Is the UK's Adaptation Plan 'Unlawful'?

A legal challenge to Britain's climate-proofing plan could force the government back to the drawing board

Author

Louie Woodall
August 15, 2024

AI-generated via DALL-E

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TL;DR

  • The UK government’s national adaptation plan was challenged in the High Court on July 23-24

  • Environmental group Friends of the Earth, together with co-claimants Kevin Jordan and Doug Paulley, brought the case, which alleges the then-Conservative government produced an ‘unlawful’ plan

  • The case has four prongs, focused on how the plan breaches the Climate Change Act of 2008 and Human Rights legislation

  • If the High Court rules against the government, it may have to rewrite the plan

  • The current Labour administration was not in power when the case was brought, and has set out a more ambitious climate agenda than the ousted Conservative government. This bodes well for future adaptation plans

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If a government’s first duty is to protect the people, then Westminster is falling down on the job. That’s the claim made by Friends of the Earth (FoE) in a first-of-its-kind legal challenge against the UK government for failing to protect people, property, and infrastructure from escalating climate risks.

The case, brought jointly by FoE and two individuals whose lives and homes have been blighted by climate change, was heard by the High Court in late July. The outcome could force the government to rewrite the country’s latest adaptation plan. Perhaps even more significantly, it could reframe climate adaptation as integral to human rights to life, home, and property. A verdict could be announced as soon as September.

“Our homes, lives and livelihoods are being put at risk by the government’s weak, and we believe unlawful, climate adaptation plans,” said FoE climate campaigner Alison Dilworth in a recent press release. “The failure to make the nation more resilient to the floods, storms and heatwaves that are increasingly battering Britain is already affecting millions of people across the country — with older and disabled people among those most at risk.”

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