A “gigaton” challenge —from public health to energy and the environment— requires a proactive systems approach: coordination and collaboration, large-scale solutions and inclusive networks. In other words, infrastructure. Big projects like dams, freeways, international airports and nuclear power plants can change economies and improve our lives, and they also have the potential to harm. Consider China’s Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, the world’s largest hydroelectric plant. While it provides electricity to hundreds of millions of Chinese and strengthened the regional economy, it also displaced millions of people and devastated much of the local ecology. Indeed, the dam is so big that it may have also slowed the Earth’s rotation. Meanwhile, the crumbling US infrastructure is in need of about $4 trillion in upgrades - can it be done more sustainably than Three Gorges Dam?   

Next month, AES is co-hosting with SISE and the University of Illinois, Chicago, a weeklong (virtual) conference, the Sustainable Infrastructure and the Gigaton Challenge. The city is an architectural gem in a state that has produced more green buildings than any other. And, according to a report from the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (which will appear in the next issue of Energy Today), the region has the greatest potential to make significant contributions to sustainable energy infrastructure.  

With this issue of Energy Today, and the next, we invite you to explore gigaton-scale questions about sustainable infrastructure.

Table of Contents

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Climate Risk and Response:
Physical Hazards and Socioeconomic Impacts
By McKinsey Global Institute
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How might the changing climate impact socio-economic systems across the world in the next three decades?  A cross-disciplinary research study provides some answers.

Our Infrastructure Is Being Built
For a Climate That’s Already Gone
By Shayla Love

​Drain pipes, reservoirs, power lines, roads, sewage systems, and more are all designed based on past climate data. But the past can't predict what we'll need in the future.
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Utilities Are the New Cool
By Lincoln Bleveans

​Thriving in the age of climate change pivots around electricity, and that means electric utilities are at the center.

Accelerating the Low-Carbon Transition
by David G. Victor, Frank W. Geels, Simon Sharpe

System transitions are complex and involve a wide array of actors, including firms, consumers, policymakers, innovators, and civil society groups, but history shows us that it’s possible to steer low-carbon transitions.​