02/02/10

By Andrew Holt

UK charities must plan and prepare for the impact of climate change now to ensure they are ready to cope with changing demands on their services in future.

New guidance for voluntary and community groups encourages them to think beyond reducing their own carbon footprint to consider how the people and communities they help may need extra support to deal with flooding, heat waves and rising costs brought on by climate change.

The National Council for Voluntary Organisations, together with Green Alliance and Global Action Plan, have completed a pilot project with four major UK charities to work through how the world's changing climate could directly affect their beneficiaries and what they need to do now to protect services and people in future.

Kate Damiral, from NCVO's strategy and impact team, said: "Too many people still think of climate change as a purely environmental issue to do with recycling, light bulbs and air travel. But organisations need to realise it will pose an immense humanitarian challenge in which vulnerable and disadvantaged people are likely to be the most badly affected.

"By starting to prepare for a changing climate now, charities could help save lives in future by ensuring they are not overwhelmed by events and can deliver the right services to those they support. This is something every charity needs to think about, no matter what the cause."

The charities involved in the Big Response project were the British Red Cross, Equinox Care, Friends of the Elderly and the Royal National Institute for Blind People.

Equinox Care learnt more intense heat waves and localised drought in Britain could make it difficult to administer methadone to recovering drug addicts who could become dehydrated.

It is now expanding its service to ensure beneficiaries understand the dehydration dangers of hot weather and is investigating how best to deal with water shortages.

The British Red Cross recognised it could become overwhelmed by the number and scale of climate-related emergencies in the UK.

Climate change is now built into the organisation's next five-year strategy, acknowledging it is one of the most likely factors for increasing demand on its services.

Voluntary and community groups can find advice on how to explore the possible effects of climate change on their beneficiaries and the work they do, along with tips on ways to respond to this challenge on NCVO's website (www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/climatechange).

The Big Response project was funded by the Baring Foundation to work specifically with charities that help vulnerable groups.

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