PRESS RELEASE, 15 MARCH 2019
The Climate Infrastructure Forum mobilizes the global community to accelerate the transition to sustainable infrastructure
60+ leaders and delegates from the public, private, and civil society sectors from 4 continents gathered together to discuss a transformative cross-sector agenda on climate infrastructure.
The Forum launched "Infrastructure for Future", a cross-stakeholder initiative to drive infrastructure system change by 2030 for People and the Planet.
Barcelona, 15 March 2019 – The first annual edition of the Climate Infrastructure Forum, a high-level summit dedicated to climate action and infrastructure for development, concluded on March 5 with a clear message: infrastructure is the single most important lever for sustainable development. Without low-carbon, high-resilience infrastructure, the world will not be able to deliver on the Paris Climate Agreement's objectives and the Agenda 2030.
More than 60 leaders and delegates of government, business, finance, philanthropy, and civil society from 4 continents gathered in Barcelona to discuss a transformative agenda on climate infrastructure. Today about 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the construction and operations of infrastructure such as energy, water, transport, buildings, telecom, and more.
The world is on track to exceed its carbon budget and lock in a 1.5°C warming in fewer than 12 years, according to the latest IPCC report. When it comes to infrastructure, however, the window of opportunity for climate action is shorter. Once an infrastructure project is financed and built, its resulting emissions will be locked in for decades.
“Our common future will be largely determined by the infrastructure decisions and the action we will take in the very next few years. The technology is ready, but we still need to step up collaboration between the different sectors towards a common goal: to provoke a truly transformative change. Now it is time to seize this historical opportunity”, said Luigi Carafa, Executive Director of the Climate Infrastructure Partnership (CLIP), which convened the Forum.
Infrastructure for Future
The Forum launched "Infrastructure for Future", a cross-stakeholder initiative to drive infrastructure system change by 2030 for People and the Planet. Four pillars were defined:
1. Unleashing the full potential of long-term investors, which could direct trillions of dollars towards sustainable infrastructure investments. To effectively curb emissions, an estimated $ 90 trillion of investment in sustainable infrastructure is required globally by 2030. Yet there is lack of clarity and uncertainties around the boundaries of sustainable infrastructure assets.
2. Replicating and scaling-up successful policy models and derisking solutions, which can give the right signals to enable sustainable infrastructure investments. There are important challenges on how to make investments happen in the regions where infrastructure is most needed, especially across the Global South.
3. Unlocking sub-national infrastructure investments. Most end-users of infrastructure services live in urban areas, but sustainable infrastructure projects are not rolling out at the scale and speed required. To unlock and scale-up investment, sub-national governments must work hand-in-hand with national authorities, technology providers, developers and business, as well as with investors to overcome barriers to implementation.
4. Anticipating disruptive technologies, cross-sector synergies, and business models. With key trends such as decarbonization, digitalization, decentralization, disaster resilience, electrification and urbanization, it is imperative to anticipate the future of technology, identify cross-industry synergies and circular solutions, and rethink business models accordingly.
Today, March 15, the largest Climate Strike ever organized in history is taking place in 100+ countries around the world, led by the Fridays for Future’s movement. “With Infrastructure for Future, we want to help turn this energy into transformative solutions to the climate crisis and increase the scale and speed of change required. Infrastructure is the backbone of every society. We need to make it clean and resilient", said Luigi Carafa, Executive Director of the Climate Infrastructure Partnership.
Infrastructure for Future will be submitted as a pledge for the UN Climate Action Summit to be held in New York on 23 September. To prepare for implementation in 2020, a number of preparatory meetings will be held in the coming months. The first preparatory meeting is scheduled for May 28 at the R20 Austrian World Summit in Vienna. A break-out session on blended finance and sub-national infrastructure will also be held on May 29 in partnership with R20, the University of Zurich and the USC Schwarzenegger Institute.
Highlights
Christiana Figueres, Convenor of Mission 2020, former UN Climate Chief and a Champion of the Paris Agreement:
"Failing to protect infrastructure from climate change impacts, such as floods and storms, would leach away the budgets that communities, cities and countries could otherwise spend on ending poverty and hunger. We will be in a non-ending cycle of build, destroy, reconstruct", Figueres said at the opening keynote debate of the Climate Infrastructure Forum.
Kirsten Snow Spalding, Director, Ceres Investor Network, whose members manage $25 trillion in assets:
"How do we disrupt the business-as-usual perspective of institutional investors and get them moving more money, more quickly into the infrastructure that will be climate-sensitive, resilient and low-carbon for our future? […] If we do nothing, then investors will simply follow the market”, said Snow Spalding.
Takahiro Tsuda, Director for Development Policy Coordination, Ministry of Finance, Government of Japan:
“The Japanese Presidency of the G20 is focusing on quality infrastructure that is resilient to disasters, and generates economic, environmental and social benefits. Quality infrastructure can form the backbone of local economic development, and should not be sacrificed in the rush to build more, more quickly”, Tsuda said.
James Grabert, Director of Sustainable Development Mechanisms, UN Climate Change:
"If we do this right - if we have a low-emission, climate-resilient approach - not only will we succeed in keeping on a path to lower than 2° C or 1.5° C of global warming, we are also going to help billions of people”, said Grabert.
The 2019 Forum was organized by the Climate Infrastructure Partnership (CLIP), an international nonprofit organization for public-private-people cooperation on sustainable infrastructure. The Forum was held on March 4 and 5 at the Sant Pau Unesco landmark in Barcelona, which headquarters CLIP.
The Forum was co-organized by the Barcelona City Council, the Bipp Hub, the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, and Generalitat de Catalunya. The Forum had the generous support of the following partners:
Event partners: Bouygues Energies & Services, Climate Trade, FCC Construcción, ICLEI, and the Inter-American Development Bank.
Media partners: Thomson Reuters Foundation, Open Data Soft, IT Comunicación y Relaciones Públicas.
Venue support: Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau and Diputació de Barcelona.
Media relations: media@climateinfrastructure.org
For more news and updates from CLIP, follow us on twitter @ClimateInfra or visit our website www.climateinfrastructure.org
60+ leaders and delegates from the public, private, and civil society sectors from 4 continents gathered together to discuss a transformative cross-sector agenda on climate infrastructure.
The Forum launched "Infrastructure for Future", a cross-stakeholder initiative to drive infrastructure system change by 2030 for People and the Planet.
Barcelona, 15 March 2019 –
The first annual edition of the Climate Infrastructure Forum, a high-level summit dedicated to climate action and infrastructure for development, concluded on March 5 with a clear message: infrastructure is the single most important lever for sustainable development. Without low-carbon, high-resilience infrastructure, the world will not be able to deliver on the Paris Climate Agreement's objectives and the Agenda 2030.
More than 60 leaders and delegates of government, business, finance, philanthropy, and civil society from 4 continents gathered in Barcelona to discuss a transformative agenda on climate infrastructure. Today about 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the construction and operations of infrastructure such as energy, water, transport, buildings, telecom, and more.
The world is on track to exceed its carbon budget and lock in a 1.5°C warming in fewer than 12 years, according to the latest IPCC report. When it comes to infrastructure, however, the window of opportunity for climate action is shorter. Once an infrastructure project is financed and built, its resulting emissions will be locked in for decades.
“Our common future will be largely determined by the infrastructure decisions and the action we will take in the very next few years. The technology is ready, but we still need to step up collaboration between the different sectors towards a common goal: to provoke a truly transformative change. Now it is time to seize this historical opportunity”, said Luigi Carafa, Executive Director of the Climate Infrastructure Partnership (CLIP), which convened the Forum.
Infrastructure for Future
The Forum launched "Infrastructure for Future", a cross-stakeholder initiative to drive infrastructure system change by 2030 for People and the Planet. Four pillars were defined:
1. Unleashing the full potential of long-term investors, which could direct trillions of dollars towards sustainable infrastructure investments. To effectively curb emissions, an estimated $ 90 trillion of investment in sustainable infrastructure is required globally by 2030. Yet there is lack of clarity and uncertainties around the boundaries of sustainable infrastructure assets.
2. Replicating and scaling-up successful policy models and derisking solutions, which can give the right signals to enable sustainable infrastructure investments. There are important challenges on how to make investments happen in the regions where infrastructure is most needed, especially across the Global South.
3. Unlocking sub-national infrastructure investments. Most end-users of infrastructure services live in urban areas, but sustainable infrastructure projects are not rolling out at the scale and speed required. To unlock and scale-up investment, sub-national governments must work hand-in-hand with national authorities, technology providers, developers and business, as well as with investors to overcome barriers to implementation.
4. Anticipating disruptive technologies, cross-sector synergies, and business models. With key trends such as decarbonization, digitalization, decentralization, disaster resilience, electrification and urbanization, it is imperative to anticipate the future of technology, identify cross-industry synergies and circular solutions, and rethink business models accordingly.
Today, March 15, the largest Climate Strike ever organized in history is taking place in 100+ countries around the world, led by the Fridays for Future’s movement. “With Infrastructure for Future, we want to help turn this energy into transformative solutions to the climate crisis and increase the scale and speed of change required. Infrastructure is the backbone of every society. We need to make it clean and resilient", said Luigi Carafa, Executive Director of the Climate Infrastructure Partnership.
Infrastructure for Future will be submitted as a pledge for the UN Climate Action Summit to be held in New York on 23 September. To prepare for implementation in 2020, a number of preparatory meetings will be held in the coming months. The first preparatory meeting is scheduled for May 28 at the R20 Austrian World Summit in Vienna. A break-out session on blended finance and sub-national infrastructure will also be held on May 29 in partnership with R20, the University of Zurich and the USC Schwarzenegger Institute.
Highlights
Christiana Figueres, Convenor of Mission 2020, former UN Climate Chief and a Champion of the Paris Agreement:
"Failing to protect infrastructure from climate change impacts, such as floods and storms, would leach away the budgets that communities, cities and countries could otherwise spend on ending poverty and hunger. We will be in a non-ending cycle of build, destroy, reconstruct", Figueres said at the opening keynote debate of the Climate Infrastructure Forum.
Kirsten Snow Spalding, Director, Ceres Investor Network, whose members manage $25 trillion in assets:
"How do we disrupt the business-as-usual perspective of institutional investors and get them moving more money, more quickly into the infrastructure that will be climate-sensitive, resilient and low-carbon for our future? […] If we do nothing, then investors will simply follow the market”, said Snow Spalding.
Takahiro Tsuda, Director for Development Policy Coordination, Ministry of Finance, Government of Japan:
“The Japanese Presidency of the G20 is focusing on quality infrastructure that is resilient to disasters, and generates economic, environmental and social benefits. Quality infrastructure can form the backbone of local economic development, and should not be sacrificed in the rush to build more, more quickly”, Tsuda said.
James Grabert, Director of Sustainable Development Mechanisms, UN Climate Change:
"If we do this right - if we have a low-emission, climate-resilient approach - not only will we succeed in keeping on a path to lower than 2° C or 1.5° C of global warming, we are also going to help billions of people”, said Grabert.
The 2019 Forum was organized by the Climate Infrastructure Partnership (CLIP), an international nonprofit organization for public-private-people cooperation on sustainable infrastructure. The Forum was held on March 4 and 5 at the Sant Pau Unesco landmark in Barcelona, which headquarters CLIP.
The Forum was co-organized by the Barcelona City Council, the Bipp Hub, the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, and Generalitat de Catalunya. The Forum had the generous support of the following partners:
Event partners: Bouygues Energies & Services, Climate Trade, FCC Construcción, ICLEI, and the Inter-American Development Bank.
Media partners: Thomson Reuters Foundation, Open Data Soft, IT Comunicación y Relaciones Públicas.
Venue support: Recinte Modernista de Sant Pau and Diputació de Barcelona.
Contact: media@climateinfrastructure.org
For more news and updates from CLIP, follow us on twitter @ClimateInfra or visit our website www.climateinfrastructure.org
From transport to telecoms, construction needs to be tougher and greener, writes @meganrowling from @ClimateInfra #Infra4Future https://t.co/iXCXGIzZRQ pic.twitter.com/7ITtfw2ekb
— TRF Climate (@TRF_Climate) March 4, 2019
