(Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama is asking the privatesector to tighten building standards to reduce losses from natural disastersafter studies linked an increase in extreme weather to climatechange.
|The administration will announce Tuesday the start of work bythe organizations that set standards for residential and commercialbuildings in an effort to improve safety during and after eventssuch as fires, floods and earthquakes.
|Buildings need to be constructed differently
“We’re building for 50 to 100 years and if we don’t take intoaccount what is to come, our investments are at risk of beingwashed away,” Alice Hill, White House National Security Councilsenior director for resilience, said in an interview.
Stronger buildings and infrastructure come at a cost, but theWhite House points to a 2005 study by the National Institute ofBuilding Sciences that found every $1 spent mitigatingpotential hazards leads to an average of $4 in future benefits.Because the building code work is just beginning, there’s no costestimate yet for how much stricter codes would add to constructioncosts, Hill said.
|Rebuild stronger
With scientists predicting more extreme weather and rising sealevels in the U.S. due to climate change, theadministration says buildings need to be constructed differently.Obama often talks about resiliency when he visits storm-struckareas of the U.S., urging communities to rebuild stronger than theywere before the tornado, hurricane or flood roared through.
“It’s a sound economic investment if you know that these impactsare coming so you’re not paying on the back end,” Hill said.
|There aren’t national building codes in the U.S. States andlocalities generally adopt common standards set by organizationsthat are part of the International CodeCouncil.
|Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.
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