Options As A Strategic Investment 13.pdf
Gifford Brickley
The federal government has invested in projects that may enhance climate resilience, but it does not have a strategic approach to guide its investments in high-priority climate resilience projects. Enhancing climate resilience means taking actions to reduce potential future losses by planning and preparing for potential climate hazards such as extreme rainfall, sea level rise, and drought. Some federal agencies have made efforts to manage climate change risk within existing programs and operations, and these efforts may convey climate resilience benefits. For example, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' civil works program constructs flood control projects, such as sea walls, that may enhance climate resilience. However, additional strategic federal investments may be needed to manage some of the nation's most significant climate risks because climate change cuts across agency missions and presents fiscal exposures larger than any one agency can manage. GAO's analysis shows the federal government does not strategically identify and prioritize projects to ensure they address the nation's most significant climate risks. Likewise, GAO's past work shows an absence of government-wide climate change strategic planning.
As of August 2019, no action had been taken to implement 14 of GAO's 17 recommendations to improve federal strategic planning for climate resilience. GAO's enterprise risk management framework calls for reviewing risks and selecting the most appropriate strategy to manage them. However, no federal agency, interagency collaborative effort, or other organizational arrangement has been established to implement a strategic approach to climate resilience investment that includes periodically identifying and prioritizing projects. Such an approach could supplement individual agency climate resilience efforts and help target federal resources toward high-priority projects.
Six key steps provide an opportunity for the federal government to strategically identify and prioritize climate resilience projects for investment, as GAO found based on its review of prior GAO work, relevant reports, and stakeholder interviews (see figure).
GAO identified one domestic and one international example to illustrate these key steps: Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) coastal master planning effort and Canada's Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund (DMAF).
In the domestic example, in 2005 the Louisiana legislature consolidated coastal planning efforts previously carried out by multiple state entities into a single effort led by CPRA to address the lack of strategic coordination. CPRA periodically identifies high-priority coastal resilience projects designed to address two primary risks: flooding and coastal land loss. To identify potential projects, CPRA sought project proposals from citizens, nongovernmental organizations, and others. To prioritize projects, CPRA used quantitative modeling to estimate project outcomes under multiple future scenarios of varied climate and other conditions and coordinated with stakeholders to understand potential project impacts. In 2017, CPRA identified $50 billion in high-priority projects to be implemented as funds become available.
In addition, GAO identified opportunities to increase the climate resilience impact of federal funding options. For example, a federal resilience investment effort presents an opportunity to encourage several types of complementary resilience activities by nonfederal actors such as states, localities, and private-sector partners. In this example, the federal government could require or provide incentives for communities to use and enforce climate-resilient building codes or limit development in high-risk areas through zoning regulations.
The cost of recent weather disasters has illustrated the need to plan for climate change risks and invest in climate resilience. Investing in climate resilience can reduce the need for far more costly steps in the decades to come.
The Disaster Recovery Reform Act of 2018 provides one potential source of funding for climate resilience projects. In particular, it allows the President to set aside up to 6 percent of the estimated aggregate amount of grants from certain programs under a major disaster declaration to implement pre-disaster hazard mitigation activities. Officials estimate funds for the related program will average $300 million to $500 million annually.
GAO was asked to review the federal approach to prioritizing and funding climate resilience projects that address the nation's most significant climate risks. This report examines (1) the extent to which the federal government has a strategic approach for investing in climate resilience projects; (2) key steps that provide an opportunity to strategically prioritize projects for investment; and (3) the strengths and limitations of options for focusing federal funding on these projects.
GAO reviewed relevant reports and interviewed 35 stakeholders with relevant expertise, including federal officials, researchers, and consultants. In addition, during the course of this work, GAO identified domestic and international examples of governments that invest in climate resilience and related projects. GAO selected two of these examples for in-depth review and presentation in the report: the state of Louisiana's coastal master planning effort and Canada's Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund.
Congress should consider establishing a federal organizational arrangement to periodically identify and prioritize climate resilience projects for federal investment. Such an arrangement could be designed using the six key steps for prioritizing climate resilience investments and the opportunities to increase the climate resilience impact of federal funding options that are identified in this report.
Solvay organizes a Capital Markets Day for analysts and institutional investors on November 13, 2023 at its new office in Brussels. Two separate sessions will be held over the course of the day, led by the future management teams of each company. At the conclusion of both presentations, attendees will have the opportunity to meet both Executive Leadership teams and other senior management more informally during a walking dinner reception.
November 7, 2019 - Solvay released its G.R.O.W. strategy review, with a clear objective of unleashing Solvay's full potential and accelerating value creation. Ilham Kadri, CEO and Karim Hajjar, CFO shared the strategy roadmap with analysts and investors during a live webcast, which replay can be found below.
We will focus on growth, cash and returns, and will prioritize investment in the highest return opportunities. We will also create a more effective way to serve and innovate with our customers, as we increasingly deliver sustainable solutions that meet the needs of a more ESG-focused world. Therefore, we are well positioned to drive superior value creation for shareholders, customers and all other stakeholders.
The event provided an update on strategic progress and future direction of Solvay. It focused primarily on our growth engine segments and included in-depth introductions to the newly formed Composite Materials and Technology Solutions businesses.
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