Observation One: Current efforts to protect transportation infrastructure from climate change are inadequate

AT-States Counterplan

AT PERM: the plan will coop with states and interact with state departments to ensure adaptive infrastructure and crisis response

The infrastructure should be dealt with as a system of systems. Mechanisms are required to enable Government to make strategic decisions about the infrastructure as a whole. Regulators will need to work together in planning changes required by climate change adaptation. Resilience in one sector is dependent on resilience in another, so modeling infrastructure systems and scenario planning is essential to ensure that vulnerabilities in one sector do not compromise others. Sharing of data and collaboration across the supply chain will be requisite for such systems-level planning.

Federal action key to climate adaptation, management of various sectors and systems by the government necessary to prevent cascade failures of infrastructure

Adaptation to climate change requires two forms of response: dealing with long term effects on the infrastructure such as rising sea levels, and developing resilience to acute and extreme weather events such as flash flooding. Extreme events highlight the interdependencies in infrastructure as they are liable to lead to ‘cascade failure’ where the failure of one aspect of infrastructure, such as flood defences, can lead to other failures, e.g. flooded power stations leading to power cuts which thereby affect telecommunications networks. The interdependencies in infrastructure therefore need to be managed well, especially as infrastructure is becoming¶ more interdependent. For example, the smart grid will mean energy¶ systems rely more on ICT, and the electrification of transport systems will¶ mean transport is more reliant on the grid.¶ Resilience is thus required in all sectors to protect against cascade failure¶ and to adapt the infrastructure against a slowly changing climate over the¶ longer term. Managing national infrastructure is a systems issue, requiring¶ collaboration, planning and sharing of information between sectors. Systems resilience, rather than sector resilience, is required to adapt to¶ climate change. Current silos and boundaries must be broken down by culture and any other available levers used to build a picture of the state of the entire infrastructure system and local subsystems. The infrastructure system also requires joined up management within Government, with long-term planning for adapting and maintaining¶ infrastructure, and a regulatory and policy framework which provides the¶ degree of certainty needed for investors. The need for a plan to manage the¶ adaptation programme is urgent, but requires little cost and the plan can¶ be implemented in a measured way over time.

The government is already working on climate adaptability infrastructure under ARRA: they are the most experienced actor.

shortfalls in infrastructure provision; the act authorizes up to $150 billion in infrastructure funding

smaller amounts focused on wastewater, drinking water, and flood protection. Some does

much of the energy infrastructure investments are focused on renewable technologies and

development of a smart grid to accommodate greater reliance on renewables; there is a $1 billion

allocation to the Bureau of Reclamation for water resource development in drought‐likely areas;

and the roughly $4.5 billion allocation to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers includes upgrades to

flood protection infrastructure, which is perhaps a nod to the likelihood of climate change

increasing flood risks. Nonetheless, virtually no provisions in the transportation funding take

account of the risks of climate change to these resources. The priority instead is on quickly moving

money to maximize the short‐term economic stimulus effect of the spending. As discussed in the next section, this shortcoming in efficiently adapting to climate change is potentially serious,

because shovel‐ready is almost certainly not climate‐ready.

AT: Private CP

The federal government is required to undertake such a project as updating our transportation infrastructure to take into account climate change – the private sector wouldn’t be able to do it alone.

Neumann ’09 – Resources for the Future think tank [Resources for the Future, “Adaptation to Climate Change: Revisiting Infrastructure Norms”, December 2009, Resources for the Future Issue Brief 09-15, http://www.rff.org/rff/documents/RFF-IB-09-15.pdf, AD]
A longer‐term policy goal is investment in updating design standards. Some of this work is already happening in Canada (Canadian Standards Association 2005, 2006). The asset management framework described might be usefully deployed, for example, to develop new climate‐ready standards and specifications. In the United States, it is acknowledged that updating standards is a long process, involving many government, commercial, and nongovernmental standard‐setting organizations (Meyer 2008; TRB 2008). The potential in using standard‐setting approaches to enhance adaptive capacity is significant, however. Updating flood‐proofing measures in coastal zones, for example, has encouraged innovation in architectural and building practices to improve the resiliency of structures built or rebuilt in high‐risk areas. Similar innovation can be spurred in such areas as materials science, engineering, and construction trades through a continuously updated standard‐setting process that considers forecasts of climate change and variability.

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