The AltKuz Resolution to Climate-Induced Urban Flooding & Inundation

Prasad Rao, PhD
Director, AltKuznets Sustainability Advisors
altkuznetsadvisors.com

That continued extraction and consumption of non-renewable fuels have exacerbated concentrations of Greenhouses gases and brought Humanity to the brink of a global disaster is a self-evident fact to the peoples of the world. Climate Change is manifest in many natural and anthropogenic risks extending from excessive heat episodes, excessive rainfall events, to Landslides, flooding and particularly, frequent urban inundation. Flooding and Inundation, F&I, not only interrupts the fast-paced Urban economy, but also damages Property and causes widespread interruptions to the Transport infrastructure & Private vehicles. Further, Climate Change risks are set to increment and further exacerbate the compounding issues associated with unsustainable Urban growth, ie, Population growth, unregulated growth in Vehicle ownership & VMT, and the critical role played by the Surface Transportation network in sustainable the Precinct economy. Such exacerbation is either not anticipated, or even if anticipated, has obtained little by way of remediating, or abating resolutions. A continuation of this laissez faire could mean urban disaster in the decades to come.

AltKuznets, a pioneer in Sustainability solutions, offers a foresighted strategy that is likely to obtain a limited, yet scalable resolution to this issue. AltKuznets suggests that i) the incessant enlargement to urban population, Registered vehicles, VMT & Ridership, ii) the incrementing stress on the Precinct Environment & Transportation infrastructure from the rapid expansion of the Construction sector and associated Construction & Demolition wastes, CDW, iii) the exponential growth of post-Consumption Plastic wastes, iv) the expansion of EVs, and v) the stake Climate Organizations & Precincts have in the Global Urban economy, argue for a Cause Bond-type entity to resolve the F&I issue locally, regionally and globally. We envisage an amalgam of local, regional and global Climate entities, the Climate Coterie, to feed the Mint Deep-Precinct Shallow, DSM financing facility, and realize a Sustainability-augmenting, Circularity-enhancing, FV-Finance mediated resolution.

Our Strategy leverages the Climate Coterie-subtended Precinct DSM Financing facility, and the AltKuz DSM Card - a common online Administrative & Finance platform, to offer a finely tuned set of remediating incentives to Public & Private entities (Precinct Administrators, Builders & Property Developers, Households & Issuers of Sustainable Mortgages, Manufacturers/Buyers of CWBTs, CDW Transporters, or those undertaking Public/Private Inundation-remediation), and to Circularity-based businesses that recycle Plastics & CDW in to Road Construction Material. These incentives could thereafter be applied toward subtending F&I resolutions at the Precinct Public & Private tiers (culverts, raised roads/pavements, route addition/flexibility), thus obtaining a Climate-resilient Urb - a Key objective of the SDG-17. 

AltKuznets also broaches the possibility of an Urban Vehicle Insurance Surcharge across Insurance Providers that offers owners of Road vehicles a facility to partially insure their vehicles from Flood & Inundation (F&I) Damage. Cumulated across Vehicles classes and offered across geographies, these Surcharges over conventional Policies would finance a Public Transportation Safety program offered by Safe with AltKuz that leveraged its Safety Collateral to anticipate and avoid Vehicle damages consequent Urban Floods & Inundation. AltKuznets claims its Surcharge Strategy, that leverages the ubiquity of its Safety paradigm, could exploit Scale & (across vehicle-type) Scope economies not available conventional Auto Insurers, to offer a competitive F&I Surcharge Rider on Insurance policies held by Vehicle Owners. Our strategy addresses a Commons risk suffered commonly by the Public and the scale-deficient Insurers, retains the relevance of conventional Insurance, while attracting a large global subscription to the competitive F&I Surcharge. In the limit, the Surcharge Strategy, possibly subtended by the Precinct DSM, would not only save lives and minimize vehicle damage, but also offer (potential) EV owners the reassurance they'd either avoid flood-related perils, or be assured of a (partial) replacement of their EV purchase costs. AltKuznets claims the value of lives saved by its Safety Paradigm would more than match the DSM-issued F&I Subtends.

Projecting to the times of exacerbated Climate Change, and Urban Flooding & Inundation, our strategy anticipates the pressure on Policy makers to increment the penetration of EVs in Urban transport, and realize its full potential to contain Transportation-induced Climate Change. It anticipates the faltering EV Sales momentum in certain regions of the world, and counters it with the Safety assurances and Surcharge-funded partial restitution of F&I-sustained Damages. Complemented to the DSM-financed program for Circular Road Aggregates, and the DSM-funded AltKuz DSM Card, our 'Surcharge Strategy' has the potential to add to public confidence in EVs, retain their participation in the EV revolution, and increment the share of EVs in Urban transportation globally to an extent that it attenuates the Climate crisis by obtaining a lesser, more benign CO2 Plateau.

AltKuznets claims its novel, DSM-facilitated Precinct strategy, beyond leveraging Waste Material Circularity to resolve Flooding & Inundation, is an answer to the impacts of Climate on Urban Transportation, and the Objectives of the UN-WB SDG.