TT Club: Acting on climate change – The Loadstar

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The Impacts of Climate Change on Ports and Waterways

The predicted impacts on ports and waterways of climate change present real risks to local, national, and global economies. In considering incident data relating to extreme weather, TT Club’s Peregrine Storrs-Fox emphasizes that there is a concerning picture of significant disruption to the global supply chain industry.

Introduction

Disruption is increasingly being seen from extreme weather events, causing damage to infrastructure or equipment, injuries, and fatalities. However, account needs to be taken of incremental changes, such as increases in air and water temperatures, rising sea levels, and seasonal rainfall intensities. The widely recognized changing global weather patterns now demand serious attention to the potential impacts of changing weather patterns on all logistics operations, most particularly at the ship/port interface.

Climate Models

The climate model predictions generally evidence an overall warming of the planet, which in turn will drive changes in weather patterns and increases in average sea levels.

Such models necessarily reflect complex physical properties of the earth’s climate and draw on scientific laws, and therefore build in levels of uncertainty. In engaging with these models in the transport and logistics industry, we are looking to predict what the climate could look like in the immediate, medium, and long term to plan and adapt infrastructure and operations to accommodate any predicted changes.

Climate Impacts

The impacts of these modeled climate changes vary depending upon your location on the planet. Nevertheless, as a generality for port and terminal infrastructure, there is likely increasing vulnerabilities to:

• Flooding from rising sea-level and increased intensity of storm surges or heavy rainfall that may exceed the design capacity of the storm water drainage system;
• High winds resulting in damage to infrastructure and assets, not to mention operational disruption due to limitations on the safe working windspeed of the port or terminal assets;
• High temperatures that exceed operational ranges of the asset that may result in asset failure or increased fire risk, together with welfare considerations for workforce in high temperatures.

These impacts are being felt now around the globe and the climate model predictions indicate that these impacts are likely to grow in significance.

Uncertain Future

Inherently, climate and related parameters play a significant part in the design of port and terminal infrastructure. Therefore, in order to develop and maintain facilities for the future it is necessary to be clear on the climate parameters that are being or have been considered. However, the variation in the higher and lower bound climate predictions are significant, driven by the societal responses to the overall reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

This variation evident in the models presents challenge, since development and asset management plans must have a degree of flexibility built in to accommodate this uncertainty, providing the ability to adapt infrastructure and assets as the climate changes and climate models advance.

Future Planning

Often when initiating a large-scale project, especially with the complexity of potential climate change adaptation, simply getting started is daunting. Reliance necessarily has to be placed on one of a growing number of specialist consultancies with the experience in this industry, able to assist in making sense of the climate models and the potential impacts. However, there are some basic steps that can be done to help you on this journey, including:

• Making sense of the data – ports and terminals typically gather vast amounts of data during their normal operation, which can provide valuable insight to the current climate impacts that your facility is experiencing. Simply recording and monitoring the number and duration of things, such as downtime caused by high winds or storms, will provide some insight over time on climate impacts.
• Long-term effects – understanding the criticality of your assets / infrastructure, considering the impact on the operation of an outage and the susceptibility of individual assets to climate change provides valuable insight. This systematic review of the facility could provide the insight needed to prioritize adaptation measures.

Climate Change Adaptation Journey

Climate change adaptation and climate resilience is not a ‘one-time’ exercise; it requires a continuous review of the climate models, the climate risk assessment, and any program of actions to ensure not only resilience but also efficient allocation of resources. Therefore, climate change adaptation should be thought of as a continuous cycle of review and planning on a journey to an increased resilience to the impacts of climate change. Such adaptive management can be depicted as in this diagram:

These essential steps are:

1. Understanding climate change, specifically seeking appreciation of the local impacts from global and regional analyses;
2. Developing and logging
   

   SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

   1. Which SDGs are addressed or connected to the issues highlighted in the article?

   • SDG 13: Climate Action
   • SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
   • SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

   The article discusses the impacts of climate change on ports and waterways, highlighting the risks to local, national, and global economies. This aligns with SDG 13, which focuses on taking urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. Additionally, the article emphasizes the need for infrastructure planning and adaptation in response to changing weather patterns, which relates to SDG 9’s goal of building resilient infrastructure and promoting sustainable industrialization. The impacts of climate change on port and terminal infrastructure also have implications for SDG 11, which aims to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.

   2. What specific targets under those SDGs can be identified based on the article’s content?

   • SDG 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters
   • SDG 9.1: Develop quality, reliable, sustainable, and resilient infrastructure
   • SDG 11.5: Reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected by disasters

   The article highlights the need to strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity in response to climate-related hazards and natural disasters, which aligns with SDG 13.1. It also emphasizes the importance of developing quality, reliable, sustainable, and resilient infrastructure, which relates to SDG 9.1. Additionally, the article discusses the potential impacts of climate change on human settlements and the need to reduce the number of deaths and people affected by disasters, which aligns with SDG 11.5.

   3. Are there any indicators mentioned or implied in the article that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets?

   Yes, the article mentions several indicators that can be used to measure progress towards the identified targets:

   • Recorded incidents of damage to infrastructure or equipment caused by extreme weather events
   • Increases in air and water temperatures
   • Rising sea levels
   • Seasonal rainfall intensities
   • Number and duration of downtime caused by high winds or storms
   • Number of injuries and fatalities resulting from extreme weather events

   These indicators can be used to assess the resilience and adaptive capacity of ports and waterways, the quality and reliability of infrastructure, and the effectiveness of measures taken to reduce the impacts of climate change on human settlements.

   SDGs, Targets, and Indicators Table:

   SDGs	Targets	Indicators
   SDG 13: Climate Action	13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters	– Recorded incidents of damage to infrastructure or equipment caused by extreme weather events – Increases in air and water temperatures – Rising sea levels – Seasonal rainfall intensities – Number of injuries and fatalities resulting from extreme weather events
   SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure	9.1: Develop quality, reliable, sustainable, and resilient infrastructure	– Recorded incidents of damage to infrastructure or equipment caused by extreme weather events – Increases in air and water temperatures – Rising sea levels – Seasonal rainfall intensities
   SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities	11.5: Reduce the number of deaths and the number of people affected by disasters	– Number of injuries and fatalities resulting from extreme weather events

   Behold! This splendid article springs forth from the wellspring of knowledge, shaped by a wondrous proprietary AI technology that delved into a vast ocean of data, illuminating the path towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Remember that all rights are reserved by SDG Investors LLC, empowering us to champion progress together.

   Source: theloadstar.com

    

   

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