the
services it delivers and the areas it can influence across Kent.
The plan aims to ensure that KCC is resilient to the negative
impacts and well-positioned to benefit from any opportunities that
arise from Kent’s changing climate. To achieve this, the
Climate Change Adaptation Plan will deliver on the following
objectives:
 

·        
Raise awareness of the risks and opportunities of
climate change across KCC.
 

·        
Integrate climate change adaptation into KCC’s
decision-making and service delivery.
 

·        
Explore opportunities to act upon climate risks and
impacts affecting services.
 

·        
Encourage climate change adaptation through KCC
activity across Kent.
 
The Climate Change
Adaptation Plan has been prepared by the KCC Energy & Climate
Change team and includes input from divisions across KCC,
including; Environment & Circular Economy, Commercial and
Procurement, Growth & Communities, Highways & Transport,
Infrastructure, Public Health, Adult Social Care Transformation and
Delivery, Education Planning & Access.
 
Options

Do nothing -
continue with a business-as-usual approach and allow climate change
impacts to affect KCC and Kent as and when they happen without a
strategic approach to mitigating them.

Revise and adopt The Climate Adaptation
Programme for Kent and Medway –
adopt a strategy that takes a sector-based approach to adaptation
across Kent, but lacks clearly defined roles and governance
structures and would require significant financial
resourcing.

Adopt the Kent County Council Climate
Change Adaptation Plan 2025-2028 –
which will integrate climate risk management into KCC service
delivery, encourage climate adaptation across Kent through work
that KCC delivers and has defined roles, responsibilities and
governance structures.

Preferred Option
Option
3 is the preferred option, as it not only
provides a structured approach to climate adaptation but is also
realistic given the financial context that KCC is currently
operating within and the role that the council has within
Kent.
 
The
adoption of the Climate Change Adaptation Plan supports the
delivery of the KCC Environment Plan, which lists adapting to
climate change as one of six priority areas of environmental work
that the council delivers. It also meets outcomes of priority 3 of
Framing Kent’s Future 2022-2026, ‘Environmental Step
Change’, which seeks to ensure that the county is well placed
to adapt to climate change. 
 

Decision

As Cabinet Member for Environment, I agree
to:
 

To adopt the Kent Environment Plan
on behalf of Kent County Council.

 

To delegate authority to the
Corporate Director of Growth, Environment and Transport in
consultation with the Cabinet Member for Environment to refresh
and/or make revisions to the Strategy as appropriate during the
lifetime of the strategy.

 
To delegate authority to the Corporate Growth,
Environment and Transport to take relevant actions, including but
not limited to finalising the terms of, and entering into required
contract or other legal agreements, as necessary to implement the
decision.