Northern Ireland’s third action plan for building climate change resilience was launched today by Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs Andrew Muir.
The third Northern Ireland Climate Change Adaptation Programme (NICCAP3) takes a whole society approach with over 280 actions included in response to the latest UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA).
These actions were contributed by a range of stakeholders across the public and private sector including Translink, NI Water, local councils, academia, the community and voluntary sector, and businesses.
At the launch of the action plan, Minister Muir said: “We are already experiencing first-hand the impacts of climate change through the frequent and severe storms we are witnessing and more frequent and extreme flooding events.”
“We have seen new climate sensitive animal diseases arriving on our shores and more intense wildfires, all of which are impacting upon our communities, businesses and environment.”
Minister Muir added that the plan demonstrates the positive collaboration taking place across all government departments, and as well in partnership with a range of key external stakeholders.
He said: “They recognise that building resilience to the current and future projected impacts of climate needs action from across our whole society.”
The action plan was welcomed by Ciaran Fox, director of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects and chair of Climate NI.
He said: “Adapting to the changes we are seeing in our climate is not something that can be achieved working in isolation, the NICCAP3 is a testament to the joined-up collaboration which is needed to build our resilience to the impacts of climate change.”
The plan’s 280 actions to help all sectors of society to adapt to an improve Northern Ireland’s resilience to the impacts of climate change.
The range of climate actions contained within NICCAP3 is significant, including:
- A new Peatlands Strategy for Northern Ireland;
- A Sustainable Agriculture Programme;
- City draining plans for Derry and Belfast;
- A new Food Strategy Framework, which will set out a long‑term vision for a fair, secure, and sustainable food system for Northern Ireland.
Dr. Lisa McIlvenna, managing director at Business in the Community NI said the 2025 NI Environmental Benchmarking Survey report showed that 67% of respondents from businesses had experienced direct or indirect impacts from climate change in the past five years.
She added: “The impacts of climate change on businesses are escalating, disrupting productivity and supply chains, damaging premises and infrastructure, increasing insurance costs, and posing physical health risks to employees through severe weather and flooding.
“Many businesses across Northern Ireland are already experiencing the damaging effects of these events, and climate projections suggest the risks will only increase.
“Building resilience to climate change now is critical to protecting our business sector and the wider economy.”
