Changing weather will have implications on how we schedule maintenance and on our longer-term planning

If the yin of climate change is mitigation, or actions to reduce greenhouse gases, then the yang is adaptation, which details how to manage climate change effects such as higher temperatures, sea level rise and increased extreme weather events on our assets.

“We evaluate scenarios that are common to both the UK and US,” says Sandy Taft, Director of US Climate Change Policy. “But also ones that are country specific, such as the probability of increased hurricanes in the US.”

Over the past year, Sandy in the US and Shanti Majithia in the UK have been leaders in working with various external groups. They have been trying to identify adaptation scenarios and coping strategies to share among themselves and with other stakeholder groups across government and industry.

These groups include the New York State Sea Level Rise Task Force and the Massachusetts Adaptation Advisory Committee in the US, and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA) in the UK.

One climate scenario that has been discussed in the UK shows a gradual temperature increase over the next 10 to 20 years. “A rise in temperature will increase the length of the cooling season (in summer) and shorten the heating season (in winter), in the long term,” says Shanti, UK Energy and Climate Strategy Manager.