Background
Climate change is happening, and its impacts are unavoidable. We are already experiencing the dangerous impacts of a rapidly heating climate. Even if we cut emissions to zero tomorrow, further warming is inevitable due to the legacy of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that will take decades to decline to safe levels.
Global and UK average temperatures have increased by around 1.2˚C since the 1850 – 1900 period. The 2018 Climate change projections for the UK are broadly consistent with the UK Climate Projection 2009 (UKCP09) showing a change towards warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers and an increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events which will continue to amplify as climate change intensifies.
Action was urgent in 2009 but we have lost another 15 years since then, making action even more urgent now – and requiring a deep and collective response.
About the Cotswold National Landscape Climate Change Strategy
The CNL Climate Change Strategy is a review and updating of the 2012 Strategy based on the UKCP18 figures, Government policy and targets and the recommendations of the Landscapes Review. The strategy is for the whole of the Cotswolds National Landscape. This is a single ecological and cultural landscape with similar soils and farming and land management challenges that could be otherwise divided by up to 15 separate climate change strategies or plans based on local authority areas.
The purpose of the revised strategy is to better inform the CNL Board and stakeholders of the likely impacts of climate change on the Cotswolds. The Strategy seeks to take a landscape-led approach, identifying actions to help decision makers, farmers, landowners, communities and businesses to respond to climate change and make the Cotswolds more resilient in ways that are compatible with and, ideally, make a positive contribution to the statutory purpose of AONB designation.
The Strategy is at a high level and more detailed information and guidance on some themes is provided in CNL Board position statements and guidance, and design and guidance produced by local planning authorities and bodies such as Historic England.
Based on the carbon baselining and net zero work the CNL team and partners have been doing during 2022-2024, this strategy will be updated during 2024/25.