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New research asks energy companies: are you ready for rise in natural disasters?
2 June 2011
In the wake of the United Nations' conclusion that Japan ‘underestimated the risk' to its nuclear power plants following the March earthquake and tsunami, a new IDS-authored report urges other governments and energy companies to re-think their energy infrastructure in light of changing disaster risks due to climate change.
"Germany is pledging to phase out all nuclear plants by 2022, and other governments are slowly realising that the climate is becoming more unpredictable - what happens to energy generation if there are more droughts, or flooding, or storms?" says Dr Frauke Urban, IDS Research Fellow and co-author of the Climate Change, disasters and electricity generation report.
While the UK plans to build more nuclear power plants, Dr Urban points to the 2003 and 2006 heat waves in Europe, including France - where 77 per cent of electricity comes from nuclear power - that severely impacted the power supply when low river flow rates and droughts caused plants to limit output or shut down.
Dr Urban explained, "It's not just nuclear power that we need to think about: more than 80 per cent of the global primary energy supply comes from fossil fuels, mainly from oil and coal. Both energy generation from fossil fuels and renewable energy - such as solar and wind - could be vulnerable to sudden climatic changes."
The report finds that unless governments and energy suppliers improve their planning for natural disasters, lives could be lost, economies damaged and ecosystems destroyed. For example, when 126 oil and gas platforms were completely destroyed and another 183 were damaged due to the impacts of Hurricanes Ivan, Katrina and Rita on the US Gulf coast in 2005, the consequences of the fossil fuel industry being hit was an estimated total loss of up to US$4.5 billion.
The report lays out a series of simple steps planning authorities and energy companies can take to make their energy supply ‘climate smart', including improving linkages between energy ministries, climate ministries, and disasters ministries to improve energy policy and planning.
Climate Change, disasters and electricity generation is published by the Strengthening Climate Resilience consortium, which consists of the Institute of Development Studies, Christian Aid and Plan International.
Download the full report, Climate Change, disasters and electricity generation.
Visit the Strengthening Climate Resilience website
Related Projects
- Strengthening Climate Resilience - Strengthening Climate Resilience has created the Climate Smart Disaster Risk Management Approach (CSDRM) for disaster risk managers, policy-makers and researchers. The CSDRM approach incorporates climate change resilience into the way we plan for, and respond to, natural disasters impacting vulnerable communities. (Ongoing)
