Sir James Bevan, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency is warning that Net Zero alone won’t save the planet - Net Zero Plus will also be necessary.

The warning was the central theme of a speech the EA Chief gave to the Whitehall and Industry Group on Tuesday this week.

He began by referring to Bill Gates’ comment in his new book ‘How to Avoid a Climate Disaster’:

“There are two numbers you need to know about climate change: 51 billion and zero. The former is the number of tons of greenhouse gases typically added to the atmosphere each year as a result of human activities. The latter is the number of tons we need to get to by 2050 in order to avert a climate crisis.”

Sir James told his audience that getting there would not be enough on its own to save the planet - Net Zero Plus would also be necessary. The plus - adaptation – was vital to ensure the world was resilient to the irrevocable changes carbon had already wrought in the climate and those still to come and to enable a climate-changed world to thrive.

He reiterated his view that unless we act now, then in the reasonable worst case climate change will:

“produce much higher sea levels, taking out most of the world’s cities and making much of the rest of our land unusable; bring much more extreme weather, which will kill more people through drought, flooding, wildfires and heatwaves than most wars have; collapse our ecosystems, take out the infrastructure on which our civilisation depends, and destroy the basis of the modern economy and modern society.”

The Environment Agency was playing its part in mitigating the extent of climate change, he said, by:

• helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by regulating many of the sectors involved (power stations, landfill sites, etc).
• running the new UK Emissions Trading Scheme which has replaced the EU version with a new cap and trade scheme which will progressively reduce the carbon output of aviation and heavy industries.
• supporting the introduction of renewable/low carbon technology (hydropower, tidal barrages, anaerobic digestion, etc) via the regulatory permitting process.
• seeking to lead by example, by setting the Agency the goal of becoming a net zero organisation by 2030.

However, he cautioned that hitting the net zero 2030 target was going to be hard, commenting:

“We have deliberately made it harder for ourselves by adopting a tough, internationally recognised definition of net zero: including not just the carbon we produce ourselves but also the much larger amount of carbon produced through our supply chain.”

“That will be a huge challenge. The EA’s current carbon footprint is 273,000 tonnes a year. Over half of that (54%) comes from construction – mostly building flood defences.”

He emphasised that the Environment Agency was not going to stop building flood defences, pumping water out of people’s home….using energy or “all the other things we need to do to serve the public.” However, it would instead “have to find new ways to do all these things which produce much lower or preferably zero carbon.”

“In all future climate scenarios we’ll experience continued rise in sea level well into the next century”

However, he went on to warn his audience that getting to Net Zero was not enough on its own, commenting:

“ That’s because some irrevocable climate change has already happened, and because even if the world was to stop tonight all its carbon emissions, the effects of the emissions that have already happened will continue to make themselves felt for decades.”

“Global average temperatures have already warmed 1˚C above preindustrial temperatures, and we’re already seeing evidence of more frequent and more extreme flooding, faster and more extreme coastal erosion; more frequent and more extreme droughts, water shortages and wildfires; and potentially permanent damage to habitats, plants, wildlife and cultural heritage.”

“In all future climate scenarios, however fast we move in getting to Net Zero, we’ll experience a continued rise in sea level well into the next century, due to the long response time of sea levels to past emissions of greenhouse gases. Average sea level has already risen by around 16 centimetres since 1900 and could increase by over a metre by the end of this century. EA and Met Office research shows that under all greenhouse gas emission scenarios, sea levels are expected to continue to rise to 2300, possibly by as much as 4.5 metres.”

As a nation the UK needed to be climate ready so it was resilient to the future hazards and potential shocks that would otherwise impact our economy, our prosperity, and our lifestyle, he said.

Responding to the climate emergency –“Adapt and Thrive”

Ending his speech on an upbeat note, the EA Chief said “we know how to adapt. We need to design and build our infrastructure, our cities and our economy so that they are resilient to the effects of the changing climate.”

Explaining that the point was ”not just to survive”, in Sir James’ view “if we adapt right we can thrive too.”

Climate adaptation offered everyone, including every single business, a world of new opportunities - including economic opportunities to innovate and drive growth, which many companies are seizing.

He concluded:

“The most exciting opportunity of all is the opportunity to create a better world: to build back better when flooding or drought damages homes and businesses; to create cleaner, greener cities which are more beautiful and better to live in than the ones we have now; to ensure that when it rains heavily our roads and railways don’t grind to a halt and our sewage systems don’t flush directly into rivers; to enhance nature at the same time as we lock up more carbon; and so on”...

“Net zero is about making things less bad than they would have been…Adaptation is about making things better than they are.”