Introduction
Scotland’s transport infrastructure and networks are fundamental to our nation’s communities, businesses and visitors. They offer critical connections between people and places, and are vital in providing access to essential services, such as healthcare.
The importance of our transport systems cannot be overstated, particularly as they are susceptible to variations in Scotland’s weather systems.
Our road, rail, maritime and aviation systems are all facing unprecedented vulnerability to the weather-related impacts of climate change, which can contribute to the deterioration of assets, disruption to networks, and potentially hazardous incidents that may cause fatalities or serious injuries. These impacts have serious knock-on consequences across sectors, places and wider infrastructure systems that depend on transport infrastructure for their normal functioning. By increasing the climate resilience and ability of transport infrastructure to adapt to climate change, we will have a significant influence on Scotland's overall ability to increase resilience and adapt.
Climate change is not a new concept. Scientific evidence has shown that the Earth’s climate has always gone through periods of change, however, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have stated that it is now ‘unequivocal’ that the recent observed warming trends are attributable to human influence. Figure 2 below illustrates the change in global surface temperatures, related to human activity, from the Industrial Revolution to 2020.
(Source: IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers)
Humans influence has warmed the climate at an unprecedented rate within the last 2,000 years. This graph shows changes in global surface temperature over the past 170 years as observed, this is represented by the black line. The brown colouring is a simulation of the temperature changes in response to human and natural drivers. The blue colouring is a simulation of natural only drivers such as solar and volcanic activity. Solid coloured lines show the multi-model average, and coloured shades show the very likely range of simulations. The black line on the graph shows that human induced warming has rapidly increased within the last few decades and we are now living in the warmest multi-century period. An alternative graph is figure 1.2 which shows annual temperature relative to 1981-2020 in 'Progress in adapting to climate change 2021 - Report to Parliament'.
Further to this, the IPCC’s recent report on Climate Change: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability stated that ‘human-induced climate change, including more frequent and intense extreme events, has caused widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people, beyond natural climate variability.’
The report also highlighted that even if the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C can be achieved, this would still cause unavoidable increases in multiple climate hazards. Furthermore, current projections show that the trajectory of global emissions is closer to the medium-high emission scenario (within the scenarios set out in the UK Climate Change Projections 2018 (UKCP18) analysis), which would entail a much greater level of warming.
Across Scotland, these observed changes have already had a profound impact on our climate and weather patterns. We have seen temperatures rise, sea levels increase and variations in rainfall, with greater seasonality and more heavy downpours. For example, Scotland’s 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1997 and average temperature in the last decade (2010-2019) was 0.69 °C warmer than the 1961-1990 average. Sea levels have risen by 16 cm since 1900 and the average rainfall in Scotland between 2010-19 was 9% wetter than the 1961-90 average (see also Figure 3).
Projected climate trends show that these variations are expected to continue and intensify, with future impacts likely to be more severe than we have experienced so far. Scotland must act now to adapt and increase resilience to these impacts to avoid costly and disruptive consequences for our people, communities and economy as well as adverse effects on our natural environments and biodiversity.
The adverse effects of human-induced changes associated with climate change links directly to the biodiversity crisis which we are witnessing across the world, with the extinction of species being more rapid in the past 50 years than at any time in human history. Whilst this document focuses on climate change, both the climate emergency and biodiversity crisis must be tackled together with holistic policies that address both issues simultaneously and not in isolation.
The SG’s commitment to addressing the global climate emergency means both limiting Scotland’s contributions to future climate change by reaching Net Zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2045 and building resilience to the impacts which are locked in, meaning impacts that will occur regardless of our efforts to reduce emissions. Both “mitigation” and “adaptation” aspects are vital for a Just Transition and the transport system has a vital role to play in both.
Addressing the biodiversity crisis is a commitment which the SG has chosen to directly align with Scotland’s Net Zero target. As noted in the consultation for the SG’s Biodiversity strategy, whereby they are committing to “restoring nature and ending Scotland's contribution to climate change, our country is transformed for the better - helping to secure the wellbeing of our people and planet for generations to come,” by 2045.
A priority of our National Transport Strategy (NTS2) is to ‘Take climate action.’ This includes adapting to the impacts of climate change, allowing our transport systems to remain resilient and reduce the harmful effects on future generations.
This document sets out TS’s current approach to adaptation and resilience in relation to climate change, highlighting the key messages and urgency scores for infrastructure risks, derived from the Climate Change Committees (CCC) Independent assessment of UK Climate Risk (CCRA3), which provides evidence to inform the UK Government’s UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2022 (UKCCRA3).
Our approach sets out four high level Strategic Outcomes and a number of Sub-Outcomes to deliver a well-adapted and resilient transport network for the future. Within the current decade we will address the 7 CCRA3 risks that relate to transport (see Table 1) and align our delivery with the current and subsequent Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme (SCCAP).
Increasing resilience and adapting to the impacts of climate change requires significant capacity building and change within organisations. The Adaptation Scotland programme has developed an award winning Adaptation Capability Framework (ACF) that major organisations in Scotland are using to develop their work to adapt.
TS played a crucial role in helping to develop this resource and is using the ACF to identify and further develop our adaptation maturity (see Annex A). This initial baselining exercise recognised the need to develop a wider understanding of our approach. It is envisaged that TS will continue to use the ACF to further develop our adaptation capability and increase our maturity level.