Methodology ============= 6 of the sites owned by the RSK group are analysed in depth with respect to their exposure to physical hazards. Different natural hazards are assessed for the present-day and the possible future climate evolution in the years 2030 and 2050, and for the RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5 scenarios. There are no climate models able to pinpoint specific catastrophic events. However, it is possible to determine the likelihood of future climate hazards and to assess the potential impact of climate change-related risks on business operations. The future evolution of climate-related hazards is analyzed by comparing the future evolution of some climate impact-drivers (CIDs) to a baseline period (present and near past condition). The methodology followed in this study is that one proposed by the European Topic Centre on Climate Change impacts :ref:`(Crespi et al., 2020) ` and the UNEP FIs and the TCFD :ref:`(Carlin et al., 2023) `. It is important to highlight the difference between climate change and weather variability. Weather variability refers to the fluctuations in atmospheric conditions, such as temperature, precipitation, and wind, that occur over short periods of time. Climate change, on the other hand, refers to the long-term alterations in Earth's climate patterns, including changes in temperature, precipitation, and sea level. While weather variability is a natural occurrence, climate change is primarily caused by human activities, which release large amounts of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, trapping heat and causing global temperatures to rise. This report analyses the influence of climate change on physical hazards. That means, the statistically significant variations of the climate. To detect climate variations (and not weather variability), the climate variables have to be averaged over a large period, typically 30 years. In this study, the averaged baseline period (from 1970 to 2000) is compared with the averaged medium-term period (from 2015 to 2044) and the long-term period (from 2035 to 2064). In this report, these three periods are named as "historical", "2030" and "2050". The evolution of the future climate is uncertain, and it depends mainly on anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Climate projections provide information for the exploration of climate changes across a range of very different futures. Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are emission scenarios explicitly designed for the climate modelling community to explore the effects of different emissions trajectories or emissions concentrations :ref:`(van Vuuren et al., 2011) `. RCPs consist of predictions about how concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will change in the future as a result of human activities. The RCPs values refer to a possible range of radiative forcing values in the year 2100 (radiative forcing represents the change in energy flux in the atmosphere caused by natural or anthropogenic factors and it is measured by watts / squared meter. Values commonly used include 2.6, 4.5, 6.0, and 8.5 W/m²) :ref:`(IPCC AR5, 2014) `. In this study, the future evolution of the hazards is analyzed under the **RCP2.6** and the **RCP8.5** scenarios: * **RCP2.6** represents a pathway where greenhouse gas emissions are strongly reduced, resulting in a best estimate global average temperature rise of 1.6 °C by 2100 compared to the pre-industrial period. * **RCP8.5** is a pathway where greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow unmitigated, leading to a best estimate global average temperature rise of 4.3 °C by 2100 compared to the pre-industrial period. Thus, the relative change of each climate impact-driver with respect to its historical mean is evaluated, and their impact on the corresponding hazard is estimated. Considering the evolution of each CID, a score is given to each hazard for the periods 2030 and 2050, and for RCP 2.6 and RCP 8.5. These results are presented in the conclusion section of each site. In this study, 12 climate-related hazards are analyzed for the 6 sites. The analyzed :ref:`physical hazards ` and their related :ref:`baseline indicators ` and :ref:`CIDs ` are summarized in :ref:`Table 1 ` and described in the next sub-sections. The methodology followed to score each hazard is described in the :ref:`CID scoring ` section. .. _chapter_physical_hazards: Physical hazards ---------------------------------- .. include:: physical_hazards.rst .. _chapter_baseline_indicators: Baseline indicators description ------------------------------------ .. include:: baseline_indicators.rst .. _chapter_CIDs: Climate impact-drivers description ------------------------------------ .. include:: CID_indicators.rst .. _chapter_CID_scoring: Climate impact-drivers scoring ---------------------------------- .. include:: CID_scoring.rst Climate impact-drivers bias correction --------------------------------------- .. include:: cid_biased.rst Data sources ---------------------------------- .. include:: data_sources.rst