Key messages
- The two key issues for the Port in future are likely to be riverine flooding and wind. To some extent, these are risks that the Port has least control over, but they are issues that could usefully be addressed in the absence of climate change (i.e. significant benefits could be realised by addressing current weather variability).
- There are different timescales over which the port needs to assess future risks. Assets in the Port have a design life of 35 years and a service life of up to 50–60 years. It was agreed that certain decisions needed to be robust over these time frames.
About the site
The Port of Felixtowe is the UK’s largest container port and is owned by Hutchinson Ports UK.
In detail
Business drivers
- Like many other ports in the world, Felixstowe is currently sensitive to weather variability. There is concern that climate change could exacerbate those weather-related risks already faced by ports, and present new risks not previously encountered. Therefore, port management recognise the need to identify the potential impacts of climate change on the Port and take steps that may be necessary to protect its strategic and operational objectives in the face of a changing climate.
- In addition, the Climate Change Act of 2008 may also call for critical infrastructures to report what work has been done to assess their climate risks and develop adaptation plans. Felixstowe is seizing the initiative in a fast-changing policy context and ensuring they will be in a position to respond quickly should they be called on to do so.
- Should climate risks increase in future and adequate steps are not taken to address them, more frequent port closures could result, adversely affecting the Port’s reputation. On the other hand, if early steps are taken to assess and address climate risks, the Port could benefit by getting one step ahead of its competitors.
Methods & resources
Two workshops were run with a range of managers to collect and analyse information of past and future climate impacts.
In the first, experience of previous weather impacts on the Port were described and captured in a participatory workshop session. Details of how each of these particular events had affected the Port were captured in a simplified version of Table 2.2 of the Adaptation Wizard (which is in turn based on UKCIP’s LCLIP methodology). The consequences of each type of weather event were recorded, as were any remedial actions taken as a result of the incident. Where possible, a note was made of the effectiveness of these remedial actions, so that they might inform consideration of adaptation options later in the process.
As a separate exercise they then used headline messages from UKCIP02 climate change scenarios and the BACLIAT headings to identify the full range of potential future threats and opportunities from climate change.
The risk of each climate impact was assessed at a second half day workshop. All those present at the Day 1 workshop participated in the risk assessment workshop, with the addition of a representative of Operations.
Three different time scales were identified for the assessment reflecting the lifetime of decisions made at the port:
- The current climate, e.g. for decisions relating to contracts/ office management.
- The 2030s climate, e.g. for decisions relating to new equipment technologies.
- The 2060s climate, e.g. for decisions relating to new developments.
A 1-5 risk rating was chosen, as suggested in the Adaptation Wizard, and in accordance with internal practice. For each impact, a score was given for the likelihood of the impact occurring and the magnitude of the impact should it occur, for each of the 3 timescales involved. The two scores multiplied together produced a risk rating for each impact. An overall judgement was made at the end of the exercise as to how significant climate risks were in relation to other non-climate risks.
A total of 21 risks and 4 opportunities were rated and ranked.
Key players
Internal:
- The work was initiated by the Health and Safety Officer and then transferred to the Risk Manager.
- The following functions were considered critical to the issue and were involved in the initial stages of the assessment: Health and Safety, Civil Engineering, Procurement, IT, Marine and Ports Services, Commercial, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering and Operations.
External:
- UKCIP helped with the application of the UKCIP Adaptation Wizard and facilitated the workshops.
- Additional external stakeholders were not involved at this stage but several players were identified that should be engaged in future activity, such as workers’ representatives, Environment Agency, designers and manufacturers of equipment used within the Port etc.
Current vulnerability
Key weather events that have affected the port were identified as being high winds, fluvial flooding, coastal flooding, high winds and high tides, high temperatures, and snow/ice/frost. Exploring past events provided some qualitative information about current vulnerability to weather. For example, Rubber tyred gantries (RTG’s) operate at higher height levels so are more vulnerable to wind.
Three key thresholds were identified in this exercise:
- Wind speeds of more than 45 mph are critical for high level cranes which are not permitted to operate at such wind speeds.
- A 1 day work stoppage in the Port would be critical for customers with just-in-time deliveries.
- A 3 day closure to the Port would be critical for most customers, and everyone upstream and downstream of the Port would suffer.
Examples of potential future climate impacts
Climate change could exacerbate weather-related risks faced by ports, and present new risks not previously encountered. Examples of climate change impacts that could be experienced include:
- Logistics
More power outages caused by damage to the distribution network.
More weather-related disruption to inland distribution networks that could result in knock-on effects within the Port.
- Process
Higher sea levels may reduce the need for dredging within the Port.
More adverse weather negatively impacting on service provision.
More losses and stoppages as a result of adverse weather.
- Premises
Higher sea levels will increase the risk of quays being overtopped.
There is an opportunity to ensure all developments build in climate change headroom in a cost effective way.
- Markets
Changes in demands and markets for imported goods. As long as the boxes keep moving it doesn’t necessarily matter what is in the box. So this would only be an issue if the content of the boxes require different handling processes, or required more refrigeration and therefore power use, the Port could be affected.
Output
Six priority climate risks have been identified.
- Power supplies – including high voltage lines – may be disrupted owing to off-site disruption to the network as a result of increased frequency of high winds or other extreme weather.
- Increased frequency of extreme weather events could increase the frequency of crane and pilot stoppages.
- Increased risk of flooding could put on-site power supplies at risk.
- A port closure of more than 3 days, caused by high tides, winds, heavy downpours of rain.
- Combined sea level rise and storm surge may increase the risk of quays being overtopped, which would cause high voltage power supplies to cranes to be shut off, resulting in work stoppage.
- Consistently higher sea levels would reduce clearance between ships and booms affecting the (un)loading of ships.
These will require further examination and an adaptation response. Reassuringly though, no high likelihood / high magnitude risks, or shock outcomes, were identified that needed to be urgently addressed. A number of capacity building actions have been proposed.
Further action / proposed further action
Proposed capacity building actions included:
- Results of the risk assessment exercise should be circulated internally to raise awareness of climate change, and to support further examination of key climate risks.
- Climate risks should be incorporated into the flood risk management plan and business continuity plan.
- A watching brief on climate change is needed to ensure the Port is armed with the latest information and prepared for any changes that might alter the conclusions reached in this exercise.
- The appropriateness of the current high wind threshold and the wind agreement could be examined.
- Options for addressing key risks should be identified, assessed and implemented as appropriate.
- The Port might wish to consider undertaking a quantitative analysis of key climate risks using the new UK Climate Projections (UKCP09).
Analysis
Constraints
- There is a view that better evidence of, and confidence in, climate change impacts might be needed before adaptation actions could be taken. Without greater certainty, it will be difficult to make a commercial argument for investing in climate change adaptation.
- It was recognised that investing in climate change adaptation means taking long-term decisions which are incompatible with the investment timeframes of businesses, with other business risks often being regarded as more urgent. This means that there is limited pressure to invest many resources in this area of work at this stage.
- Therefore, while some of the issues were well understood, implementing climate adaptation strategies will not be straight forward.
Enablers
Transferable lessons learned
Transferring responsibility to the Risk Manager was seen to be a positive move as it would facilitate the mainstreaming of climate adaptation in the organisation, and also lend more weight to the issue within the organisation.
Carrying out a climate risk assessment presents certain challenges:
- Should the rating for a particular risk assume that some adaptation to potential impacts will take place?
- It was argued that if adaptation to each risk was assumed to take place, then there was a danger that all risks will be adapted away. However, it was also unrealistic to assume that no adaptation to increased risks would take place – and to do so would over-inflate the significance of climate risks. It was agreed that incremental adaptation to climate risks should be assumed, but that all assumptions should be carefully recorded so that the logic behind the risk rating would be transparent.
- How the concept of ‘consequence’ be defined?
- Some risks are predicated in safety, some on reputation and others on costs. The type of consequence was likely to vary between impacts, and may also change with time. For example, wind is currently a risk to cost and reputation, but should wind risks increase, reputational risks could become greater in relation to other risks. The relative significance of risks was resolved in discussion.
Implementing responses to weather and climate change requires more than understanding the problem and what could be done about it.
| Risk or opportunity focus | Risk |
|---|
| Climate change addressed | Hotter, drier summers
Milder, wetter winters
More heavy rain
Rising sea levels |
|---|
| Weather event addressed | Heatwave
Flood
Cold snap
Storm |
|---|
| Building adaptive capacity or Delivering adaptation action | Building adaptive capacity |
|---|
| Contact details | Gary Wilson |
|---|
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