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guidance as to which should be built most urgently. The potential for projects to be prioritized for reasons other than urgent adaptation needs is therefore very real. Another inherent risk in infrastructure projects is the tendency for corruption to raise the price of projects while simultaneously reducing quality.21 Designs may be manipulated to raise costs or ensure that only a few contractors can comply, or specifications can be made overly sophisticated. This can inflate both the cost and the duration of a project. When bribes are used to conceal quality defects, the result is substandard work. As many infrastructure projects are large, complex and non-standard, they are difficult to assess.22 Moreover, governments’ dual role as customer and regulator23 of many such projects makes them particularly prone to corruption or fraud – on account of deceitful or insufficient regulatory capacity. The impact of weak regulation leading to substandard work would be a heavy price to pay in the context of urgent adaptation needs, as the cost would probably be calculated in lives. Past experiences of environment-proofing infrastructure have demonstrated this, but further concerns are likely as climate-proofing projects are rolled out in countries with inadequate regulations or experience. In Turkey, where an earthquake killed some 11,000 people in 1999, more than a half of all structures failed to comply with building regulations.24 Similar scenarios can be foreseen for climate-related disasters if adaptation measures do not meet the necessary standards. Rather than increasing people’s resilience to climate change, poorly managed adaptation may actually decrease it. The many risks for adaptation projects
As governments move to build flood walls and embankments, robust drainage systems and cyclone centres for displaced persons, they will also need to ensure that old structures are retrofitted to meet new standards. Governments also need to invest in ‘green’ technologies so as to ensure that adaptation projects do not unduly exacerbate climate change, as the construction industry accounts for 33 per cent of CO2 emissions.25 These interdependent priorities must be addressed in order to preserve scarce resources, and will add to the complexity of planning and building projects. High-pressure environments, unrealistic deadlines, urgency and haste all characterize the response to rapidly emerging climate change and may lead to multiple excuses for camouflaging corrupt practices. Pressure to complete projects could undermine planning processes, including safeguarding against projects that do not take mitigation considerations into account, such as reducing CO2 emissions.
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