Background:-

1. In an age of climate variability, infrastructure must be climate resilient. Climate change is an emerging concern for city governments across the world. Though, in India, climate change does not yet figure as one of the primary considerations while urban planning.
2. According to world bank India as a country has been ranked one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change.

Climate resilient infrastructure:-

• Infrastructureby its very nature, and often by design, is vulnerable to the impacts associated with climate ‘Climate resilient ‘infrastructure can safeguard and strengthen developing countries’ economic growth from current and future climate impacts.
• Climate resilient infrastructure is important in the light of extreme weather events ,global warming leading to sea level rise, adequate disaster preparedness, prevention of economic losses, minimal disruption to society , even in the recent Kerala floods resilient infrastructure would have led to much lesser loss of property.

Issues with Indian infrastructure which is not climate Resilient:-

• Number of studies commissioned by the government and think tanks have outlined the steps that need to be taken on a national and sub-national level to make current and future infrastructure resilient to climate and extreme weather events. However, no significant steps have been taken.
• No adequate standards:- The qualification of what makes infrastructure climate resilient is not codified. The 2018 budget allocated a significant amount of funding to create standards, but there hasn’t been any progress. Without these standards, any labelling of infrastructure projects as climate resilient will be ad hoc.
• Lack of finances:- Finding ways to finance infrastructure projects is already one of India’s largest challenges. According to the Economic Survey of 2017-2018, the current infrastructure gap stands at $526 billion.
• Climate resilient infrastructure measures may be planned in advanceor put in place spontaneously in response to a local pressure. They include large-scale infrastructure changessuch as-Building defences to protect against sea-level rise ;Improving the quality of road surfaces to withstand hotter temperatures;Behavioural shifts such as individuals using less water, farmers planting different crops etc.
• Adaptation measures can help reduce vulnerabilityfor example by lowering sensitivity or building adaptive capacity as well as allowing populations to benefit from opportunities of climatic changes, such as growing new crops in areas that were previously unsuitable
• Low-income countries tend to be more vulnerable to climate risks and some adaptation measures such as increasing access to education and health facilities will overlap with existing development programmes. But adaptation goes beyond just development to include measures to address additional risks specifically caused by climate change, such as raising the height of sea defences.
• When Cyclone Hudhud hit the coast of Andhra Pradesh near the city of Vishakhapatnam, the impact was immense. While the decades of development that had gone into the Indian cyclone warning system ensured that the death toll was minimal, the loss to infrastructure was high.
• Destruction of coastal sand dunes, cutting down mangroves, dredging coastal mudflats, or building a bund across a coastal wetland would all worsen the local adverse impact of sea level rise. India’s coastal infrastructure development plans include many examples of such ill-planned development.

Way forward:-

• It is critical to invest in climate-smart infrastructure like water management, transport, and energy because they provide critical social and economic services not only to the city but also to regions beyond that. These need to be done now because changing them requires a significant amount of lead time to design and implement
• There is a need to build the principles of climate resilience into coastal infrastructure development. This would mean incorporating them into already-existing urban infrastructure. For future infrastructure development, climate resilience will need to be built in right from the planning stage.
• Main challenges for incorporating climate resilience into coastal infrastructure starts with the non-availability of fine-resolution data such as sea level measurement and variation in precipitation. Such location-specific information within the larger picture of how climate change is affecting or will affect the Indian coast can help planners and administrators to build in climate resilience.
• At present there is no window for financing climate resilient infrastructure, according to the TERI study. One avenue could have been the National Mission on Sustainable Habitat, one of the eight missions initiated under the National Action Plan on Climate Change.
• Both short- and long-term, detailed design features and interventions that would need expert engineering solutions are critical to planning for new infrastructure or retrofitting/climate proofing of existing ones.
• Planning for climate resilience would need to start from the time of locating the infrastructure facilities. For instance, infrastructure for solid waste management, especially landfills, have to be located keeping in mind the projected sea level rise. Similarly, planning for climate resilience would mean ensuring water supply channels have back-ups for extreme weather events.