Climate change is increasing average temperatures across NSW, causing more heatwave events and hot weather for longer periods of time. Higher temperatures increase energy demands as homes, businesses and services use more power to run cooling systems. This can create pressure on power services than then become at risk of failure – for example, heatwaves in 2017 caused power failures across NSW, Queensland and South Australia. 

These outages disrupt the operations of businesses and services and affect individuals directly. This has flow-on impacts for the rest of NSW’s population, services, productivity and economy. For citizens, communities and businesses this can result in: 

• power outages 
• loss of productivity 
• lack of comfort 
• heat-related health impacts. 

Rising temperatures and more variable rainfall increases the risk of drought and bushfire. These events can directly damage infrastructure and also have flow-on effects that affect the delivery of services. For example: 

• drying water resources reduces the amount available for urban, rural and farm water supplies 
• drought leads to soil cracking, which can damage the foundation of buildings  
• bushfire events can destroy infrastructure, cut off services and block transport. 

Climate projections for NSW indicate that NSW is likely to experience more extreme weather events such as storms and floods, due to more variable rainfall and the likelihood of tropical cyclones to track further south. Combined with sea level rise, this will affect more Australian people and infrastructure through erosion and flooding. 

Coastal infrastructure will be affected by sea level rise. A 1 metre rise in sea level – which is plausible by 2100—could put $28–42 billion worth of NSW’s coastal infrastructure at risk of flooding (based on 2008 replacement values). Adjusted for inflation, this risk would now be valued at approximately $41–62 billion. A major storm event on top of this sea level rise will affect around 74,700 properties and many kilometres of roads and other infrastructure. 

We can reduce the impact of climate change on our existing infrastructure by:

• adopting holistic and precinct-wide solutions that protect and benefit a wide variety of stakeholders. These include management options outlined in the NSW Coastal and Floodplain Management programs.
• retrofitting existing assets and infrastructure to make them more resilient, such as reinforcing buildings to withstand the impacts of more severe weather and upgrading electrical systems to withstand higher temperature extremes 
• developing clear procedures and policies that support governments and communities in responding to the impacts of climate change, such as disaster management plans.

The NSW Government has $450 billion in critical infrastructure assets, including hospitals, transport networks, dams and energy systems. The Cross Dependency Initiative (XDI) is a risk analysis software tool that helps NSW Government decision makers and asset managers understand climate risks to critical infrastructure assets. The XDI NSW Globe platform supports the state's public sector in the climate risk management process as a climate risk screening tool. The tool identifies, assesses and evaluates risks and adaptation options for assets and risk independence across critical infrastructure types.

As a spatial mapping tool, XDI NSW Globe integrates climate projections developed through the NSW and Australian Regional Climate Modelling (NARCliM) project with asset vulnerability and exposure data to analyse and quantify risks and model asset responses. This approach was used to assess the socioeconomic risks of climate change for the Six Cities Region.

NSW governments develop and manage infrastructure in ways that reduce the risk of climate change impacts. This is outlined in the NSW Asset Management Policy for the NSW Public Sector. 

Infrastructure owners and managers can reduce the impact of climate change on NSW infrastructure by: 

• planning designs and structures to be resilient to climate change impacts such as flooding, bushfire, drought, increased temperatures, sea level rise and extreme weather events 
• conducting risk assessments for the impacts of climate change 
• developing asset management plans or adaptation plans to manage ongoing climate risks such as heatwaves, bushfires, drought, flood and extreme weather events 
• using training and resources to help inform their plans 
• working across sectors and agencies to address flow-on risks in NSW’s connected infrastructure systems. 

Resilient infrastructure should be considered when planning infrastructure. Resilience can be improved by working with natural systems, and this applies to the built environment and infrastructure as well. This includes: 

• green infrastructure – using vegetation and natural systems to strategically plan, design and manage natural and semi-natural systems to support a future that is more resilient to climate change (this includes areas such as waterways, bushland, green cover, parks and open spaces) 
• blue infrastructure – using water-sensitive urban design to infrastructure projects. 

Aboriginal people’s knowledge and culture should also be considered when planning for infrastructure. 

NSW infrastructure can be designed as low-emission systems or designed to be easily transitioned to low-emissions systems in future. This will work toward NSW’s net-zero emissions target. 

Transport is the second highest source of greenhouse gas emissions in NSW. These emissions can be reduced by reducing the use of fossil fuel-powered transport, and creating more green infrastructure.