Ep.67 Resilient infrastructure: protecting the future of our communities

Maria Rampa: Hi I’m Maria Rampa and welcome to this episode of Engineering Reimagined.

Cast your mind back 15 years ago to 2009. Barack Obama was president, swine flu was sweeping the world and Facebook was exploding with new users.

There was also a milestone meeting that would change how nations across the world responded to climate change.

In 2009 the United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP15, was held in Copenhagen with public interest swelling behind the climate debate.

This momentous meeting kicked off a journey towards the Paris Agreement in 2015, as global leaders pledged to address climate change, rethinking how we conduct business with a climate positive mindset and create resilient infrastructure.

In today’s episode of Engineering Reimagined Michael Nolan, Climate Risk and Resilience Lead at Aurecon, speaks with Nicolas Buchoud, President of the Grand Paris Alliance for Metropolitan Development.

Together they’ll discuss the intention of COP15 and its impact on subsequent global decisions, the growing importance of resilient infrastructure and sustainable finance, and how major global events like the Olympic & Paralympic Games can reshape infrastructure for a host city.

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Michael Nolan: You are senior advisor in 2009 supporting over 12 million people for the Greater Paris, supporting the overall governor. And you supported him to go to COP15 in Copenhagen. Now that was something that was unusual at that time to bring leaders that were not national leaders to these types of negotiations for climate. That kicked off a journey towards the Paris Agreement in 2015 and supported greater emphasis and activity at that below national level, at the state, territory and city level. How important is it that other large metropolitan cities and players below national engage strongly in the climate effort, given that in 2023, there was a report that flagged that we're not meeting the targets that was set out under the Paris Agreement? What are your thoughts?

Nicolas Buchoud: On the one hand, COP15 in Copenhagen took place in a very special time. That was a year after the election of Barack Obama in the US. That triggered so much passion. And there were really hopes that green solutions could be on the forefront of addressing mounting climate challenges. That is the first point. The second point, there was a real global push at the COP15 in Copenhagen. Maybe, it was the first time that there was such a very large-scale mobilisation of the civil society, which includes all sorts of groups, the youth groups, different kinds of advocacy groups, indigenous people in general, and of course, alongside governments and other more institutional players. And I remember that there was a campaign led by very, very popular figures that were associated also to freedom and liberation, such as this 1 to 2 in South Africa . And there was this campaign, tick, tick, tick that was re-using the famous song from Midnight Oil about, no time to lose and our beds are burning and so on and so. There was this whole joyful atmosphere. And I was at that time very much involved into the development of planners’ networks. And I thought, out of that, there was really a push for cities, subnational governments, to be part of the resolution of what emerged as globally interconnected challenges meet urbanisation, climate, environment, economic growth, inclusion, social justice, and so on. And, one day I rushed into the office of my president and say, president, we need to go to Copenhagen. And he looked at me, and says, “Why?” Why should we go to the COP, etc.. right. Then I discussed with my colleagues in the office of the president, and they said, oh, that's a good idea, but why don't we instead organise a march and a demonstration in Paris so that we would showcase how important it is to fight for the climate. Everybody agreed that it was important to join in and we met with al Gore in person, and we met with at that time, Arnold Schwarzenegger in person, and so on and so on and so on. And there was really this extremely electric atmosphere. But then the COP itself was a failure, right? I remember there was all the drama of the presidents coming in, joining forces, say we must safeguard the agreement across nations or we will fail. And then the impacts on the climate would be very negative. No agreement, was that probably that marked the beginning of a very serious undertaking of subnational governments in the context of the COP negotiations themselves, right? Whereas they had no particular role beforehand. And this, over the past 15 years since then, has been continuously confirmed. And now if you look back just in the last couple of COPs, such as in Glasgow or in Sharm el-Sheikh and last year in Dubai, but this will continue this year, next year, and even the IPCC is devoting special segments of its reports to issues linked with urbanisation, but also to the role of cities and beyond just cities, all the layers of subnational government. So after all, in the long run, the impact was rather positive, however, when we look back at what was announced in terms of scenarios, of evolution of CO2 emissions and other environmental disasters that may be linked with global warming, this is happening sadly, and in the meantime, there was the Cop21 in Paris, which was successful. There was an agreement, but all indicators and reports in the past 24 months, they showed that it would be extremely difficult, to be polite, to limit the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. And we all know out of the science that is there, what is at stake by overcoming that limit of 1.5 degrees? And I think, in a nutshell, this is a kind of a summary of both the passion, the stakes, the long-term and short-term issues that are linked with the current climate talks.

Michael Nolan: It's very much like we're at that pivotal point of its observed impacts of climate change are affecting business at all levels. And we're seeing at least 20 to 30 per cent increase in loss of profit from climatic events beyond natural weather variability. And so one key area that's emerged is the infrastructure play that underpins economies, cities' safety, in times of natural disasters. Some of the areas that are most impacted, like Southeast Asia and islands in the Pacific, are impacted close to 15 times more in terms of loss of life during these increase in extreme events. There's a challenge to ensure the infrastructure adapts to the changing climate rather than the past climate. So, can you talk a little bit about how some of those challenges have emerged?

Nicolas Buchoud: We were talking about Copenhagen, for example, in this green enthusiasm. That is fine. But what was largely missing in this equation is the fact that green development and green industries are good for countries where there is industry and where is already development. And for other nations, be they emerging countries, small and vulnerable countries, low or middle income countries. That's a completely different story. And the continuation of such an approach to simplify the global north is not the right story. And we can see the limitations of that. I think there is an issue of how do we address those questions that relate both to profits and losses, but also to social justice, but also to development, but also to green technologies and infrastructure transformation in ways that people feel part of the story and that you do not explain to others what should be done.

Michael Nolan: There's a mindset change that's required, lean towards an indigenous values approach, where this term indigenisation, it’s not what we can do to help indigenous people, it's what indigenous people can do to help us and vice versa in that relationship. How do we embrace and support this exchange collaboration?

Nicolas Buchoud: Indigenous people or groups, for a long time, they have been considered, a bit on the side. I think we should now go completely over that segmented approach. And such indigenous groups or people, I see them as being necessarily on the same roundtable as ourselves and others. It is extremely important that the way to build on the so-called local knowledge, becomes much more mainstream and not the cherry on top of the cake.

Michael Nolan: It's required as a standard operation to engage and build off the local capability. There's an aspect of building resilience at a community or a city level that has risen from a need to invest in resilience. And it's something that's on the rise. How early is this in the process?

Nicolas Buchoud: I would say in the last two decade or so, the question of the resiliency of infrastructure systems, especially existing ones, but also obviously future systems, has been growing in importance in the G7 and G20. In 2016, when Japan was a chairing the group of the G7, they introduced the notion of quality infrastructure investment. And the resilience of the systems was definitely part of that. Interestingly, as resilience was put forward, the question of how to understand better the positive, the negative externalities of infrastructure systems, both in terms of growth or job creation, but also impacts on ecosystems, natural ecosystems, but also, the benefit, at a fiscal level, so it gained some ground and the expertise was more refined. And then when Japan chaired the G20 a few years later in 2019, the maturity of the approach became much larger. In Japan the railway system, which is an extremely sophisticated system and integrated system, and that is constantly confronted to all sorts of challenges, including disasters such as earthquakes and others, but also including risk factors linked with global warming or changing regimes of temperature and other climate cycles. There are very solid foundations to work on resilience of systems. And that includes also all kinds of early warning systems. That includes the development of AI and digital systems and so on, is very interesting. But the other component of the equation of resilience and resilient infrastructure systems is linked with finance. And the question of infrastructure finance became more mainstream. And to think about the development of much larger scale infrastructure to support growth, in typically very large emerging countries, Indonesia and others. And the difficulty here, the gridlock, is that a number of countries where we know the added value of bringing more stable electric grid, for example, and the energy grid systems, etc.. Also lower and middle income countries where the investment capabilities according to domestic resources are a bit low, but also the constraints to borrow on global capital markets are very high. So, the question about promoting resilient infrastructure systems became a story of how to provide more sustainable sources of investment into infrastructure systems at large, and especially how to incentivise large companies or asset management companies or investors or tech companies, which a number of them are not located in developed nations, but not only to invest in two contexts which are perceived as more fragile, lower degrees of financial stability and so on. And then we moved from investing in infrastructure, and promoting resilient infrastructure systems to promoting sustainable finance. Having a converging approach between promoting sustainable finance to promote new generation of financial mechanisms to provide at scale the kind of infrastructure systems that are needed.

Michael Nolan: So that emergence of sustainable finance being a core driver, what we're hearing now from a lot of the investors that we work with, is that they're trying to manage the flow of their capital so they know it's going into both investments that are aligned with a transition to a low carbon future and have less risk. What do you think's going to be high on the agenda with these macroeconomic plays by the G20 countries?

Nicolas Buchoud: One transformation which is at play, if we consider these questions of sustainable finance and so on, is the evolution of the priorities at the global level. It is no longer a Western agenda. What we are looking at is a kind of a revival of the notion of development, not as in the 60s or in the 70s, right when we were talking about the Third World and G7 countries where more than half of the global economy, etc., but in the context of now and that development is no longer them and us is much more together where we might go. Together we are wearing those badges, of the Sustainable Development Goals. But one problem that we are also facing at the moment is that also this is universally approved, right? This SDGs framework, 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The assessments that were conducted for the United Nations SDG Summit last year show that barely 20 per cent of the goals and targets are being met.

Michael Nolan: Improving.

Nicolas Buchoud: Improving and the deficit in terms of infrastructure investments and sustainable infrastructure investment, accessible to all, is part of the 80 per cent of the SDGs that is not being yet at hand. The horizon, let me remind you, is 2030. So five, six years from now. So, I don't want to be overly pessimistic, but since you are asking about the challenges for the next five years, I think this is, in terms of governance this time, one major challenge that we face.

Michael Nolan: And then the Sustainable Development Goals, having been involved in helping to localise them, the ambition is huge. It's been an awareness raising process as much as anything, but also bringing to the surface, the data, like we've helped Brisbane City Council, monitoring the impact across the Sustainable Development Goals for the management of the city, but also how that links to policy objectives and performance. There's I think a missing element for the Sustainable Development Goals, which I think will emerge that's aligned with what we've been discussing around sustainable finance and resilient investment, that the Sustainable Development Goals are just goals until there is a financial, strong economic play that ties performance with financial benefit.

Nicolas Buchoud: Yes.

Michael Nolan: So that the is the incentive, not just at a national level, but at a city level, at a corporation level. Civil society, there's mechanisms that need to be in place. And I think that will emerge strongly because that's the win or lose aspect that has been missing.

Nicolas Buchoud: You were talking about Brisbane. I would say the Brisbanes of the world, they might be really part of that necessary transformations of our future and our urban future. This size of urban systems that can still be developed, and where new ideas can flourish in because coalitions between citizen, public sector, private sector, other local players can still be very, very effective. Right? Can become very attractive. I'm not saying it is this. We must be very much aware that solutions about the future, they do not come just in the very big cities and that other sizes of cities do matter.

Michael Nolan: In the context of Brisbane, the 2032 Olympic Games coming up, which provides a mobilisation of effort and activity by multiple sectors to advance things that are sometimes hard to fund, or the reason to collaborate is not there. So, your experience with the Paris Olympics as a mobilising force, there's probably some insights, it was going to be the greenest of games. How some benefits or collaborations that you saw, that you'd like to share.

Nicolas Buchoud: So over the past 20 years, more and more, the Olympics have been associated to ground, not to sports, but to ground. And if you look back, till the turn of the millennium, it was mostly, if not only in very big cities. Precisely. So, I see the Olympics in 2032 in Brisbane maybe as the beginning of a completely new story, maybe for urbanisation and maybe for the Olympics, maybe for both. That does not mean that the Olympics in Paris are not a success, that the Olympics in LA in 2028 will not be successful. I'm saying that probably we have reached some limitations, both in terms of costs, but also in terms of how much organising the Olympics is weighing not just on a given city, but at the scale of a nation. France, for the Olympics, convened security forces for several dozens of countries, right. Because we didn't have enough in the country. Then, when there was the Olympics opening ceremony, there was about 200km radius dome of security above Paris, which included the ban of any air travels, etc.. So, this is becoming something really massive. Fortunately, everything went on well.

Michael Nolan: How do we face an opportunity like the Olympics in Brisbane as more than a point in time for a sporting achievement and a showcase of a city but its role and interaction in the region for the future. Because one of the beauties of the Olympics is it gets the full spectrum of society's attention. And so, one of the challenges that we added early in the bid for the Brisbane Olympics was around how could corporations or cities compete in the four years between Olympics on their own carbon performance or any number of Sustainable Development Goals issues? There may be things that other entities could demonstrate their athletic ability to make a change and impact a competition for the better of humanity and the planet. And it's, it takes the concept of an Olympics to a whole other scale of this is our opportunity. But it's also the time when we all connect and pay attention. So that ability to create conversation while there's, waiting for athletes to do, get in the pool or do all that sort of stuff. There's dialogue in communication that the media can play with that helps join together a range of issues and considerations for a global audience, and I think that's an opportunity not to be missed.

Nicolas Buchoud: This is why probably despite all the difficulties and the complaints we had in France, finally the, I would say the event of the Olympics themselves and the Paralympics, are generally considered as a success because it goes beyond different categories or across different categories. That first time I came to Sydney myself, about ten years ago, I don't know why, but I thought, who are the main sports people from Australia, right? And I was having in mind the swimmer, Ian Thorpe. And then I was taking a walk before coming back home, and I saw this Ian Thorpe swimming centre. It's wonderful. I would like to visit it. Let's have a swim. But I had no swimming suit. And then I went inside. They were selling swimming suits and the towels and I bought them and decided, let's take a swim. And I was so happy to take a swim in the Ian Thorpe Centre. Then I felt a little bit of Ian Thorpe. Right? It might be upon me.

Michael Nolan: You swam a bit faster. And your feet got bigger.

Nicolas Buchoud: Exactly. And I might be a bit fitter. I think this this speaks to everyone. So, there is a challenge also for the international Olympic itself, not to be a cash machine, not to be the organiser of mega events, not also to pretend to solve all the problems of the world, through sports. That is too much for the Olympics. There is a need for a reset of how we do look at the Olympics as something that does speak to and with everyone. And when you were talking about Brisbane hosting this and thinking about it as a new object, then of course, there will be the realisation of some infrastructure, but the way that it will transform the river, some aspects of the city itself, some ways for the city and the different authorities, port authorities, etc. to think about the future, will be probably equally important.

Michael Nolan: Yes.

Nicolas Buchoud: And even more important will be the sense of, quasi, I would say, the philosophical legacy of the Olympics in a region, that is becoming more and more strategic globally. And more and more important in terms of both future thinking, but ways to envision our sustainable future, on land, at sea. Which is very typical of both, that part of the coastline of Australia, but the Indonesian archipelago with this numerous and numerous islands is not so far away. Indonesia is interesting in maybe pushing for an Olympic bid later on in the year, not too far away also. So, the way that new development paradigms, more new development thinking could be entailed. I think is also somehow part of the responsibility of the different teams, players, thinkers, whomever, investors that are now supporting not just the bids but the realisation of the Brisbane Olympics.

Michael Nolan: Yes, indeed. Because it will have a legacy of cooperation in the region. Very good. Thank you Nicolas.

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Maria Rampa: We hope you enjoyed this episode of Engineering Reimagined.

With the curtain drawn on the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, it will be fascinating to see how Los Angeles in 2028 and Brisbane in 2032 will create a legacy of sustainability and resilient infrastructure for those host cities.

If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe on Apple or Spotify and don’t forget to follow Aurecon on your favourite social media platform to stay up to date and join the conversation.

Until next time, thanks for listening.