Infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to climate change, leading to widespread failures and damages. Economic losses from climate-related extreme events rose sevenfold from USD 198 billion in the 1970s to USD 1.6 trillion in the 2010s, with infrastructure suffering much of the damage (OECD, 2024). As climate risks intensify, the sort of risks infrastructure assets will face will change over the course of their lifespans. To mitigate these risks, infrastructure providers must plan for improved performance as climate threats increase. Countries need to take a holistic approach to designing, building, operating and maintaining infrastructure that accounts for evolving risks. The OECD Recommendation on Infrastructure Governance urges governments to strengthen their strategies for delivering climate-resilient infrastructure.
An outcome-focused approach to planning and delivering climate-resilient infrastructure ensures that decisions made throughout the infrastructure life cycle align with long-term resilience goals. Regular monitoring and reporting on progress are essential for evidence-based decision making and accountability. While 21 of the 32 OECD countries with available information (66%) have set climate resilience outcomes for infrastructure assets, only 7 of the 31 with data for this measure (23%) report on progress annually or biennially (Figure 10.5). This highlights a gap in tracking and communicating results, which is crucial for achieving resilience goals. A good example is Canada’s National Adaptation Strategy which includes a 2050 goal to achieve climate-resilient infrastructure systems that undergo continuous adaptation to adjust for future impacts to deliver reliable, equitable, and sustainable services to all of society. The Strategy also establishes targets to measure and track progress and includes a commitment to develop progress reports midway through the Strategy’s implementation cycles.
While there is a growing recognition of the importance of climate resilience outcomes, the use of these outcomes in the appraisal of projects is still in its infancy. For example, only 9 of the 32 OECD countries with available data (28%) conduct comparative assessments of alternative infrastructure solutions based on climate resilience (Figure 10.6). The Swedish Transport Administration uses a methodology to compare the levels of climate resilience of different transport solutions within the available economic resources and as part of sustainable development of the whole transport system.
Similarly, less than half of OECD countries with available data (14 out of 31, 45%) evaluate and monetise the costs and benefits of climate disaster resilience in infrastructure projects and only 10 (32%) use the results to inform project selection and prioritisation (Figure 10.7). The New Zealand Transport Agency has developed a methodology to assess and monetise the resilience of transport infrastructure, focusing on benefits, which are more complex to evaluate than costs. It values resilience in terms of avoided disruption costs, including user-related costs (e.g. diversions and delays), direct costs (e.g. injuries and repairs) and indirect impacts (e.g. effects on non-users, disaster preparedness and economic benefits).
