This latest Foresight report identifies for the first time how international climate change is likely to affect the UK though its global dependencies and networks. It looks at the impact on foreign policy and security, finance and business, infrastructure, resources and commodities (in which agriculture falls) and health. It not surprisingly concludes that the impact of climate change overseas could be as important as the direct impact at home over the next few decades.
Climate change is described as a ‘risk multiplier’, interacting with other trends, making it more difficult to tackle existing global problems and inequalities like food security which could have knock-on impacts on international stability and security. Extreme weather events could affect global infrastructure for transport and energy and the inherent uncertainty of climate change impacts is likely to increase risks in the business and financial sectors. The report suggests that policymakers need to develop strategies to mitigate these risks and to take action now. To do this the UK needs to maintain its networks of trade and diplomacy and its role on the global stage. However the country’s strengths in low carbon technologies, coastal engineering, finance and insurance expertise and climate and weather science all present opportunities.
Despite the fact that “some of the largest impacts of climate change are likely to occur in agricultural commodities”, agriculture is covered in only three pages. The authors believe that the UK's status as a “wealthy trading nation” means that the impact on our food supply is likely to be in the form of price rises rather than loss of security of supply. Whilst the report identifies that the comparatively low risk of severe, direct, climate change impacts could make the UK more attractive as a manufacturing base, it disappointingly doesn’t apply the same rationale to agriculture. However Foresight recently published its Global Food and Farming report which contained valuable and important messages for government, industry and civil society about British food and farming.
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