To determine outcomes and priority indicators for adaptation to climate change in England

In summer 2019, the ASC will be publishing its first report on the second National Adaptation Programme, which was published in July 2018. To inform this report, the ASC is interested in building another layer into its assessment framework to determine what outcomes the National Adaptation Programme is or could be seeking to deliver progress against, and following from this, which indicators are the priorities for enabling us to measure progress against these outcomes. The outcomes that the National Adaptation Programme (and other adaptation programmes) seek to deliver should be based enabling wider current government or societal goals or objectives to be met in the face of climate change, rather than having a specific set of 'adaptation outcomes'. The ASC wants to assess the progress underway in terms of how adaptation action being taken in England is helping to achieve these wider goals when the risks from climate change are taken into account.

2. Aims and Objectives

There are two parts to this project. The successful bidder will complete the first part, after which the ASC will determine if it wishes the second part to be completed as well. Both parts are set out here and bids should include proposals for both parts.

The aim of the first part of this project is to: a) Identify existing government outcomes or targets that link with the ASC's adaptation priorities, indicators and CCRA risks. Some, but not all of these outcomes are already set out in the NAP, and the project should collate these but also identify other relevant published outcomes where these are not explicitly stated in the NAP but the ability to achieve the outcome will be affected by climate change. b) Map all of the outcomes identified against the ASC's adaptation priorities, indicators and the risks set out in the UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA). c) Identify if there are gaps where no outcomes currently exist to measure progress against.

The aim of the second part of this project is to: a) Define new outcomes for those areas where gaps exist, using a stakeholder consultation process. b) Determine the most important indicators to assess progress against the outcomes, drawing on the ASC's current indicator list but also suggesting new indicators where appropriate. c) For all outcomes identified, review the current published literature to assess how feasible it is to achieve the goal in a 2ºC world and a 4ºC world. Produce a narrative discussion based on this evidence on whether the goal is reasonable given the risks from climate change. d) Identify any of the outcomes listed where the effects of climate change or behavioural responses to climate change have not yet been factored in to the government's policy response.

*** See Specification for more detail ***