6
x
Valuation and extent of insurance for individual assets (disaggregated).
x
Utilisation levels of assets to determine the social and economic importance of the asset to the region,
and indeed the potential impacts arising from damage from future climate change.
x
Information about potential climate change impacts for specific asset classes.
Recommendations
x
As part of a whole-of-government approach, engage with government bodies (State and Local) to
determine the availability of requisite data and format in which it may be released for use.
x
Undertake more detailed analysis of public housing data and identification of risks. Relevant
stakeholders should include Housing SA, housing cooperatives and housing associations.
x
Investigate further the social and economic risks associated with heat wave impacts on road and
other transport infrastructure.
x
Examine capital programs across public and private sector to account for current and future activities
associated with climate related hazards. This may include an audit of maintaining heat-sensitive
assets (e.g. rail tracks) and the cost of retrofitting buildings.
x
Carry out a high level risk assessment of waste management sites and processes that could be most
affected by climate change.
Private Assets and Infrastructure
The major private assets in the Study Area include energy infrastructure, maritime transport facilities, rail
infrastructure, Adelaide Airport, as well as significant industries including Adelaide Brighton Limited,
Penrice, and OI. These assets comprise significant capital investments and play a vital economic role for
the region and the State, necessitating development of long term climate change adaptation measures.
There is little available evidence that asset owners have embraced climate change adaptation planning,
with most climate change attention being focused on managing greenhouse gas emissions. Some
companies such as Adelaide Airport, SA Power Networks have started to address climate change
adaptation at a strategic level, however for many companies, adaptation planning generally defaults to
broad risk management measures.
There are 21,442 businesses in the Study Area. Smaller firms generally have fewer resources available
to undertake climate change adaptation planning.
The likely impacts of climate change on private assets in the Study Area include flooding and seawater
inundation, damage to buildings and structures, and shut down periods during flooding or extreme heat
events. This may result in a number of flow on impacts, including higher operating costs associated with
power and insurance, increased capital costs associated with retrofitting and maintenance, supply chain
disruptions, higher pollution thresholds (e.g. air emissions), declining productivity associated with
disruptions and delays, reduced safety of energy infrastructure, accelerated depreciation of assets,
redundancy of business models, disruptions to aircraft, ships and train movements. These assets provide
critical goods and services that are utilised across the State, therefore any direct or indirect climate
change impacts upon these would likely result in flow-on effects elsewhere.
