Barriers to financing adaptation actions in the UK: an evidence report

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) commissioned Frontier Economics and Paul Watkiss Associates to produce an assessment of barriers that are preventing investment in climate change adaptation in the United Kingdom. This report presents the findings of a rapid literature review, a set of case studies to provide context specific assessments of barriers and how they have been overcome, and a set of related recommendations to the Committee on how these barriers might be removed.

The key messages of this report are:

• Consensus exists in the literature that there are significant barriers to investing in climate change adaptation in the UK.
• Identifiable categories of barriers include: markets and revenues, information and lack of support available, bankability and regulation.
• Barriers are more pronounced in some areas (for example, such as revenue related barriers in nature environment  projects), and less pronounced in others (for example,  those with supportive regulation), but there is a consensus from the literature that investing in adaptation (particularly in the private sector) is currently difficult.
• The case studies considered here supplement the literature review with new evidence and highlight a lack of first-hand evidence about the successes and the barriers faced in the UK by projects involving adaptation investment.