PLEA Network

18 March 2016, ECOS, Building disaster resilience systematically. The cost of replacing essential infrastructure damaged by disasters in the next 35 years is estimated to reach $17bn according to the latest set of reports from the Australian Business Roundtable for Disaster Resilience and Safer Communities. The reports, Building Resilient Infrastructure and the Economic Costs of Social Impact of Disasters, outline the costs associated with replacing essential infrastructure damaged by disasters and provide an overview of the direct costs of physical damage with the total economic cost of disasters. In 2015, the total economic costs of disasters exceeded $9bn, a figure that is projected to double by 2030 and reach $33bn per year by 2050 – funds that could be apportioned elsewhere on other major national projects. And as Heinrich Eder, CEO of reinsurer Munich Re, noted, these projections are based only on economic and population growth; they do not even include the increasingly detectable effects of climate change. These are big, and socially traumatic, numbers. Long-term they have the same sort of potential to create holes in national and state budgets as our ageing population does—the subject of repeated Intergenerational Reports and eventual decisions about adjusting retirement age. It is clear to us, based on our work, that investing much more in disaster resilience as a nation will reduce physical damage, avoid social disruption and trauma, and lessen this capricious burden on state and national budgets. In fact, estimates suggest that well-targeted investments in resilience could result in significant savings for the government. Read More here