Modernizing infrastructure alone does not help – even if the green license is preserved
Governments around the world are using the pandemic and the environmental crisis to modernize their infrastructure and spend a lot of money. In the US, Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure measures are intended to “make our economy more sustainable, resilient and fair”. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson’s “Build back better” program wants to unite and unify the country under the motto of “green growth” ”. And China’s Silk Road project aims to bring the world together in hyper-connected harmony and prosperity.
Sure, we need new infrastructure. If people are to drive less, local public transport and safe bicycle routes need to be expanded. We need better water treatment systems and recycling centers, new wind and solar systems and the power lines to connect them to the grid. But we cannot get out of the environmental crisis by building any more than by consuming. Why is that not possible? Because the eight basic rules for procuring infrastructure apply to new buildings.
Rule 1
The main purpose of any new or renewed infrastructure is to make rich the people who commission or build it. Even if an authority plans a project for sensible reasons, it must first go through an important filter: Can existing companies make a profit with it? In this way, for example, plans to build a new hydrogen infrastructure in the UK were buried. In August, the head of the British Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association, Chris Jackson, resigned. He was protesting against the government’s plans to promote hydrogen produced from fossil methane instead of only producing it with the help of renewable energies. The government’s strategy is tying the country to the use of fossil fuels, he criticized.
It seems like the gas industry has a hand in it. For the same reason, many of the meaningful projects in Biden’s Infrastructure Framework and the American Jobs Job Creation Plan were cut or canceled by Congress, leaving a catalog of meaningless odds and ends. Often times, programs are not designed and driven by well-meaning authorities, but rather by industry demands. Their main purpose – to make money – is fulfilled before anyone takes advantage of the new projects. Only some have the secondary purpose of serving the public well.
The construction industry is the most corrupt industry in the world. It is often ruled by local mafias and driven by massive bribes for politicians. If infrastructure is to be of benefit to the public, its construction must be strictly and transparently regulated. Boris Johnson’s move to deregulate the planning system and introduce a series of loopholes that allow companies to circumvent many labor, tax and environmental laws is weakening the link between new construction projects and public needs.
Rule 2
There is an inherent tendency to choose projects that are the worst value for money. “The projects that are best represented on paper are the projects that in reality have the highest additional costs and the greatest performance gaps,” says the economic geographer Bent Flyvbjerg. Decisions are routinely made on the basis of misinformation and “wishful optimism”. The nominal cost of the planned UK high-speed rail line HS2 has risen from € 43.75 billion in 2009 to between € 84 and € 128.34 billion today, while the financial benefits have shrunk. This is no exception, it is the rule for major projects around the world. By comparison, all bus tickets in Great Britain could be made free for 3.5 billion euros a year, a policy that could get more cars off the road and reduce CO2 emissions much faster than this gigantic billion-dollar grave, the not worth it.
Rule 3
The ecological benefits of new projects are regularly exaggerated, while the costs are downplayed. Again, HS2 is a good example: while marketed as a greener way to travel, government estimates suggest that the bottom line is that it releases more CO2 than it could save. Bypass roads, which should relieve the traffic, only shift the traffic jam to the next bottleneck. Large hydropower plants regularly produce less electricity than promised and destroy entire ecosystems in the process. One reason for the environmental costs of new infrastructure is the enormous ecological footprint of concrete, the CO2 emissions of which may never be recovered. Another reason is that new building creates new demand. This is an explicit aim of the UK National Infrastructure Strategy and its “Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution”. But you don’t solve a problem by making it bigger.
Rule 4
In countries with high biodiversity, the construction of infrastructure is primarily responsible for the destruction of habitat. According to an article in the magazine Trends in Ecology & Evolution New infrastructure – and the deforestation it causes – is highly “spatially contagious”. In other words, one project leads to the next and then to the next, with the boundary inexorably expanding into important living spaces. There is an almost perfect correlation between proximity to a road and the frequency of forest fires. It is primarily the roads that cut through the forests of the Amazon, the Congo Basin and Southeast Asia.
Rule 5
Large infrastructure programs often affect areas that belong to indigenous peoples: for centuries, their land has served other people as a space into which they can advance. Indigenous groups have fought long and hard for the principle of “free, prior and informed consent”, which is recognized by the UN and in international law but which is practically ignored almost everywhere. This rule applies to all types of infrastructure, even those we consider cheap: programs that promote renewable energy often disregard indigenous peoples’ rights, according to a report by the Business and Human Rights Resource Center.
Rule 6
Green infrastructure only leads to a greener result if existing infrastructure is shut down at the same time. When it comes to combating climate and environmental crises, it is not so much what we introduce that matters, but what we do not do more. But while the British government plans to finance new rail tracks, bus services and cycle paths, there are no plans to give up roads or runways. On the contrary, the government boasts of “record investments in strategic roads” (31.5 billion euros). All major UK airports have plans to expand. Gatwick Airport in London recently announced that it is seeking advice on how to increase its passenger numbers from 46 million to 75 million a year.
Rule 7
Rich nations tend to have too much of a certain infrastructure. One of the simplest, cheapest and most effective steps in green politics is to reserve existing motorway lanes for buses in order to provide fast, efficient inter-city service. But where is the money for the construction company?
Rule 8
Ecological change cannot be achieved through infrastructure alone. To be effective, it must be accompanied by social change: to travel less and travel better, for example. Not only do we need to develop new rail and tram routes, but a whole new way of life. Governments and construction companies are happy to give us more of anything. The only thing we can’t get is less. Therefore, if you want a greener world, you have to resist the rising tide of concrete.
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