Accelerating Risk-informed Investments In Climate-resilient Urban Infrastructure: A Framework-based Approach

The brief provides a framework to accelerate investments in climate-resilient critical infrastructure, emphasising risk quantification and a lifecycle approach for enhancing resilience. Extreme climate hazards cause asset loss and service disruption, exacerbating inherent inequalities as socio-economically marginalised citizens are disproportionately impacted. By 2050, 68% of the global population will live in urban areas, with 84% of the fastest-growing cities facing ‘extreme’ climate risks, especially in the Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs). To address the infrastructure gap in LMICs, an estimated USD 2.8 trillion is needed by 2050. Thus, forthcoming investments must be risk-informed through scientific evidence, best practices, research, and technological innovation. This highlights the need for a unified multi-hazard climate-inclusive risk assessment framework to quantify and map infrastructure at risk, facilitating risk-informed investments, streamlining adaptation finance and providing targeted, nature-positive solutions. The framework should promote resilience, sustainability, and inclusivity in all stages of infrastructure development through equitable access. This policy brief also highlights the crucial role of G20 in mobilising climate finance through international cooperation and knowledge sharing. In 2020, Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs) met only 5% of the required USD 1.5 trillion annual infrastructure in LMICs. The G20 can attract more capital through global collaboration among governments, policy analysts, financial institutions, and private actors. The last G20 established ‘Principles on Financing Cities of Tomorrow’ for sustainable urban development, which involves interventions in policy and planning to upgrade infrastructure. In the 2024 G20, Brazil can move this initiative further by elucidating the value, benefits, costs, and risks of climate-resilient infrastructure, and building technical capacity of decision-makers, policymakers and investors.