Managing and interpreting uncertainty for climate change risk

Climate change is a significant risk for the built environment because it implies not only warmer weather, but also more extreme weather events, such as storms, droughts and heat waves. Considerable uncertainty about the future also exists, partly because of the response of society's apparent reluctance to mitigate climate change by reducing fossil fuel consumption. An adaptive response to the challenge draws on the literature on climate change, the urban environment, natural hazards and risk analysis. Two concepts - life cycle costs and the avoidance of ruin - provide a useful framework for factoring the uncertainty associated with climate change into a risk analysis for the built environment. Monitoring, prediction, data management and communication are the unglamorous underpinnings of a successful urban risk-management strategy. For cities to develop a significantly improved response capacity, the active support of senior levels of government is essential because cities have neither the legal powers nor the resources to tackle climate change on their own. Ultimately, the biggest challenges are institutional and behavioural.