Climate-resilient infrastructure, policy perspectives

This OECD Environment Policy Paper outlines a framework for making new and existing infrastructure networks resilient to climate change. The report highlights new best practices and remaining challenges across OECD and G20 countries and provides guidance to countries on how to increase infrastructure resilience in line with their national circumstances and priorities. A wide range of private and public stakeholders are involved in strengthening resilience to climate change. The report shows how governments and businesses work together to mobilise investment in climate-resilient infrastructure, focusing on the following sectors: transportation, energy, telecommunications and water.

Infrastructure networks, which will be affected by physical impacts of increased climate variability and extremity, play a crucial role in building the resilience of society and the economy to these impacts. Ensuring climate resilient infrastructure will therefore reduce the direct losses associated with replacing or repairing infrastructure, as well as indirect costs of disruptions. The process of increasing resilience to climate change includes management and structural measures on existing and newly built infrastructure. New infrastructure assets should be prioritised, planned, designed, built, and operated in the light of climate change that may occur during their lifetimes. Existing infrastructure may need to be retrofitted or managed differently due to climate change. Additional infrastructure, such as sea walls, may be needed to address the physical impacts of climate change.

The structure of the report consists of four main parts. The first chapter defines the scope and aim of the report and the terminology used. The next section outlines the challenges and opportunities in making infrastructure resilient to climate change. Measures to overcome these challenges are discussed in Section 3 (strengthening the enabling environment) and Section 4 (mobilising investment). Finally, an overview of infrastructure coverage in national climate change risk assessments in OECD and G20 countries is summarized and a list of available tools and reports aimed at increasing the infrastructure resilience is provided.

This report is one of the OECD's environmental policy documents, which aim to identify and prioritize policy issues related to the environment. Contributions in the form of country case studies or cross-country thematic reviews highlight practical implementation experience.