Impacts and risks of climate change for trade infrastructure

The report examines the vulnerability of global trade infrastructure—including ports, roads, railways, and air transport—to both sudden extreme weather events and slow-onset impacts like sea-level rise. It highlights how the concentration of production centres in climate-vulnerable regions and the interconnected nature of global value chains can amplify the economic effects of localized disruptions.

• Climate change disrupts global trade through both sudden extreme weather events, such as hurricanes and floods, and slow-onset impacts like sea-level rise, which damage critical infrastructure including roads, railways, bridges, ports, and air transport.
• The global economy is highly exposed to climate impacts because critical economic sectors rely on imports from a small number of geographically concentrated production centres and supply chains located in vulnerable regions.
• The interconnected nature of modern global value chains means that climate-driven disruptions in key locations can have a disproportionately large effect on the overall global economy.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2023). Impacts and risks of climate change for trade infrastructure. https://www.sei.org/publications/impacts-risks-climate-change-trade-infrastructure/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Impacts and risks of climate change for trade infrastructure. 2023. https://www.sei.org/publications/impacts-risks-climate-change-trade-infrastructure/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Impacts and risks of climate change for trade infrastructure |date=20 December 2023 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/impacts-risks-climate-change-trade-infrastructure/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2023impacts, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Impacts and risks of climate change for trade infrastructure}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2023}, month = dec, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/impacts-risks-climate-change-trade-infrastructure/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }