Supported by the CCRI board, the GI Hub is intended to take the role of Secretariat, responsible for collaborating with and supporting the CCRI legacy partners who will continue delivering the core programs begun by CCRI. This approach helps ensure continuation of the coalition’s pioneering work to integrate climate risks into investment decisionmaking. The utilities surveyed are prepared to invest in nuclear energy because it is a climate solution, and new small modular reactors are simpler and more versatile.
When governments, capital market investors, commercial lenders, and businesses from multinational corporations to small enterprises work together toward climate resilience, as well as mitigation, the CCRI result will be a stronger world economy. Here, we’ll explore projects in water and agriculture and in construction and real estate. Fundamentally, climate adaptation is about evolving organizational and institutional practices and infrastructures and technologies in places that most need them — which is everywhere that faces risks such as floods and rising sea levels, droughts, and heat waves.
We therefore believe that climate adaptation — helping people, animals, and plants to survive despite rising climate volatility — should be an equally urgent priority. They deserve far greater business investment, especially because they represent near-term opportunities at lower capital expenditures that offer faster paybacks. Indeed, according to this Bloomberg report, Bank of America analysts estimate that the climate adaptation market could be worth $2 trillion a year within the next five years. Supported by the CCRI board, the GI Hub has formally stepped into the role of Secretariat, responsible for collaborating with and supporting the CCRI legacy partners who will continue delivering the core programs begun by CCRI. The GI Hub will continue CCRI’s Systemic Resilience Metrics program, which aims to demonstrate the positive impact that integrating physical climate risks in decisionmaking should have for key sovereign quality metrics. It is undeniable that we need to decarbonize, and nuclear energy is a clear investment in a future free of emissions and pollutants.
Given the scale of the challenge, governments alone won’t be able to shoulder the load and private capital will be essential to building climate change resilience across our economy. Companies around the world are increasingly committing to climate change mitigation, pledging to reduce carbon emissions and water consumption across their operations and supply chains in an effort to slow the pace of global warming and better protect environmental ecosystems. However, while essential, these efforts merely prevent a worse future rather than addressing the inevitable consequences of the damage already baked in. Carbon offsets, for example, have yet to demonstrate meaningful impact on the atmosphere, and, at present, worldwide carbon sequestration efforts reportedly only remove 1% of annual global emissions.
CCRI is a public-private coalition of institutional investors, banks, insurers, rating agencies, and governments, representing over US$10 trillion in assets. The initiative was launched at the UN Climate Action Summit in 2019, with support from the World Economic Forum, to develop consistent frameworks to integrate and accurately price physical climate risks in investment decisions. Currently, climate adaptation initiatives — that is, those that help people, animals, and plants to survive despite rising climate volatility rather than trying to reverse it — receive only 7% of climate-related investment.
An INL analysis utilizing a Global Change Analysis Model predicted an even higher increase of nuclear generating capacity—more than 150%—in order to achieve economy-wide net-zero emissions by mid-century. A steady and efficiently managed water supply would also support more environmentally friendly agriculture such as hydro- and aquaponic food production. China’s Sananbio, for example, operates large indoor farms in Beijing that can produce about six tons of leafy greens daily using only 5,000 square meters of space. Small and strategically vulnerable countries such as Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Singapore have become leaders in this kind of food production, and it could greatly benefit many other water-stressed geographies.
A transition for the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment
- Nuclear generates more electricity with less land than other renewable energy sources.
- In March 2023, the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment (CCRI) announced that it has successfully completed the transfer of its portfolio of government and investor-focused climate tools, solutions, and financial instruments to not-for-profit partners.
- China’s Sananbio, for example, operates large indoor farms in Beijing that can produce about six tons of leafy greens daily using only 5,000 square meters of space.
- Property developers, asset managers, and insurers should take heed, accelerating the acquisition of land, construction of affordable housing, and adjustment of premiums to anticipate, encourage, and profit from climate-induced migrations.
But, as a pair of OECD studies point out, widespread climate adaptation measures can have a positive impact on growth, especially in G-20 economies. The Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment has successfully transferred its suite of government- and investor-focused climate tools and financial instruments to select not-for-profit partners. Effective April 1, the coalition will stop operating in its current configuration and its programmes will instead be delivered by the legacy partners, with G20 not-for-profit Global Infrastructure Hub acting as secretariat.
🎧 Listen — Bidding Blind: The Hidden Threat to Australia’s Clean Energy Transition
We are focused on the steps we can take now and in the future to create a more resilient Australia,» said Australian Minister for the Environment Sussan Ley. The GI Hub is also intended to continue CCRI’s Systemic Resilience Metrics program, which aims to demonstrate the positive impact that integrating physical climate risks in decisionmaking should have for key sovereign quality metrics. As part of the membership, CCRI will help the Australian government mitigate climate change impacts, reduce the country’s exposure, and channel more private capital towards building greater resilience across economies and communities. The UK government, World Economic Forum, and WTW spearheaded the establishment of the Coalition for Climate Resilient Investment at the 2019 UN Climate Action Summit as a global initiative to standardise climate risks in investment decision-making. «Federal and state governments currently spend on average $2.75 billion a year on direct recovery from disasters, but only $100 million building resilience against such events. The total economic cost of natural disasters is expected to rise to almost $40 billion by mid-century, even without consideration of the effects of climate change.
The transportation and manufacturing sectors alone make up 45% of our greenhouse gas emissions, and advanced reactors can provide the high-temperature heat and carbon-free hydrogen production needed to decarbonize these heavy industrial processes. Nuclear generates more electricity with less land than other renewable energy sources. To generate the same amount of carbon-free power as 300 SMRs, wind would require over 13 million acres, and solar would require over 2.3 million acres. Similarly, Boklok produces flat-pack homes designed and built by Skanska and sold at Ikea. The houses are primarily made of wood sustainably sourced from Scandinavia because of its relatively lower climate impact, and about 14,000 of them have been erected across Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the United Kingdom, generating $250 million in revenue for the adaptation-focused manufacturer.
The revenue increase in 2021 was largely driven by mining and petroleum taxes, reflecting higher commodity prices. Grants (foreign aid) also increased by 47%, indicating strong support from foreign governments and multilaterals during COVID-19, including the first budget support grant after two decades from Australia. The private sector-led coalition has since expanded to 131 members representing over US$28 trillion in assets, including institutional investors, banks, insurers, and the governments of Australia, the UK, Canada, Jamaica, and the state of California. «The need for cross-sector and public and private collaboration will be particularly acute as governments will be more fiscally challenged after deploying immediate economic relief in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. IPCC reports clearly state that the world must decarbonize beyond the electricity sector.
Rainwater harvesting projects now represent a 5% and growing share of the portfolio of Kingspan, a leading Irish construction company whose low-energy insulation systems are featured in Bloomberg’s London headquarters and Singapore’s Changi airport. The city of Sydney, which has suffered consistent droughts with dams falling to record low capacity, has commissioned Kingspan to audit all 48 of the city’s rainwater management systems. «Developing a national strategy and mobilising private sector capital will be critical.
The economic benefits of water conservation include saving money on water purchases, storage, and maintenance, all of which accrue to corporations and villagers alike. Particularly in regions such as India, where only 10% of potential water-saving measures have been implemented, these kind of adaptation efforts deserve significantly greater investment and scaling. Water scarcity is already a short-term crisis and an even greater long-term challenge that even the most robust mitigation initiatives cannot immediately address. Water is the biggest and most important input for human life and global agriculture and is thus essential for our health, sustenance, and productivity, and yet many heavily populated geographies are already stricken by shortages. In conclusion, the final budget outcome for the 2021 fiscal year shows strong growth performance in revenue collection and constraint over spending with lower deficits compared to 2020 outcomes.
