Time: 15:30 - 17:00 BRT (GMT-3)
Location: Italian Pavilion
The Italian Ministry of Environment and Energy Security (MASE), recognising the urgency of addressing climate resilience in the infrastructure sector, is promoting a forward-looking initiative to integrate Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) into both existing and new infrastructure assets—including logistics infrastructure. To catalyse concrete resilience interventions, Italy and UNEP have launched the Nature-Based Solutions Innovation Accelerator (NBS-IA), a programme designed to promote the application of NbS approaches to enhance resilience, with a focused geographical scope on infrastructure assets in Central Asia and Africa.
Infrastructure is the backbone of economies, delivering essential services—such as transport, energy, and water—that underpin prosperity and safeguard the quality of life. However, many grey systems are already straining under escalating climate pressures and require frequent upgrades or refurbishments to remain operational.
As climate impacts intensify, the built environment and communities face mounting risks with serious consequences for public health and economic development. It is therefore crucial to identify solutions that both strengthen infrastructure resilience and generate consistent co-benefits for communities, maximising the effectiveness and value of every investment.
NbS offer a cost-effective, adaptable pathway to resilience. By harnessing natural systems, they mitigate threats such as flooding and extreme heat, while also enhancing biodiversity and water security. In many contexts, their economic, environmental, and social returns surpass those of purely engineered approaches.
Multilateral development banks and policymakers are increasingly emphasising the need to invest in resilient, sustainable infrastructure that systematically incorporates NbS. With the World Bank estimating that $57–95 trillion in infrastructure will be built globally by 2030, failing to prioritise and mainstream resilience and NbS risks locks economies into vulnerable, inefficient assets and creates systemic risks.
This event at COP30 presents the Italian initiative. It aims to initiate an international dialogue on climate resilience in sectors crucial to national and global economies, ahead of the 2026 launch of pilot project calls.
