Provision of National Climate Change Risk Assessment

Description

The EPA is leading in the provision of a National Climate Change Risk Assessment based on a request from Climate Action Plan 2023 Action AD/25/2 with a completion date of end Q1 2025. National climate change risk assessments (NCCRAs) are intended to support planning for adaptation to and mitigation of climate change impacts - providing insights into the solutions needed to inform the climate change adaptation planning process. The purpose is to develop and implement the delivery and publication plan for Ireland’s first dedicated National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA) to set out the priority impacts of climate change for Ireland. NCCRAs provide a basis for making decisions on whether risks are acceptable to society or the community by analysing information on the projected impacts and consequences of climate change. NCCRAs then determine how risks deemed unacceptable can be reduced to below threshold levels of acceptability and how potential opportunities can be realised. This will be a systematic semi-quantitative iterative risk assessment process that supports identification, assessment, and prioritisation of climate change risks that are underpinned by consistent climate information and accounts for uncertainty in climate projections. The assessment will follow the recommendations of the NCCRA scoping report (2023). This recommended that an overarching semi-quantitative NCCRA process similar to the UK CCRA is established with an initial NCCRA developed in line with the New Zealand approach as this would provide for the identification and prioritisation of national climate change risks in the short term. The assessment is due by end Q1 2025.