THE CLIMATE crisis is causing a “serious risk to national security” amid calls for the UK Government to better protect crucial infrastructure.

Senior MPs and peers has called on the Tory Government to take a "focused responsibility" to protecting national infrastructure.

The Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy has pointed to the fatal Stonehaven derailment and Storm Arwen showing the impacts of climate change, warning that incidents will continue without infrastructure being protected.

In a stark new report, the committee has pointed to the deaths of three people after the Stonehaven derailment after heavy rainfall in August 2020, along with around one million people losing power during Storm Arwen in November 2021.

The politicians have warned that national security has been put at risk by a failure to protect critical national infrastructure such as power, water, transport and communications.

The cross-party committee found there was overwhelming evidence that climate change is already having an impact on UK infrastructure.

It is also clear, according to the committee, that no minister has been taking responsibility for adapting UK infrastructure to the effects of climate change – with the report suggesting that this reveals an extreme weakness at the centre of government.

The committee accuses the self-described minister for infrastructure resilience in Boris Johnson’s administration – the then Cabinet Office minister Michael Ellis – of a severe dereliction of duty for refusing to testify before them.

The committee has been gathering evidence for its inquiry for the past year. It held an evidence session during the heatwave of July 2022, when temperatures peaked at 40.3 degrees Celsius. But the MPs and peers warn that even more severe weather – and consequent impacts – will be prevalent soon.

Experts predict that high temperatures are likely to cause electricity cables to sag and roads to soften and rut. Flooding is expected to be more severe, and the consequent failure of railway embankments more frequent.

Despite these risks, the committee found very little ‘join-up’ between the various infrastructure sectors, and no formal mechanism for collaboration or information sharing on their interdependencies.

The chair of the joint committee, Dame Margaret Beckett, said: “There are plenty of examples of the extremely serious impact that climate change has already had on our critical national infrastructure. And there are bound to be more in the future – almost certainly more serious still.

“But the thing I find most disturbing is the lack of evidence that anyone in government is focusing on how all the impacts can come together, creating cascading crises. There are simply no ministers with focused responsibility for making sure that our infrastructure is resilient to extreme weather and other effects of climate change."

Friends of the Earth Scotland's head of campaigns, Mary Church, said: “The climate crisis is here and it’s already having devastating effects on the infrastructure that millions of people rely on for travel, communication and basic services.

"The glacially slow pace of the UK response to the climate emergency means that much more disruption from extreme weather is already locked in.

“The UK Government must not compound their direction of duty in failing to cut climate changing emissions by also failing to protect vital infrastructure from the effects of climate change. Science has long predicted this threat and decision makers must start to act now to better ensure public safety."

“The burning of fossil fuels is the main driver of the climate crisis. Extreme weather and its impacts will only get worse unless we rapidly phase out the extraction and use of fossil fuels, yet oil companies and governments alike are continuing to invest in new projects.

"It's time to put an end date on fossil fuels and start delivering a just transition to a safe, affordable renewable energy system.”

Scottish Greens MSP Mark Ruskell said the climate crisis "is not just an environmental threat; it is also a threat to our security".

He added: "The impacts outlined in this report are a glimpse of our future and what the 'new normal' will look like without far reaching climate action.

“There is a vital and urgent need to future-proof our infrastructure. As the climate crisis worsens, so will the severity and regularity of the floods and extreme weather events we are experiencing. If our water, transport and energy systems are to withstand extreme weather it will require major investment.

“We’ve already witnessed tragedies on the rails with land slips, on roads with fallen trees, and watched as huge floods have devastated whole communities and wildfires have ripped through areas with ferocious intensity.

“This report is long overdue and it is about time that every politician in every corner of UK politics put the climate crisis front and centre of every conversation. Climate change knows no borders, and neither should our response.” 

A UK Government spokesperson said: “There are robust systems in place to protect critical national infrastructure from the effects of climate change. This includes work through the National Adaptation Programme led by Defra, and the National Infrastructure Commission led by HMT."

“In the Cabinet Office, we have created a standardised approach to help departments capture and mitigate risks to critical infrastructure.”