Understand how behaviour change can influence climate change risks and opportunities

The second CCRA (CCRA2) was published in 2017 and was supported by a comprehensive Evidence Report from the Adaptation Sub-Committee (ASC). Defra and the devolved administrations are in the process of drafting updated national adaptation programmes in response to the risks and opportunities set out in the report.

The third CCRA will be published by the government in January 2022, and Defra have asked the ASC to produce an accompanying Evidence Report by summer 2021.To inform this Evidence Report the ASC are commissioning six research projects, funded by Defra, the devolved administrations and the research councils (NERC, ESRC and EPSRC). The ASC has been engaging with relevant stakeholders (e.g. researchers, funders, academies) with a view to addressing key evidence gaps from the CCRA2 report on a variety of timescales.

To address one of these evidence gaps, this research project will look to improve the understanding of behaviour change in response to the impacts of climate change. Behaviour change could affect the extent to which climate change risks and opportunities emerge, and/or the resulting residual risks or unrealised opportunities. Therefore understanding this is key to assessing the biggest risks and opportunities to the UK from climate change.

The potential for, and ways to enable behaviour change, are not well researched for climate change risks that directly affect the public, such as flooding, water scarcity and risks from hot weather. Therefore there is a need to identify the areas within the CCRA where behaviour change is most likely to impact climate change risks and opportunities. The ASC has already identified some key areas, set out below, for which this research should explore behavioural responses and seek to understand the factors that influence behaviour and decision-making

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