Sheffield Prepares For Climate Change, But Doesn’t Know Costs

Sheffield City Council has approved capital spending of £1.2m on improving flood defences and £2m on renewing assets such as culverts and dams to manage surface water.

However, it does not hold any estimates of how much climate change currently costs the council on a yearly basis, or any projections for those costs into the next decade.

The data was sourced by media literacy charity The Student View following a Freedom of Information request made to Sheffield City Council.

In a statement on their website, the council stated they had “declared a climate emergency” and are “working towards Sheffield becoming a zero-carbon city by the end of the next decade and playing our full contribution to the Paris Climate Change agreements.”

Sheffield has been blighted with flooding in recent years. The Star cited James Fletcher’s, service manager for flood and water, contribution to a report, which read “Sheffield’s valley communities and some of the city’s key assets are at risk of flooding from its main rivers and watercourses.

Those risks are forecast to increase over the coming century as the effects of changing weather patterns brought about by climate change take hold.”