PPPs for COP27 and Beyond

PPPs for COP27 and Beyond

The challenge of Climate change has continued to affect every country on the continent, with more adverse effects on African countries due to its exposed vulnerable state. These changes have led to the disruption of lives and national economies, and are projected to cause more devastating global consequences in the years to come. This therefore raises the need for urgency in implementing effective and ambitious climate actions.

With the Gasflow Climate Impact, countries have identified that the current climate change situation demands crisis-level unified actions, and the critical need to live within planetary boundaries. To achieve these goals, urgent acceleration of the public and private sector financing is required to drive more climate resilient infrastructure under the SDGs framework.

This article by Brickstone reviews some institutional reports and publications on the importance of focusing on Public-private Partnerships for COP27.

PPPs in Climate Change

According to a recent report by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and the University of Oxford, Infrastructure is responsible for 79% of all greenhouse gas emissions and 88% of all adaptation costs. In the same vein, the World Bank affirms that extreme weather events or changing patterns can bring transport, electricity, and water networks to a halt, or lead to longer-term gradual deterioration of infrastructure assets with severe economic and human impacts for communities and countries.

All these calls for the urgent need to build new or rehabilitate aging infrastructure, which at the same time must be innovative, low-carbon, energy-efficient, and resilient to the effects of climate change.

Achieving this requires massive investments and finances, which Governments do not have the required capital resources and institutional capacity to run. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the annual adaptation costs in developing countries, currently estimated at $70 billion, will rise to $300 billion by 2030 and $500 billion by 2050.

To meet up with these financial requirements and the need for innovation and new technology, it is nearly impossible facing these challenges without the public sector partnering and collaborating with the private sectors. Public-private Partnerships (PPPs) are now increasingly becoming more important than ever. They are tools for development, if well harnessed, are crucial in tackling climate change.

However, only well planned, designed and executed PPPs can add real value and be prepared for the future.

According to the World Bank, there are four hurdles that must be jumped to effectively maximize the potentials of PPPs in helping address climate change. They include:

1. Instinctive antagonism to PPPs found in many places around the world as many worry that PPPs are a tool to enrich elites at their expense. To combat this, major effort needs to be undertaken, including awareness campaigns that educate about PPPs; solid examples of successful PPPs that have changed lives; and continued efforts to ensure transparency, fight corruption, and implement best-practice in project design, tendering, and implementation.
2. Current global geopolitical instability that includes rising inflation, high interest rates, and conflict. These are barriers to private sector investment and financing commitments. Engagement by governments and multilateral development banks (MDBs) creating a friendly and comforting environment for investors is required.
3. Restriction of the PPPs field to private for-profit players, instead of actively opening it up to private not-for-profit NGOs. Lifting this restriction will tend to increase the number of projects, especially climate-related ones, and also help expand the social support base for PPPs locally.
4. Decision makers everywhere, but especially in emerging markets. Countries cannot enact PPP legislation, establish PPP units, get their staff CP3P-certified, only to be circumvented.

Conclusion

Building a robust system towards affordability, inclusiveness, and resiliency in Infrastructure is needed to improve climate change situations and adaptability.

With a potentially bright spot ahead, leveraging PPPs is essential to spur global growth and provide creative climate change solutions which are necessary to achieve these goals. PPPs however must respond to changing needs, limitations in the planetary reosurces, physical climate risks, hopping on technological innovations, and changing demorgaphy of the society.

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