Road to COP30: Standardisation to scale sustainable and resilient infrastructure

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With COP30 just a few months away and ten years after the Paris Agreement, the need for immediate action is more present than ever. Last year, the world hit a critical milestone, reaching 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

While investment in climate finance and infrastructure reached $1.9 trillion, it falls significantly short of the estimated annual need of $6.9 trillion, a figure projected to rise to $9 trillion by 2050 (CPI, Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2025). The tangible costs of this shortfall are evident, with natural disasters causing $368 billion in losses in 2024, of which only 40% were insured (Ortec Finance, Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation White paper, 2025).

In the lead-up to COP30, there is a pressing need to fundamentally rethink and rebuild our systems. The core objectives are to build resilient infrastructure, accelerate and streamline funding mechanisms, and find new tools to address this challenge. To this end, standards such as the FAST-Infra Label are emerging as a vital tool to define what constitutes sustainable infrastructure, present replicable case studies, convene financing actors, and ultimately bridge the critical financing gap.

‍Event Structure:

Panel Discussion: Perspectives from leaders across the infrastructure value chain

• Adopters’ case-study: how can standards help asset managers leverage their good practice and support capital liquidity?
  
  • Sustainable infrastructure as a liquid asset class through standardisation
  • Fund structure: from investors to projects, from projects to investors
• On the ground: how to build resilient infrastructure?
  
  • Standards to provide guidelines for contractors, project preparation facilities and cities
• Financing: Quality standards to streamline projects which deliver impact and are bankable.
  
  • Insurers: “If it’s not insurable it’s not investable”. How can standards bridge the gap?
  • Innovative products
• Closing remarks: Road to COP30.

Q&A session

Panelists

• Louis Downing, CEO, Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation (Moderator)
• Natalia Moudrak, Managing Director, Climate Risk Advisory, Aon
• Christian Deseglise, Board Member, Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation
• Darius Nassiry, Senior Fellow, Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment
• James Dunham, Director Sustainability, Dalmore Capital

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