To revitalize today’s economy and meet future needs within planetary boundaries, we must develop resilient and sustainable infrastructure.
Existing infrastructures, predominantly built on fossil fuels, are ill-equipped for climate extremes and face material shortages and carbon intensity.
Globally, the construction sector is not on track to decarbonize by 2050.
Some regions are confronting a fossil legacy of infrastructure overbuilding, which is impossible to maintain or renew. Others still lack basic infrastructure. In all cases, infrastructure failure would be disastrous.
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Infrastructure reflects the centuries-old concept of humankind as the ruler of nature and the world.
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Decision-makers and planners face several pressing strategic issues concerning infrastructure transition to new conditions. The general vulnerability of infrastructure manifests in several ways:
• Delayed adaptation. Critical infrastructure is slow to adapt to climate change. The physical risks to investments and assets are often underestimated, potentially leading to value losses of up to 50% by 2050. Meanwhile, safe land for building is becoming increasingly scarce, prompting a gradual retreat from high-risk areas.
• Societal expectations. Society increasingly demands public infrastructure that is transformative, affordable, inclusive, healthy and reliable. However, the commodification of essential services such as water, the deterioration of railways and motorways, rising energy prices and heat risks for construction workers undermine civic resilience. While essential infrastructure remains insurable, the costs of the transition risk falling disproportionately on the poor.
• Competition for financial resources. The infrastructure investment gap continues to widen as more funding is redirected towards defence and artificial intelligence (AI). Meanwhile, deferred maintenance costs escalate and ageing infrastructure becomes increasingly unsafe.
• Strategic materials shortages. Shortages of strategic materials may slow down decarbonization efforts. Every 15 to 25 years, ageing solar panels, wind turbines and batteries must be replaced, increasing pressure on critical resources. At the same time, there’s growing tension between the need to reduce the environmental footprint of construction and the demand for more resilient infrastructure to withstand extreme weather and cyberattacks.
The way these questions will be addressed depends on many variables factors. To prepare for the future, five scenarios for global infrastructure by 2100 can offer insights into potential developments and help set context-specific priorities.
5 global infrastructure scenarios by 2100
1. Circular and climate-robust ‘technosphere’
The "technosphere" refers to the total mass of human-made structures, systems and materials – everything from buildings and roads to machines and waste. Its weight now surpasses that of all living organisms on Earth, underscoring the vast material footprint of modern civilization.
This scale, combined with tremendous maintenance costs and dwindling resources, prompts resource-poor and demographically stagnant nations to treat their built environment as a finite stock. Instead of expanding, buildings and infrastructure are reused, repaired, repurposed, elevated and recycled. The era of land take and virgin materials use ends.
In this context, rapid renovation cycles and a dynamic second-hand materials market emerge.
Vernacular architecture – ancient building styles indigenous to a specific region or culture, low- and high-tech construction techniques combine with passive design features – those not relying on energy or a machine but depending on physics, from arid regions to deliver buildings that withstand heat and floods.
2. Shared continent-wide mega-infrastructure
A building boom is underway to support the energy and digital transitions. Rapidly growing regions are collaborating on large-scale infrastructure projects to lower costs and speed delivery. Renewable energy is generated where sun and wind are most abundant, distributed through long-distance interconnected grids and submarine cables. These networks link Eastern and Western time zones to balance the energy supply between day and night.
Meanwhile, long-distance water networks, cargo sailing fleets and transcontinental railways support efficient resource distribution and low-carbon transportation.
3. Virtual and weaponized infrastructure
In this scenario, corporations dominate data, cities and infrastructure. This shift towards private sector control drives deregulated individualized and immersive environments, with mining expanding into space, the Arctic and the deep sea.
Spatial and urban planning is AI-driven and design-automated, and construction by robots is the norm. Infrastructure is embedded with sensors and data-collecting materials, facilitating predictive maintenance and constant surveillance. Meanwhile, the wealthy retreat to artificial, gated islands.
There is a four-day working week and new public revenue from data taxation. However, society also becomes vulnerable to power cuts, cyber-attacks, digital failure or malicious takeover. As demand for energy and critical resources surges, an infrastructure and cyber-defence market rapidly takes shape.
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To power the infrastructure transition and minimize climate damage, governments must directly back and pipeline specific vital infrastructure projects while attracting massive private funding.
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4. Stranded, carbon locked-in infrastructure
Failure to decarbonize and deferred maintenance leads to stranded assets and infrastructure dependent on fossil fuels. The loss of value becomes systemic, spreading from infrastructures to pensions and investment funds, workers, suppliers and social transfer beneficiaries.
Carbon capture, storage and use technologies and geoengineering are promoted as stopgap measures in emissions control.
However, mounting carbon prices and physical climate damages result in economic losses borne by governments and future generations.
5. Decentralized micro-infrastructure
Transcontinental planning falters without a single energy market functioning, leading to localized basic infrastructure management by municipalities, small- and medium-sized enterprises, citizen cooperatives and urban neighbourhoods.
Territorial resources and human skills are combined into energy cells or biogas inlands, on-grid or off-grid, fostering peer-to-peer trading and closed-cycle self-sufficiency.
This approach lacks the scale to support energy-intensive industries or data centres. Depending on common resource-sharing rules, some regions cooperate and flourish. Others turn inwards or enter into resource challenges.
Something has to give
Infrastructure reflects the centuries-old concept of humankind as the ruler of nature and the world. These days, the call is one for composing with nature and society to preserve the man-made environment. The future will likely see a combination of these scenarios, depending on the extent of the built stock, severity of environmental disruptions, accessibility and circularity of energy and materials, reliability of AI, shifts in demography and urbanization.
Because the world is finite, priority-setting, protection of critical assets, massive investments in adapting to disruptions, trust between actors, benefit-sharing and social utility, resources savings and pooling, nature regeneration or cost-effective combinations of grey-, green- and behavioural solutions are no-regret answers in all scenarios.
New types of infrastructure may emerge: storage of energy, seeds and essential goods; emergency response and early warning systems; rewilding, bio- and geo-mimicry, and low- or no-build solutions. In any event, resources and ecosystems must be saved through constructions forgone, dismantled, reused, simplified, downsized, mutualized, compensated or centralized.
To power the infrastructure transition and minimize climate damage, governments must directly back and pipeline specific vital infrastructure projects while attracting massive private funding.
For example, this can be done through state-aid and public procurement reforms, training programmes, de-risking tools such as lower discount rates or stable feed-in tariffs, strategic partnerships and long-term resilience planning, future funds and strategic intelligence.
The preferred investments should be efficient and effective for long-term climate-defence and provide benefits now and in the future.
Weforum