Chinese leader Xi Jinping surprised the world in late September by announcing that China would become carbon neutral by 2060. But this promise will amount to little if Xi’s signature foreign policy vision, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), continues exporting China’s environmental challenges globally. China’s poor environmental record abroad presents a strategic opportunity for the United States, if only Washington would seize it.
Major developments, including the Covid-19 pandemic and China’s acceleration of its digital infrastructure push, have heightened the stakes of the global infrastructure challenge for U.S. interests and the necessity of fashioning not merely a response, but its own strategy.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the acceleration of China’s digital infrastructure push have heightened the necessity of developing a comprehensive U.S. infrastructure strategy. The U.S. has taken several important steps toward fashioning its own positive vision for global infrastructure, but critical work remains.
Infrastructure is crucial for fostering countries’ economic development and prosperity. This collection of policy briefs discusses how to maximize the impact of quality infrastructure investments through sustainable financing and other resilient strategies to support the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement, and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets.
The Blue Dot Network (BDN)—an effort by the United States, Japan, and Australia to promote high-quality global infrastructure—holds promise and should be encouraged, but many unanswered questions about its implementation will need to be addressed for the initiative to achieve its desired impact.