Welcome initiative on climate resilience

Welcome initiative on climate resilience

The Cabinet decision last week to set up the International Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure is yet another leadership effort by India towards tackling climate and other environmental crises confronting the world. This will be a concrete commitment that India will make at the United Nations General Secretary’s Climate Action Summit this month.

It is estimated that, over the next two decades, countries will invest nearly $94 trillion in infrastructure, at a time of marked climate impact. This infrastructure build-up must be undertaken so as not contribute further to the planet’s warming, via design, mode of construction and use, while also being capable of withstanding the impacts of the changes that are underway and are not reversible in some cases. The infrastructure must be able to withstand extreme weather events such as floods, whose frequency and intensity will rise and vary as the earth warms, and the impact of gradually and variably accretive events such as sea level rise, land and forest degradation, and desertification. Building infrastructure that is resilient to the impacts of climate change and disaster is central for sustained human well-being.

As a platform that brings together existing knowledge to generate new ideas and knowledge on disaster and climate resilience of infrastructure and finds practical implementation of these ideas, the coalition must focus on reducing risk. This is challenging, given that the risk that climate change presents is neither static nor uniform. The coalition must be more than a knowledge-exchange platform and be able to assist countries to upgrade their capacities and practices, with regard to infrastructure development in accordance with their risk context and economic needs.