Looking to our Global Partners to Help Solve the Complex Issues of the Climate Crisis.
by Tracey Ryan, Aurecon’s Managing Director, Chair of Infrastructure New Zealand, Co-Chair of the Construction Sector Accord and Chair of the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) Sustainable Development Committee.
As we look back on the past year, the climate crisis has certainly made itself known around the world. We have seen extreme weather events including cyclones, flooding, and devastating fires across the planet. These events have ravaged through our communities and had destructive impacts on infrastructure.
Across the infrastructure sector, we started many years ago to look at how we build resilience and climate scenarios into our infrastructure. Aotearoa New Zealand has been a leader in climate change solutions for our primary industries, such as energy decarbonisation, and we are looked to from across the world for our world-class seismic resilient designs.
The work of engineers and the infrastructure sector as a whole is crucial in achieving net zero. We are the problem solvers and fixers and I think that mindset is naturally built into engineers and others working in our sector.
With a greater sense of urgency, we are also looking to our global counterparts to collaborate and share knowledge to help solve the complex issues caused by the climate crisis.
I can’t stress enough the global importance of the work around climate issues. Climate change is a global issue and needs a global response. Through the International Federation of Consulting Engineers’ (FIDIC) Sustainable Development Committee, we have a reach of approximately one million engineers around the world and again, we’re problem solvers and fixers, no matter where we are in the world.
In the past year FIDIC’s Sustainable Development Committee launched a new Climate Change Charter which is a call to action to the international engineering body to respond to the urgency of the climate crisis. Drawn up with the support of experts from around the world, the charter sets out clear commitments and actions for reducing and eventually eliminating carbon and other climate emissions from the sector.
Most recently, the Sustainable Development Committee has also released a new Playbook for Nature Positive Infrastructure Development in conjunction with WWF, which is in answer to the dual threat of climate change and global biodiversity loss.
The purpose of the Playbook is to draw on a number of examples of projects that relied on nature-based solutions, as well as examples of projects that incorporated green and green-grey infrastructure solutions, to provide a simple guide for infrastructure practitioners to identify and select potential solutions for their projects.
Global initiatives such as these, are the sort of knowledge sharing we need if we are to step up and tackle the climate crisis. It's about adapting to new ways, whether it’s the evolution digital technology brings us, new developments with nature positive solutions, and research on new materials that can be used, which will support our communities to become more climate resilient.
Looking back into Aotearoa New Zealand, we all understand we need to do more, and I strongly believe it’s about how we all come together. How Infrastructure New Zealand comes together with the Construction Sector Accord and Business Associations such as BusinessNZ’s Sustainable Business Council, the Climate Leaders Coalition and of course The Aotearoa Circle. It’s the collaboration across all sectors, both public and private, Business Associations and Academia that we need more of so we can collectively tackle the challenges in front of us.
Thinking beyond net zero we also must understand that climate correlates with so many areas that all need to be addressed. Equity building and social equality are key for the world to achieve decarbonisation. Look at the soaring cost of living that many countries are experiencing at this time. Globally, both people and governments are pushing back on key climate change initiatives and policy because their focus is on getting the cost of living down.
From a social inequality perspective, how are families supposed to invest in solar panels for their homes or purchase an EV car if they can’t even afford food on the table? More emphasis needs to be placed on economic growth through climate and nature, and the world needs to understand that everything is interlinked.
Despite the current challenges around climate change and the policy drift from some prominent governments across the world, I still feel optimistic about the future. We actually must be optimistic; we need to be. We need to continue to have a strong voice at the decision-making tables of both the public and private sectors to help our society with these challenges and we need to be advocates for bipartisanship across sectors.
At the end of the day, we have the smarts, we’re on the leading edge of digital and technology and we have the skills and capability. We just need to challenge ourselves and get on with it.