Community Resilience to Climate Change: Theory, Research and Practice

242 emissions scenario (UK Climate Projections 2009). This region also happens to have the fastest-growing population in the UK (ONS 2003) with the number of households projected to increase by 36% by 2030 (DCLG 2009). The southwest is also one of the most popular tourism destinations in England, with over 21 million visits per year, a figure that is also projected to rise because of changing patterns in the tourism industry and also because of climate change impacts elsewhere in Europe (EEA 2008). Improving water efficiency is therefore a priority for South West Water, the utility company that manages and delivers water services in the region. However, water affordability is already a serious issue in the southwest, where prices are around 40% higher than in other regions of the UK, because of a mixture of legacy, infrastructure, and tourism factors. Delivering affordable water efficiency is therefore the additional challenge. Benzie et al. (2011) examined a pilot project by South West Water to introduce a Rising Block Tariff for water customers. In theory, this tariff structure incentivizes water efficiency while delivering affordable water to all. It offers three differently priced “blocks” of water use: Block 1: “essential use” at 73% of the standard unit price; Block 2: standard price (a buffer); Block 3: “premium use” at 181% of the standard unit price. The theory is that users who reduce their use are rewarded with cheaper water, and those who chose to use more pay a premium for doing so. The system relies on there being a free and equal choice between households on how much water they use. However, Benzie et al. (2011) show that water use requirements differ between households; some are less able to reduce their water use, as a result of household size, certain medical requirements, or even as a result of tenure and inflexibility to fit water-saving devices or inability to purchase water-efficient technologies, e.g., new washing machines. Such households, if on low incomes, may be unfairly penalized by the introduction of a Rising Block Tariff system, raising the prospect that water efficiency schemes could push more households into a situation of “water poverty,” defined as spending more than 3% of disposable income on water bills (Fitch and Price 2002). The case study also revealed the role of support schemes that protect low-income households from water poverty where metering and new tariff structures are in place. In the southwest, the WaterSure scheme caps bills for qualifying households, i.e., those on low incomes or with defined medical requirements, and the WaterCare scheme aims to improve water efficiency and provide support to households in debt with water companies. Thus, efficiency incentive schemes, including water metering and new tariff structures, are not inherently regressive and do provide the potential to address climate risks, i.e., drought, in socially just ways, provided that they are always implemented in tandem with support schemes for vulnerable households. Benzie et al. (2011) and the independent Walker Review of affordability and water charging (Walker 2009) identify various features of the water sector that are important for maintaining affordability and make various recommendations to ensure that water poverty is avoided as a consequence of maladaptation to climate change. In this case, autonomous adaptation, i.e., using pricing mechanisms to address resource scarcity and reduce risks, only avoids being unjust because consumer rights are well represented in the heavily regulated water sector. Future flood insurance Flood insurance in the UK is currently governed by an agreement between the state and the insurance sector, known, in its most recent incarnation, as the “Statement of Principles.” In short, the state commits to provide flood defences and prevent development in very high-risk areas, in return for a commitment from insurers to provide insurance cover to all households and most small businesses (see Crichton 2002). This agreement is due to expire in 2013, stimulating a lively debate between insurers, the government, and various stakeholders on what should replace it. The JRF recently published a “viewpoint” report that addresses the social justice aspects of this debate (O’Neill and O’Neill 2012). One in six homes in England is currently at risk from flooding (EA 2009), and low-income households are the likeliest to be uninsured and the least able to recover from the financial impacts of flooding (Pitt 2008). Flood risk is increasing in the UK as a result of increased development, i.e., more and higher value homes, and climate change, including changing precipitation patterns and sea level rise. Looking into the future, there is a tension between creating disincentives to live and develop in flood zones and penalizing people who already live there. If the insurance market were left to adapt autonomously by simply pricing the actual risk for each household, insurance rates would drive demand for housing in low-risk zones, and therefore raise property values, while high-risk areas would become cheap, attracting low-income households, blighted and potentially uninsured or uninsurable, creating significant inequalities and social injustice (O’Neill and O’Neill 2012). Alternative, nonmarket, insurance models exist and are common in other European countries, where the state often plays a larger role. O’Neill and O’Neill (2012) explain how different concepts of fairness imply different insurance models and argue strongly for a more solidaristic flood insurance regime in the UK. The case of flood insurance, as an example of autonomous adaptation where risk is priced, shows the inability of some forms of adaptation to protect the most vulnerable and a much more worrying possibility that maladaptation may significantly increase the vulnerability of some groups to climate change.