Infrastructure must adapt to climate change to protect economic growth

Infrastructure which the national economy relies upon must adapt to protect economic growth from the effects of climate change, Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman has warned.

Planning and design will need to take into account the impact which more extreme weather will have on essential services such as transport networks and power supplies.

Actions identified in the report to prepare infrastructure for a changing climate include that owners and operators of infrastructure should include measures to improve climate resilience in the maintenance schedules for their assets, and ensure climate impacts are considered in the design of new infrastructure and professional bodies should consider if their members have the right skills to help prepare infrastructure for climate change.

Also, potential infrastructure investors should demand more information from companies on the climate risks to their assets and measures taken to reduce them as part of their ‘due diligence’ processes and engineers should look to develop new materials, techniques and designs to improve the resilience of infrastructure projects to severe weather.

Spelman said: "Our economy is built on effective transport and communications networks and reliable energy and water supplies. £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."

Further information:
Defra