Description: This session presented experience and plans for climate/disaster proofing energy and urban infrastructure including existing and future developments. Protection of existing energy and infrastructure such as pipelines, power transmission facilities, health facilities, and supply chains, will be required during the transition. Planning and design for resilience to all possible emergency situation is to build back better.
Moderator: Robert van Zwieten, Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, Convergence Blended Finance
Scene-Setter Talk: Priyantha Wijayatunga, Director, SAEN, Asian Development Bank
Building Resilience to Climate Risks in Business Operations and Infrastructure
Presenter: Malavika Jain Bambawale, Managing Director and Head of APAC, Engie Impact
Building resilience and future-proofing systems to climate risks are difficult. We talked about the types of risks we need to prepare for, and some key solutions to unlock resilience, including technology for diagnosis, finance, and operations to create buffer and agility, and partnerships to share the costs and risks. We provided examples of how these solutions have been used to improve resilience.
Enhancing Power System Resilience—Improving Power System Adaptation to Climate Change
Presenter: Zixuan Guo, Senior Engineer on Power System Planning and Operation Analysis, China Energy Engineering Group Guangdong Electric Power Design Institute Co., Ltd
Asia is the region with the most frequent and most severe natural disasters in the world. With the coming of climate change, disaster as typhoon, flood, droughts are becoming more intense while threatening the safe operation of the power system. Rather than a passive response to climate change with a big loss of economy, we proposed a more proactive whole process management, consisting of planning, construction, and emergency management.
Firstly, reasonable planning should go first, as to say, we should be fully dedicated to building up an eco-friendly clean energy system while planning out a robust multi-level power grid. Secondly, in the executing phase, effort should be focused on the construction level up of vulnerable power grid devices to be robust to extreme weather. What's more, in the operation phase, high-level monitoring and internet technology should be applied to make emergency management in advance.
Strengthening Urban Resilience: Integrating Inclusive Infrastructure, Energy, Climate and Health systems
Presenter: Reihana Mohideen, Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia
In our response strategies to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are effectively undertaking a massive experiment where we disrupt our entire economy and how we work and live within it. This has implications for our health and infrastructure, as well as gender equity and social inclusion (GESI) linkages. Better health is a measure of progress in diverse dimensions, including sustainable energy, cities, transport, and GESI. Being better prepared and learning how to become more resilient, is a more viable long-term option than waiting for disasters to occur. Preparation for disaster response requires an integrated approach that combines infrastructure, service delivery, and population response initiatives. Improving access to needed services in an emergency means ‘building back better’ in the wake of the current crisis, removing barriers to access, and building resilience and inclusion. This paper attempted to provide a GESI inclusive framework to assess these considerations.
Panelists:
- Toru Kubo, Principal Climate Change Specialist, Southeast Asia Department, Asian Development Bank (ADB)
- Edward Neri, Senior Science Research Specialist, Philippine Department of Energy - Renewable Energy Management Bureau