Rio Tinto is a leading international mining group, whose major products include iron ore, aluminum, copper, diamonds, energy products, gold, and industrial minerals. Its activities span the world but are strongly represented in Australia, North America and Europe.
Rio Tinto’s chief climate change concerns are about water: either having too much (floods) or too little (drought). While Rio Tinto does not ascribe any individual weather event to climate change, it believes the more extreme events it experiences could occur more frequently. In addition, Rio Tinto is concerned with reports that climate change will induce deeper and/or more frequent droughts. Partly as a result, it has developed a strong water strategy to respond to various aspects of droughts and floods.
Rio Tinto’s interest in adaptation was first motivated by an internal climate change risk assessment undertaken in 2002. Rio Tinto was already engaged in climate change policy and emissions abatement work, and an evaluation of potential climate impacts seemed a natural extension. The company’s first adaptation study was a review using the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (TAR), knowledge of Rio Tinto operations, and phone interviews with site managers to identify the types of climatic variables that would be important to Rio Tinto’s diverse businesses. The study looked at actual impacts of weather events and predicted climate changes described by the TAR. The order of magnitude scoping study concluded that— broadly defined— changes in climate could be important and should be considered more deeply.
Rio Tinto followed up with a second study that focused on the implications of climatic changes at a finer spatial detail using data provided by the Hadley Center for Climate Change in the UK. This study demonstrated how climate variables might change over the next 25 to 50 years in the geographic regions where Rio Tinto has mining interests, or relies on supporting infrastructure and services, such as electricity supply, water, shipping lanes, and roads.
Rio Tinto concluded from these studies that regions in which it operates will experience changed climate regimes. In the near term the changes are minimal, but are expected to increase over the longer term. Consequent impacts to its businesses are likely to occur gradually, allowing time for operations to learn and adapt.
Rio Tinto has also undertaken very detailed site assessments for many of its higher priority sites. The sites have been selected based on their remaining life, prospective developments and expansions, and their location in climate sensitive parts of the world. The assessments are underpinned by high-resolution climate modeling (down to 20 kilometer by 20 kilometer grids), which are able to provide some indication of changes in cyclonic activity and topographic effects.
Rio Tinto has experienced three headline weather events over the past few years in Australia (flooding and droughts) that have reinforced the need for the company’s adaptation work.