The EIP: 10 Days of the 10 Goals - Goal 8: Reducing environmental hazards

As the climate continues to change, we are experiencing more frequent and intense wildfires, floods, and droughts. Temperatures and sea levels are rising. Biodiversity and wildlife are threatened.

Goal 8 of the Environmental Improvement Plan 2025 – Reducing environmental hazards – is a response to that challenge. It recognises that environmental protection must now contend with the growing risks posed by climate change not only to ecosystems, but to people, homes and livelihoods.

The goal is framed in clear terms: “We will reduce the risk of harm to people, the environment and the economy from natural hazards”.

That simple message will be hard to achieve. More severe droughts linked to climate change are set to leave parts of England facing significant water shortages by 2050. At the same time, increasing coastal erosion and flooding are already having profound implications for infrastructure, property, public health, and land use.

Just to give one recent example, while the High Court was last week hearing a claim related to the need for overland flood barriers to protect Sizewell C from flooding in the credible maximum climate change scenario, the BBC announced that in nearby Thorpeness two homes are already being demolished due to hazards arising from coastal erosion.[1]

The EIP accepts that climate-driven hazards cannot be prevented entirely, but that their impacts can be anticipated, mitigated and managed through effective policy, planning and investment. Goal 8 foregrounds resilience – the capacity of communities, ecosystems and systems to withstand shocks and recover from them – and seeks to embed this thinking across government decision-making.

The EIP outlines a range of actions designed to reduce exposure to environmental hazards and strengthen resilience:

• Flood and coastal erosion risk management: Continued investment in flood and coastal defences, with a stated ambition to better protect tens of thousands of properties, alongside commitments to maintain existing assets at target condition. The Government will consider whether further reforms to the planning system are required to manage flood risk and coastal change in new developments.
• Drought resilience: Measures to address increasing water scarcity, particularly in the context of hotter, drier summers and growing demand. This includes implementing the Environment Agency National Framework for Water Resources, delivering water resources management plans, efficiency measures and support for adaptation in agriculture and other water-dependent sectors.
• Nature-based solutions: The use of natural processes – such as wetland creation, peatland restoration and woodland expansion – to reduce flood risk, regulate water flows and provide wider environmental benefits. The EIP presents these approaches as cost-effective and multifunctional tools for hazard reduction. There is an intention to work with local authorities on green infrastructure frameworks, to provide funding (c. £800m) for tree planting, and to deliver some 200,000ha of peatland restoration and woodland creation.
• Wildfire risks: Improving data collection and funding research to address the risks of wildfires.

An emphasis on adaptation and hazard is to be welcomed. These and other commitments sit alongside wider climate adaptation policies, including the National Adaptation Programme (NAP3), which the Defra Secretary of State is required to produce under section 58 of the Climate Change Act 2008. The Climate Change Committee has stated that NAP3 falls “far short of what is needed on adaptation”.[2]

While a challenge to NAP3 based on human rights grounds was dismissed by the High Court in 2024 (see R (Friends of the Earth et al) v SSEFRA [2024] EWHC 2707), the Claimants in that case have applied to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that the state’s approach to climate adaptation – particularly in relation to heat risk and coastal erosion – is unlawful.[3]

While that case arises from the UK’s climate adaptation framework rather than the EIP directly, it highlights the practical stakes of Goal 8. One of the Claimants, Kevin Jordan, lives in Hemsby, Norfolk, where his home was destroyed by coastal erosion. Another, Doug Paulley lives in a care home and has health conditions that put him particularly at risk from heatwaves.

Delivering on Goal 8 will require sustained coordination across central government, regulators, local authorities and land managers. Key challenges include:

• ensuring long-term funding certainty for hazard management and maintenance;
• integrating hazard reduction consistently across planning, infrastructure and environmental policy; and
• addressing the uneven distribution of risk, particularly for vulnerable communities.

Goal 8 places environmental hazards on the agenda, as part of the EIP’s vision for environmental improvement. However, there is a long way to go. The success of this goal will ultimately be measured in lived outcomes: fewer homes flooded, fewer communities disrupted by drought or erosion, and greater confidence that environmental governance is equipped to manage the risks that climate change now presents.

Odette Chalaby is a barrister at Landmark Chambers.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1m8x2vv384o

[2] https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/progress-in-adapting-to-climate-change-2025/

[3] https://friendsoftheearth.uk/climate/uk-climate-adaptation-case-goes-european-court-human-rights