Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
requirements, and urban design to manage sprawl and heat island efects. Many of these
adaptive responses are promoted as “greener” or “more sustainable” solutions because
they also improve the environment by reducing carbon emissions and water use. In this
way they also mitigate some of the climate change for which they are intended to adapt.
Conversely, some energy savings and carbon mitigation policies such as building codes
and eiciency standards for building equipment and appliances may also ofset some of
the impacts of climate change and will have adaptive as well as mitigation value. Also,
regardless of the motivation, saving water reduces the demand for energy to move it
and treat it.
Quantitative estimates of the impacts of climate change on energy consumption in
climate-sensitive sectors such as construction (up or down, depending on whether the
construction season is lengthened or shortened), agriculture (up or down, depending on
the direction and sizes of the water, chemical, and machinery burden), tourism (up or
down, depending on whether the season is shortened or lengthened), and transporta-
tion (depending on the diiculty of maintaining movement and the efects on he num-
ber of viable transportation days) remain scarce. There is more interest in estimating the
impacts of climate change on these sectors as economic entities than there is in estimat -
ing the impacts of changes in these sectors on energy demand.
9) ASSESSMENT FINDINGS
Assessment indings about implications of climate change for energy use in the U.S.
are incorporated in section III C, merged with those regarding implications for energy
supply systems.
B. Implications Of Climate Change For Energy Production
And Supply
Energy production and supply includes a number of sub-sectors that difer in institu-
tional responsibilities, knowledge bases, and possible climate change vulnerabilities. In
a number of cases, signiicant new knowledge has emerged since 2007/2008.
1) OIL AND GAS PRODUCTION AND SUPPLY
The irst assessment of implications of climate change for energy supply and use in the
United States, SAP 4.5, included very litle about oil and gas production and supply
other than indirect efects of climate policy. By the second assessment, GCRP, 2009,
however, atention to vulnerable regions (Alaska and the Gulf Coast) and early adapta-
tions (to vulnerabilities of coastal facilities to looding) began to redress the imbalance in
atention to risks and vulnerabilities.
Since those two assessments, careful analyses of ways in which oil and gas produc-
tion and supply are at risk from climate change impacts have begun to appear: e.g., Dell,
2010, and Burket, 2011. In recent years, Dell has led eforts within the oil and gas in-
dustry itself to consider reasons for concern about climate change impacts and possible
adaptation strategies, rooted in an argument that adaptation can be approached from a
value-chain perspective, providing cost-efective approaches for identifying strategies
and actions for which a business case can be made.
