Climate Resilient Infrastructure: Preparing for a Changing Climate
On 9th May 2011, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Caroline Spelman launched Climate Resilient Infrastructure: Preparing for a Changing Climate, a cross-Government report outlining the challenges to the transport, energy, water and ICT infrastructure sectors in adapting to climate change.
Ms Spelman warned that urgent action is required to protect the infrastructure that support society and the national economy from the effects of climate change.
In the context of the Government’s vision for an infrastructure network that is resilient to today’s natural hazards and prepared for
the future changing climate, the document highlights important themes such as: the risk climate change presents to infrastructure interdependencies; adaptation investment; and potential economic opportunities.
Produced as a commitment under the Government’s National Infrastructure Plan and as a response to calls from industry – infrastructure owners, investors and insurers – for a Government vision and policy on adapting infrastructure to climate change, the report sets out the action that needs to be taken by infrastructure owners and operators, regulators, insurers and Government. It is designed to catalyse action to adapt infrastructure in the energy, ICT, transport and water sectors.
The UK Government’s first Adaptation Programme in 2012 will report on progress made and what further actions might be required to increase the climate resilience of infrastructure.
Urgent action to protect infrastructure
Launching the report at Blackfriars Station in London, Ms Spelman explained that planning and design must take into account the impact which more extreme weather will have on essential services such as transport networks and power supplies, otherwise the economy could suffer:
“Our economy is built on effective transport and communications networks and reliable energy and water supplies. But the economy cannot grow if there are repeated power failures, or goods cannot be transported because roads are flooded and railways have buckled, or if intense rainfall or high temperatures disrupt Wi-Fi signals.
“£200bn is expected to be invested in the UK’s infrastructure over the next five years. But if the facilities which support our society cannot cope with floods, droughts, or freezing winters then that money will have been wasted.
“Infrastructure assets often have lives of at least 50-100 years so they need to be designed to function long into the future when the climate is projected to be very different.
“This presents great opportunities for British businesses to develop new technologies and processes in engineering, planning and consultancy, ICT-based technologies, renewable energy, investment, and insurance.”
Headline challenges
The report sets out the following headline challenges of preparing infrastructure for a changing climate:
- How Government can facilitate progress in adapting national infrastructure to the impacts of climate change.
- How to set out the challenge of adapting to climate change in economic regulatory models.
- How the planning system for nationally significant infrastructure can guide applicants on the need to adapt new infrastructure to the impacts of climate change.
- How to reduce the risk that climate change impacts present to infrastructure interdependencies, increasing the vulnerability of infrastructure sectors.
- How to increase the adaptive capacity in infrastructure companies and others (e.g. investors) to enable robust and cost effective climate change adaptation decisions to be made.
- How to improve the way investment decisions incorporate the impacts of climate change.
- How to improve access by industry to specific climate information and research through better information sharing, disclosure of risk and evidence.
- How to monitor progress made in adapting national infrastructure to climate change.
- How to realise the potential economic opportunities that adapting national infrastructure to climate change presents.
The report is the culmination of the two-year Infrastructure and Adaptation project, involving the key infrastructure departments Cabinet Office, BIS, CLG, DECC, DfT and Defra.
Further reading
- Advice to infrastructure companies: full Climate Resilient Infrastructure: Preparing for a Changing Climate report, summary report and synthesis report of Infrastructure and Adaptation project available to download.
You may also be interested in...
- Business attitudes to climate change
- UK Climate Change Risk Assessment
- Facing the challenges of climate change
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