Polluted drinking water, flood damage and power black outs
How climate change threatens our critical infrastructure
Even if we cap greenhouse gases at 2000 levels, climate change will have a major impact in the coming decades due to inertia in the climate system.
We need to adapt our critical infrastructure which is at risk from climate change and to ensure that any new infrastructure is future proofed.
Just some of the practical and immediate measures recommended in a hard-hitting expert report on the threats climate change poses to our water and energy supplies and, through floods, coastal erosion and storm surges, to our towns and cities.
Failure to act now will put our society and economy at an unacceptable risk, according to the Irish Academy of Engineering (IAE), which prepared the new report. Acting now, the Academy says, will be far more cost effective than waiting for catastrophe to occur.
“You’ve only to think of Hurricane Katrina”, warns IAE president, Michael Hayden, “for an example of how climate change coupled with poor planning and zoning decisions can lead to social and economic disaster”.
The report says that if we don’t take urgent action to strengthen adversely affected critical infrastructure the following will happen:
Changing rainfall patterns: will affect water supplies
Rising sea levels: will inundate coastal cities and towns
Severe weather incidents: will damage energy installations, hospitals, telecommunications, railways and other critical infrastructure, and contaminate water supplies.
The report, entitled ‘Ireland at Risk: Critical infrastructure – adaptation for climate change’, argues that ‘adaptation’ to the uncertain future is now urgent in Ireland as elsewhere.
The 40-page analysis emerged from keynote submissions and discussions involving over 60 researchers, engineers, scientists, policy experts and administrators from north and south, and it will be launched in Dublin on Wednesday, November 18, by Mr John Gormley, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.
The social and economic wellbeing of the island is dependent on the continuous availability of infrastructure and urgent action is required given the long lead times required to plan, design and construct infrastructure.
The report addresses adaptation issues in the three key infrastructural areas on which our modern society depends entirely:
reliable water supplies
robust flood defences, and
dependable energy supplies.
In all, the report makes 18 key recommendations for action. Significantly, most of the recommendations do not involve any immediate capital expenditure, but deal with the institutional steps needed to ensure the problem is tackled effectively and economically.
Key recommendations include:
Assign clear responsibility for the protection of critical infrastructure to an existing government department or agency.
Plan the protection of coastal cities at risk from rising sea levels and storm surges.
Establish Water Resource Authorities in Northern Ireland and the Republic to manage the island’s available water resources. Introduce universal water charging to reduce wastage of a precious resource.
Restrict development on floodplains.
“If we move now, significant economic benefits will accrue”, according to Michael Hayden, “but it we do ‘too little too late’ we risk social and economic disaster”.
The Report is available below or from the Publications page
