As well as reducing our scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions, it is equally important we understand the impact of past global emissions on future climate change.

We have been working with the UK Met Office to understand how these changes might affect our UK and US infrastructure and future energy demand.

During 2010, we were asked by Defra to represent the energy sector on a project to develop climate adaptation risk assessments for our regulated UK gas and electricity businesses. Our assessment process used the government’s latest available climate change scenarios to test the resilience of our networks to a range of future conditions. The feedback from the process showed that National Grid has a good understanding of the risks posed by potential future climate change and has a high degree of resilience already built into its networks. The ongoing monitoring and appropriate mitigation of the risks from a changing climate will be through our day-to-day business risk management processes. The full reports can be found in the Downloads section of this website.

In the US, we are working with state task forces and the primary focus of our adaptation work has been on flood risk assessment and mitigation requirements for our electricity assets. In 2011/12, we will continue to work with our respective governmental and local agencies as this field of study and research evolves.