High Court to hear judicial review of Defra climate adaptation plan

The High Court will next week (18 and 19 June) hear a judicial review claim challenging the Government's plan to adapt to existing and predicted climate impacts.

The claimants - a disability rights activist, a man who's lost his home and Friends of the Earth - argue that adoption by the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) of the National Adaptation Programme 3 (NAP 3) was unlawful under grounds invoking the Public Sector Equality Duty and the Human Rights Act.

Under the Climate Change Act 2008, the UK Government must create a National Adaptation Programme every five years to set out how it will adapt to climate change's impacts.

The third programme, known as NAP 3, was adopted on 17 July 2023.

The claimants are advancing the following four grounds of argument:

  1. Misdirection in law as to the correct approach to setting "objectives" under s58(1)(a). "Rather than setting lawful specific objectives, the Secretary of State has included vague 'risk reduction goals'. We consider this is inconsistent with the statutory language in s58, the overall statutory scheme, and its fundamental purpose."
  2. Unlawful failure to consider and/ or publish information on the risk(s) to delivery of the plans and proposals in NAP3. "There's no evidence this assessment was done, yet it was considered legally necessary by Holgate J. in Friends of the Earth (& Others) v SoS for BEIS [2022] EWHC 1841 for the analogous situation when producing the then Net Zero Strategy (for mitigating emissions) under the Climate Change Act."
  3. Unlawful failure to discharge the public sector equality duty (s149, Equality Act 2010) in not lawfully assessing the unequal impacts of NAP3 on protected groups in society (such as age, race or disability).
  4. Breach of Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998 due to unlawful interferences with the individual co-claimants' rights under Articles 2, 8 and 14 and Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights. "This is partly due to the failures in ground 1, but also separately due to the content and deficiencies in NAP3 itself."

In February 2024, Mr Justice Sheldon gave permission for the case to proceed as a rolled-up hearing.

Friends of the Earth has lodged numerous judicial review challenges against the government over its climate plans.

Last month it won a case in the High Court, which saw the Government’s carbon reduction plan found to be unlawful for a second time.  

It also recently filed an application with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), challenging the use of anti-protest injunctions in the UK, that it claimed had been used by shale-gas companies to thwart protests.

Defra has been approached for comment.

Adam Carey