Infrastructure for Future was launched at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York.

Infrastructure for Future is a multi-stakeholder inititative aimed at driving infrastructure system change by 2030.

New York, 23 September 2019 – Infrastructure for Future was presented within the ICLA coalition at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York. This initiative spells a clear message to the global community: 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.

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).

Infrastructure for Future

Infrastructure for Future was initiated at the Climate Infrastructure Forum 2019 held in Barcelona on March 4-5. This multi-stakeholder initiative aims 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.

To prepare for implementation in 2020, a number of meetings have been held. The first preparatory meeting was held at the R20 Austrian World Summit in Vienna in May 28. A break-out session on blended finance and sub-national infrastructure was held on May 29 in partnership with R20, the University of Zurich and the USC Schwarzenegger Institute. A second preparatory meeting was held at the IKEA headquarters in Malmö in mid-July. 

Highlights from the Forum 2019

Infrastructure for Future was initiated at the Climate Infrastructure Forum 2019, which gathered 60+ leaders from policy, business, finance, and philanthropy in Barcelona on March 4-5.

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.

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