Costing Climate Change Impacts to Public Infrastructure Project

About

In June 2019, a Member of Provincial Parliament asked the FAO to analyze the costs that climate change impacts could impose on Ontario’s provincial and municipal infrastructure, and how those costs could impact the long-term budget outlook of the province. In response to this request, the FAO launched its “Costing Climate Impacts to Public Infrastructure” project (CIPI).

The project began with two reports assessing the composition and state of repair of provincial and municipal infrastructure. Then, in the fall of 2021, the FAO released three reports: the CIPI project backgrounder, which described the overall context and methodology of the CIPI project; a report prepared by WSP Global, which detailed the engineering impacts of these climate hazards on public infrastructure; and the first CIPI sector report, which described how changes in these climate hazards will impact the long-term costs of maintaining Ontario’s public buildings and facilities in a state of good repair. This was followed by sector reports for transportation infrastructure and linear storm and wastewater infrastructure.

The summary report outlines the main results of the three sector reports and projects long-term budgetary impacts on key fiscal sustainability measures. In addition, all historical and projected climate indicators used in the CIPI project are available for download. Municipal and region-specific results are available by request.