Diagnostics and prevention driving climate change adaptation.

Managing the inevitable : the urgent need to adapt

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), governments’ current climate policies are setting us on a path to a 3.2°C increase in average temperatures on a global scale by 2100. Some 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in areas that are highly vulnerable to climate change. To address this situation, the IPCC recommends two complementary strategies, namely mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation is aimed at slowing down global warming, especially by phasing out fossil fuels and improving energy efficiency. Adaptation involves “making do” with the changes currently taking place by preparing society for life in a warmer world. Therefore, adaptation intends to protect populations, prepare communities (by ensuring continuous infrastructure services and other essential activities), build a more resilient economy, and preserve natural environments and the country’s heritage and assets. Basically, while mitigation is focused on “avoiding the unmanageable”, adaptation strives to “manage the unavoidable”. Adaptation may be less advanced than decarbonisation, but it is still vitally important. Every euro invested in climate adaptation projects prevents 10 euros of climate damage, bearing in mind that the global cost of such damage is estimated to be between $1.7 and $3.1 trillion per year by 2050.

Mapping risks to take action

Risk assessment tools are central to adaptation efforts. Among them, data analysis and mapping are valuable tools. Resallience a consulting VINCI entity is dedicated to adapting projects, cities, territories, infrastructure and their uses to climate change. For Frédéric Delafosse, who heads the entity, risk mapping is becoming essential. ResiLens, a tool developed by VINCI, allows users to navigate on a global scale and identify the Group's infrastructure exposure to climate hazards.

Diagnostics: the first step towards resilience

Adaptation is based on three key pillars, namely a prior risk assessment (using diagnostic solutions to measure the extent to which infrastructure and buildings are vulnerable to climate change based on the typical weather conditions in their local area), preventive measures (to limit the impact of climate-related hazards), and systems for returning the situation to normal following an extreme weather event.

Diagnostic and prevention solutions play a major role, since they can help identify the architectural and construction parameters, adjustments and changes that are capable of making buildings and infrastructure more resilient to new climate challenges. Although biodiversity has been scientifically proven to have a beneficial effect on air temperatures, identifying how to specifically incorporate green spaces in urban development projects is not always simple. That is exactly the challenge that Biodi(V)strict^® is designed to address.

Another area where diagnostics play an especially valuable role is assessing climate-related risks, which includes rainwater events that are now striking with greater intensity and frequency. In light of this new trend, public authorities and infrastructure managers need accurate estimates on the potential impact of flooding so that they can take quick responsive action, limit any damage, keep people safe and adapt infrastructure accordingly. VINCI Construction and VINCI Autoroutes have designed CaledonlA to fulfil this need.

Improving resistance to climate-related hazards

Once the vulnerabilities have been identified in a given structure, preventive measures can be implemented to improve its resistance to climate-related hazards. The idea is to minimise any exposure to risks before they become a reality, such as by preparing electrical installations to withstand bad weather events or designing cities to prevent urban heat islands from developing. Most of the world’s population lives in cities, which are being pushed to the limit by climate change. This is compounded further by the need to manage rainwater: the growing number of impermeable surfaces in urban areas and ever extreme rainwater events have the effect of saturating drainage networks, thereby increasing the risk of flooding and waterway pollution. Finally, the need to bring nature back into our cities has never been so acutely felt.

Faced with an increasingly unpredictable climate, the race against time has already started. These diagnostic and prevention tools are defining the outline of a new approach that prioritises anticipation over reaction. Identify vulnerabilities, prevent risks and repair the damage: this sequence is key to shielding cities and communities against the effects of climate change and working together in improving our resilience.