Australian airports face costly fight against worst climate risk

Almost all of Australia’s major airports including Sydney and Brisbane are vulnerable to the worst impacts of climate change, according to new analysis that spells out the threats to the multibillion-dollar investments favored by large pension funds. The travel hubs face significant fallout from storms, floods, heat waves and high winds in coming years, the Zurich-Mandala Climate Risk Index report said Monday. Some 94% of Australia’s 31 busiest airports are exposed to “multiple, very high risks with a very high level of impact,” the report said, giving them the most extreme risk rating possible. The findings are a warning to aviation infrastructure owners worldwide including IFM Investors, whose portfolio includes Sydney Airport, London Stansted and Vienna Airport. The impact of increasingly wild weather as the planet warms extends beyond airports. Runway closures disrupt airlines — led by Qantas Airways in Australia — passengers, freight deliveries and the broader supply chain. While the report offered some solutions to mitigate the risks, all of them come at a cost. For airport owners, they include investing in heat-tolerant runway surfaces, flood barriers and drainage channels. “If you think that risk is going to grow over time, your risk of flooding and all those other things, then you invest in greater resilience,” said Danny Elia, IFM’s global head of infrastructure asset management, adding the physical risk to assets was considered from the outset of any investment. “We’re always looking for alarm bells but there’s nothing material across our existing assets that I would ring the alarm bells on.” The index calculated for the first time the risk from climate change to Australia’s A$170b ($114b) tourism sector. It studied 178 sites, ranging from Sydney Airport and Bondi Beach to the Melbourne Cricket Ground and Uluru, using Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change modeling and proprietary impact assessments.<br/>