Speech prepared for delivery at ‘Integrated Approaches to Sustainable Infrastructure Investment: A Virtual Dialogue with UNEP and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)’.
Built infrastructure is a marvel of human ingenuity. Running water, power, transport networks, telecommunications: they have all brought massive benefits. But there are haves and have-nots. Across the world, food spoils for lack of power, cold chain or transport. Patients die because they can’t reach hospitals. Women have to walk miles for water because their communities are not connected.
In short, there is a massive infrastructure gap that is costing lives and locking people into poverty. To give a sense of the scale, the Asian Development Bank in 2017 estimated a financing gap in economic infrastructure of USD 459 billion per year for Asia.
To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, we must close this gap but not by cutting and pasting old ways of doing infrastructure. This is because our current infrastructure models are driving the three planetary crises of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste.
We can use pandemic recovery packages to make progress on this infrastructure challenge of investment, development, justice, equity and sustainability. So far, we haven’t done so. Over USD 14 trillion in recovery spending was committed in 2020, but less than 20 per cent has been allocated to initiatives considered green.
We need to shift these investments. But to where? Let me offer up three quick suggestions.
One, make built infrastructure more sustainable with better efficiency and design.
We have so many opportunities in this space.
Boosting investments in renewable energy could add over 40 million jobs to the global economy and create healthcare savings eight times the cost of the investment. Building upgrades and energy efficiency create local jobs and have a high economic multiplier. Recycling can dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the material cycle of residential buildings.
Such solutions have a critical role to play in countering unsustainable patterns of production and consumption worldwide.
Two, invest in natural infrastructure.
Nature-based solutions restore biodiversity, boost livelihoods and health, and create resilience to climate change. In fact, restoring 350 million hectares of degraded landscapes by 2030 – which can and should be done during the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration – could generate USD 9 trillion dollars in ecosystem services and mitigate climate change.
We need to value and invest in nature’s infrastructure and place it at the heart of our societies and economies.
Three, integrate built and natural infrastructure in innovative ways.
There are many things natural infrastructure does better and cheaper, particularly when it comes to climate resilience. In concrete cities, for example, we swelter in heatwaves and look to powered cooling as a solution, driving climate change. But green belts, roofs and walls create natural cooling and reduce the need for power and built infrastructure.
When planning built infrastructure, we should ask: can nature do at least part of the job for us?
Dear Friends,
To address the three planetary crises, we need to follow these three lines of attack, funding them through recovery packages and other innovative financing mechanisms.
This is the best way to close the infrastructure gap without storing up further problems for the vulnerable and marginalized people that new infrastructure must support.
Thank you.
Executive Director
