Editorial | Case for resilient infrastructure

In between the deliberations about wars and other geopolitical problems, another global emergency is concentrating the minds of many world leaders at this year’s United Nations General Assembly in New York: the climate crisis. As it should!

For many countries, especially those of the Global South which contributed negligibly to the greenhouse gas emissions that fed the existential threat of a hotter climate and unpredictable weather but suffer disproportionately from it, the hand of doom is already ticking close to midnight. But they, and others who are attuned to the dangers, can’t give up the fight to prevent the world from almost sleepwalking into, or attempting to wish away, the ultimate catastrophe.

That is why, in this forum, they must not only insist that their voices be heard, but that the programmes and strategies needed to avert the crisis remain on the global agenda.

These include:

• Debt relief for poor countries;

• Concessional financing for resilient climate migration and adaptation; and,

• A wider embrace of the concept that those who created the crisis have an obligation to pay and ought therefore to contribute more to the loss-and-damage fund. This is both a moral and legal imperative.

Indeed, responding to the climate crisis sits neatly, and purposefully, within the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 9 calls for resilient infrastructure, SDG 4 for quality education, and SDG 13 for climate action. In Jamaica, their interconnectedness is readily apparent as the island attempts to recover from Hurricane Melissa, the Category 5 storm that devastated its western parishes nearly a year ago.

Entire communities and major infrastructure, including hundreds of schools, were either badly damaged or destroyed. The rebuilding has to be resilient. And it has to be done while the national economy, which was hit by a storm that cost the equivalent of 57 per cent of GDP, is resuscitated. The creation of the National Recovery and Resilience Authority (NaRRA) is aimed at ensuring that the post-hurricane reconstruction is highly coordinated, fast and efficient, so that taxpayers get the best return for their money.

RELATIVELY SURE START

If the NaRRA performs in accordance with its aims, the major elements of Jamaica’s reconstruction should get off to a relatively sure start, with money to jump-start projects.

In the aftermath of the hurricane, multilateral financial institutions (MFIs) have pledged up to US$6.7 billion over three years to support the island’s recovery and reconstruction, not including the more than US$660 million the island had secured from climate-risk insurance and catastrophe bonds. The disaster-risk financing arrangements enabled a rapid response to the disaster without derailing public spending. This model of pre-arranged financing is now being studied by other Caribbean states.

Additionally, international partners like Canada, Japan, the European Union, and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) have provided technical and financial support, which underscores that resilience is a global responsibility.

However, a sobering consideration is that the financing pledged by the MFIs will primarily comprise project-based loans, not grants, that will have to be repaid. Delays in project development and execution could potentially mean competition for the same capital among projects of equivalent or similar merit. Financing resilience through borrowing risks worsening Jamaica’s debt profile, unless global partners step up, which, again, is an echo of the argument that developing countries have made consistently at the COP climate conferences, and which they will be constrained to repeat at the next COP in November.

WITHSTAND DROUGHTS

Of course, building resiliently with the climate crisis in mind is not only about hardening infrastructure against hurricanes or floods and ensuring that water systems can withstand longer droughts.

Ensuring that there are early-warning systems and employing regenerative design, an approach in which human and natural systems are designed to co-exist and co-evolve over time, must be accelerated. The UN’s Early Warnings for All initiative set a target of universal coverage by 2027.

In July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that states have an obligation to protect the environment from greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

The court also ruled that, if states breach these obligations, they are legally responsible and may be required to stop the wrongful conduct, offer guarantees that it won’t happen again, and make full reparation, depending on the circumstances.

Although the ICJ’s advisory opinions are not binding, they carry significant legal and moral authority, helping to clarify and develop international law by defining states’ legal obligations.

In May this year, the UN General Assembly backed the ICJ ruling.

“The world’s highest court has spoken,” UN Secretary General António Guterres said. “Today, the General Assembly has answered.”