Long-lived Infrastructure Research Articles

Engaging the private sector in adaptation to climate change in developing countries: importance, status, and challenges

In developing countries there is a need for the private sector to be more engaged in identifying climate change risks, response measures, and adaptation, and to prioritize these more highly. The importance of the role of the private sector is evident from lessons drawn from the increasing amount of empirical experience on adaptation projects supported by climate funds: successful private sector engagement in adaptation will catalyse greater investment in reducing vulnerability; this in turn will accelerate the replication of climate-resilient technologies and services in core development sectors, especially in developing countries where investment in long-lived infrastructure is growing rapidly. Private sector companies should integrate adaptation into their strategies and investments for their own economic interest, as well as for their clients’ interest and for the interests of the countries in which they operate. Unfortunately, private sector efforts on adaptation are not widely understood or seen as good business practice, and generally face several obstacles. Public policy should incentivize such investments by communicating risks, offering incentives for resilience enhancing measures, and where necessary by putting in place regulation to avoid shifting risks onto the public. Stronger public–private partnerships will also help to enhance climate resilience, and at the same time create business opportunities. Private firms will develop many of the products and services that will enable lower cost and more effective responses to climate change, which can be the basis for growing businesses. Ultimately, a paradigm shift is required for business to fully integrate the value associated with managing climate risks.

The transportation sector and low-carbon growth pathways: modelling urban, infrastructure, and spatial determinants of mobility

This article contributes to the controversial debate over the effect of spatial organization on CO2 emissions by investigating the potential of infrastructure measures that favour lower mobility in achieving the transition to a low-carbon economy. The energy–economy–environment (E3) IMACLIM-R model is used to provide a detailed representation of passenger and freight transportation. Unlike many of the E3 models used to simulate mitigation options, IMACLIM-R represents both the technological and behavioural determinants of mobility. By comparing business-as-usual, carbon price only, and carbon price combined with transport policy scenarios, it is demonstrated that the measures that foster a modal shift towards low-carbon modes and a decoupling of mobility needs from economic activity significantly modify the sectoral distribution of mitigation efforts and reduce the level of carbon tax necessary to reach a given climate target relative to a ‘carbon price only’ policy. Policy relevance Curbing carbon emissions from transport activities is necessary in order to reach mitigation targets, but it poses a challenge for policy makers. The transport sector has two peculiarities: a weak ability to react to standard pricing measures (which encourages richer policy interventions) and a dependence on long-lived infrastructure (which imposes a delay between policy interventions and effective action). To address these problems, a framework is proposed for analysing the role of transport-specific measures adopted complementarily to carbon pricing in the context of international climate policies. Consideration is given to alternative approaches such as infrastructure measures designed to control mobility through less mobility-intensive denser agglomerations, investment reorientation towards public mode, and logistics reorganization towards less mobility-dependent production processes. Such measures can significantly reduce transport emissions in the long term and hence would moderate an increase in the carbon price and reduce its more important detrimental impacts on the economy.

Time to re-think engineering design standards in a changing climate: the role of risk-based approaches

The design and construction of the built environment requires explicitly addressing the risk-resilience tradeoff – too weak and the structure may fail, too strong and it will result in excess capacity, cost and embodied energy. This tradeoff is generally managed through the establishment of, and compliance with building standards and codes that often specify the exact methodology by which design parameters shall be calculated from environmental measurements of wind speeds, wave heights, flood levels and other environmental variables. Furthermore, these standards commonly legislate that historical data be used to calculate these design parameters. However, climate science has revealed that in some, if not many cases, these historical datasets may not be representative of future conditions and thus using historical data to develop design parameters for future long-lived infrastructure may increase the likelihood that the risk-resilience tradeoff becomes inadvertently skewed. Hence we now have a conundrum in that engineers are directed to design structures using standards that are based on time series on environmental parameters that we believe in some cases may be unrepresentative of the conditions which structures may face.

Adaptive planning for climate resilient long-lived infrastructures

Climate change is a particular threat to long-lived infrastructures as many existing and planned infrastructures will still be in use by 2030 or 2050 when climate change might have far more substantial impacts then today. Consequently, to avoid financial losses and service disruption, the infrastructure planning process has to be entirely redefined to be able to successfully integrate climate change uncertainties. This paper explores the relationships between climate change and long-lived infrastructure according to the different types of direct and indirect uncertainties surrounding climate change, demonstrates the importance of acknowledging climate change as one of the components of the infrastructure planning process and explains how this same process could be reviewed to make it more responsive to the many uncertainties surrounding our future. It points out the different measures which could be undertaken to improve the planning process.

Moving Targets, Long-Lived Infrastructure, and Increasing Needs for Integration and Adaptation in Water Management: An Illustration from Switzerland

Switzerland provides an example of successful management of water infrastructure and water resources that was accomplished largely without integration across sectors. Limitations in this approach have become apparent; decisions that were formerly based only on technical and economic feasibility must now incorporate broader objectives such as ecological impact. In addition, current and emerging challenges relate to increasingly complex problems that are likely to demand more integrated approaches. If such integration is to be of benefit, it must be possible to redirect resources across sectors, and the synergies derived from integration must outweigh the additional cost of increased complexity.

Challenges of Adapting to a Changing Climate

I. INTRODUCTION II. IDENTIFYING CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND IMPACTS AND DESCRIBING APPROACHES TO ADAPTATION III. SETTING THE STAGE WITH SOME USEFUL DEFINITIONS IV. BUILDING ADAPTIVE CAPACITY: WHAT, HOW, AND WHERE TO BEGIN? A. Improve scientific capabilities and research B. Develop appropriate risk management institutions and policies C. Increase use of market-based programs for resource management D. Add flexibility and safety to long-lived infrastructure design and improvements E. Consider climatic factors in land use planning and building codes V. TIMING INVESTMENT AND POLICY CHANGES VI. CLOSING THOUGHTS Organizations increasingly face adaptive challenges requiring them to abandon the familiar and routine. Instead, they need to develop the capacity to harness knowledge and creativity to fashion unique responses, stimulate organizational learning and sometimes embrace transformational Carl Sussman (Management and Community Development Consultant), (1) I. INTRODUCTION The consensus among many climate scientists is that reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from current levels can be expected to slow and, eventually, lower atmospheric concentrations if efforts are sufficiently aggressive. Over time, reduced GHG emissions and concentrations will lessen both the likelihood and the severity of adverse climatic changes and impacts. (2) Recent trends and observations indicate that warmer temperatures and hydrologic changes associated with elevated GHG levels may already be occurring. These changes are likely to endure for some period, even beyond the time when emissions are reduced, because of the longevity of the atmospheric carbon cycle--about thirty years. (3) As a consequence, measurable warming and hydrologic changes are likely unavoidable--at least for the remainder of the century. Faced with this prospect, communities, organizations, and institutions that are particularly vulnerable to warming and hydrologic changes might prudently consider strategies that will enhance adaptive capacity. Such adaptive strategies could potentially forestall or limit adverse impacts and, in some cases, harness new and changing opportunities for economic growth and development. (4) This paper intends to provide a non-technical overview that describes several key concepts and issues related to climate change adaptation. Drawing insights from varied studies, including those on climate change impacts, vulnerability assessment, and adaptation capacity building, the paper focuses on strategies to bolster adaptive capacity within societal systems. In order to illustrate the concepts of adaptation, the paper utilizes the projected changes in water resources as an illustrative example. In addition, the paper also identifies strategies and projects that are general starting points for efforts to build adaptive capacity. These strategies are attractive starting points because they offer benefits beyond those stemming from climate change preparedness and can be characterized as no regrets or win-win tactics. For example, additional research into the management and technology associated with water use could potentially raise water-use efficiencies, and thus provide benefits for regions experiencing long-run drought and increased water demands, independent of climate change. These additional benefits, thus, effectively lower the action threshold for project implementation. Finally, the paper turns toward the critical issues of timing adaptation projects and policy changes. Uncertainty about the timing, location, and severity of climate change impacts introduces complexity into both the decision-making process and the traditional rules for optimal investment timing. II. IDENTIFYING CLIMATE CHANGE VULNERABILITY AND IMPACTS AND DESCRIBING APPROACHES TO ADAPTATION Rising concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are widely believed by climate scientists to contribute to warmer temperatures, rising sea levels, decreasing snow packs, earlier snowmelts, and changing spatial and temporal patterns of rainfall. …

Managing climate change risks in New York City’s water system: assessment and adaptation planning

Managing risk by adapting long-lived infrastructure to the effects of climate change must become a regular part of planning for water supply, sewer, wastewater treatment, and other urban infrastructure during this century. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (NYCDEP), the agency responsible for managing New York City’s (NYC) water supply, sewer, and wastewater treatment systems, has developed a climate risk management framework through its Climate Change Task Force, a government-university collaborative effort. Its purpose is to ensure that NYCDEP’s strategic and capital planning take into account the potential risks of climate change—sea-level rise, higher temperature, increases in extreme events, changes in drought and flood frequency and intensity, and changing precipitation patterns—on NYC’s water systems. This approach will enable NYCDEP and other agencies to incorporate adaptations to the risks of climate change into their management, investment, and policy decisions over the long term as a regular part of their planning activities. The framework includes a 9-step Adaptation Assessment procedure. Potential climate change adaptations are divided into management, infrastructure, and policy categories, and are assessed by their relevance in terms of climate change time-frame (immediate, medium, and long term), the capital cycle, costs, and other risks. The approach focuses on the water supply, sewer, and wastewater treatment systems of NYC, but has wide application for other urban areas, especially those in coastal locations.

Discounting the Distant Future: How Much Do Uncertain Rates Increase Valuations?

Costs and benefits in the distant future, such as those associated with global warming, long-lived infrastructure, hazardous and radioactive waste, and biodiversity often have little value today when measured with conventional discount rates. We demonstrate that when the future path of this conventional rate is uncertain and persistent (i.e., highly correlated over time), the distant future should be discounted at lower rates than suggested by the current rate. We then use two centuries of data on U.S. interest rates to quantify this effect. Using both random walk and mean-reverting models, we compute the certainty-equivalent rate that is, the single discount rate that summarizes the effect of uncertainty and measures the appropriate forward rate of discount in the future. Using the random walk model, which we consider more compelling, we find that the certainty-equivalent rate falls from 4%, to 2% after 100 years, 1% after 200 years, and 0.5% after 300 years. If we use these rates to value consequences at horizons of 400 years, the discounted value increases by a factor of over 40,000 relative to conventional discounting. Applying the random walk model to the consequences of climate change, we find that inclusion of discount rate uncertainty almost doubles the expected present value of mitigation benefits.

Dynamics of energy technologies and global change

Technological choices largely determine the long-term characteristics of industrial society, including impacts on the natural environment. However, the treatment of technology in existing models that are used to project economic and environmental futures remains highly stylized. Based on work over two decades at IIASA, we present a useful typology for technology analysis and discuss methods that can be used to analyze the impact of technological changes on the global environment, especially global warming. Our focus is energy technologies, the main source of many atmospheric environmental problems. We show that much improved treatment of technology is possible with a combination of historical analysis and new modeling techniques. In the historical record, we identify characteristic “learning rates” that allow simple quantified characterization of the improvement in cost and performance due to cumulative experience and investments. We also identify patterns, processes and timescales that typify the diffusion of new technologies in competitive markets. Technologies that are long-lived and are components of interlocking networks typically require the longest time to diffuse and co-evolve with other technologies in the network; such network effects yield high barriers to entry even for superior competitors. These simple observations allow three improvements to modeling of technological change and its consequences for global environmental change. One is that the replacement of long-lived infrastructures over time has also replaced the fuels that power the economy to yield progressively more energy per unit of carbon pollution – from coal to oil to gas. Such replacement has “decarbonized” the global primary energy supply 0.3% per year. In contrast, most baseline projections for emissions of carbon, the chief cause of global warming, ignore this robust historical trend and show little or no decarbonization. A second improvement is that by incorporating learning curves and uncertainty into micro scale models it is possible to endogenously generate patterns of technological choice that mirror the real world. Those include S-shaped diffusion patterns and timescales of technological dynamics that are consistent with historical experience; they also include endogenous generation of “surprises” such as the appearance of radically new technologies. Third, it is possible to include learning phenomena stylistically in macro-scale models; we show that doing so can yield projections with lessened environmental impacts without necessarily incurring negative effect on the economy. Arriving on that path by the year 2100 depends on intervening actions, such as incentives to promote greater diversity in technology and lower barriers to entry for new infrastructures that could accelerate historical trends of decarbonization.