Building a Climate-Resilient City: Electricity and information and communication technology infrastructure

This policy brief by the International Institute for Sustainable Development outlines strategies to enhance the resilience of energy and information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure against climate change, specifically for the cities of Edmonton and Calgary.

• Climate change impacts the electricity grid by increasing the demand for cooling and exposing the system to shocks such as tornados, droughts, and ice storms. To counter this, the document suggests strengthening conventional design standards using the Canadian PIEVC protocol and adopting modular, distributed renewable energy generation and storage technologies.
• ICT infrastructure possesses inherent climate resilience due to its modular and decentralized nature. This resilience can be further improved through the use of cell phone micro-charging backup systems, emergency roaming, Internet service provider diversity, and redundant landlines.
• The resilience-building framework proposed for municipal adaptation planning is based on three core principles: resourcefulness (empowering citizens), redundancy (creating fail-safe networks via extra capacity), and robustness (strong design).

APA

Venema,, J. T. D. (2017). Building a Climate-Resilient City: Electricity and information and communication technology infrastructure. International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-electricity-and-information-and-communication

Chicago

Venema,, Jennifer Temmer,Henry David. Building a Climate-Resilient City: Electricity and information and communication technology infrastructure. International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2017. https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-electricity-and-information-and-communication.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Venema, |first1=Jennifer Temmer,Henry David |title=Building a Climate-Resilient City: Electricity and information and communication technology infrastructure |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=24 April 2017 |url=https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-electricity-and-information-and-communication |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{venema2017building, author = {Venema,, Jennifer Temmer,Henry David}, title = {{Building a Climate-Resilient City: Electricity and information and communication technology infrastructure}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2017}, month = apr, url = {https://www.iisd.org/publications/brief/building-climate-resilient-city-electricity-and-information-and-communication}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }