Infrastructure: the key to tackling climate change challenges

LAST year will be remembered for the succession of weather-linked disasters that hit communities and economies around the globe. There was Hurricane Harvey in the US, Typhoon Hato in southern China, and Ophelia in Ireland and the UK. Wildfires raged in California, Spain and Portugal. Flooding wrought devastation in India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

The message is clear: the impact of climate change is severe and intensifying, and it requires urgent and multi-pronged global action.

This challenge is enormous. Most scientists believe that it is essential to keep global temperatures from rising more than 2°C compared to pre-industrial times. In essence, that now requires us to rewire and reinvent a lot of the economic activity that has been built up over the past century and a half.