Nothing says winter like talking about a heating planet

Good day my good friend.

Speaking to another good friend, they best described this time of year not as the most depressing, but as the most ‘meh.’ I know exactly what she means. But for now, we have news to get to, don’t we?

James

Not investing in climate adaptation is risky business

Many early adaptation investments are highly effective and deliver high
value for money with benefit-cost ratios typically range from 2:1 to 10:1 – i.e., every £1 invested in adaptation could result in £2 to £10 in net economic benefits.

This one of the conclusions of the third UK Climate Change Risk Assessment Report. Or in non-technical language, investing in protecting against climate change is so obvious you would be an idiot not to. But the detail behind it really sets out why we should be investing in climate adaptation of transport infrastructure right now.

Disrupted supply chains, damaged buildings and infrastructure, rising cost of reactionary maintenance, costs of changes to accessing services, direct costs of pollution. You name it, we would be insane to put off adaptation. If anyone tries to say you are gold-plating a scheme to adapt it to a changing climate, slap these reports in front of them.

The impacts of transport infrastructure investment on regions is complicated number 59204733

There is a lot of interest in the roll of transport infrastructure investment in making more peripheral areas of countries more equitable, in economic terms. Its an idea where the reality has often not met the theory. But that does not mean that decision makers do not try and push the benefits of such investment for peripheral areas.

Recent research from Southern Italy has shown that new transport infrastructure does have a substantial socio-economic and demographic impact. This was to the benefit of localities on the line of route, in other words they had more highly skilled people move in, whilst areas away from the line of route diverged even more from more successful areas (economically). The result? The infrastructure that sought to develop a region, developed part of a region. What a shock. A link does nothing for distributing benefits. A network does.

Random things

These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope they do just that.

• Cape Canaveral’s busy January to continue with another Starlink launch (Spaceflight Now)

• Lloyd’s of London: Cyber Insurance Will Not Cover Cyber Attacks Attributable to Nation-States (CPO Magazine)

• Former SpaceX engineers bring autonomous, electric rail vehicle startup out of stealth (TechCrunch)

• Linking climate action to lasting outcomes for the world’s poorest (World Bank)

• Institutional Issues: Who is Entrusted to Learn? (Pedestrian Observations)

Something interesting

If you don’t do anything else today, then do this

Check out this visualisation of all trains in the Netherlands over the course of 24 hours.