For anyone still undecided about the consequences of global warming, this summer, one of the hottest on record, should have tipped the scales.
Across far-flung longitudes and latitudes, regions are struggling with the fallout from large-scale climate-related events.
In the southern US, cities and towns pummeled by Hurricane Florence in September were still drying out when Hurricane Michael brought more flooding last month.
In California, firefighters are battling the embers of the largest wildfire in state history, while in parts of Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia, agricultural output is in free fall following months of stifling heat.
Cooler weather has done little to ease the suffering.
According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “moderate” to “exceptional” drought conditions cover 25.1 percent of the US, but “extreme” and “exceptional” drought — the worst categories — expanded to cover 6.3 percent of the nation, up from 6 percent in mid-September.
Regions in Australia are also struggling with the worst drought in a generation.
In fact, for a growing number of people around the world, floods, landslides and heat waves — Japan’s summer in a nutshell — is the new normal.
A study in the journal PLOS Medicine projects a fivefold increase in heat-related deaths in the US by 2080; the outlook for poorer nations is even worse.
The climate debate is no longer about causes; fossil fuels and human activity are the culprits. Rather, the question is how billions of at-risk people and businesses can rapidly adapt and ensure their communities are as resilient as possible.
Even if the world meets the Paris climate agreement’s target of limiting the increase in global temperature to 2°C relative to preindustrial levels, adaptation would still be critical, because climate extremes are now the new normal.
Some communities have already recognized this and local adaptation is well under way.
In Melbourne, Australia, for example, planners are working to double the city’s tree canopy by 2040, an approach that would lower temperatures and reduce heat-related deaths.
Similarly, in Ahmedabad, a city of more than 7 million people in western India, authorities have launched a major initiative to cover roofs in reflective paint to lower temperatures on “heat islands,” urban areas that trap the sun’s warmth and make city living unbearable, even at night.
These are just two of the many infrastructural responses that communities around the world have undertaken, but adapting to climate change would also mean managing the long-term economic fallout of extreme weather, and this is a requirement that nations are only beginning to take seriously.
Consider water scarcity.
According to a 2016 World Bank analysis, drought-related water crises in Africa and the Middle East could reduce GDP in these regions by as much as 6 percent by 2050. That would be painful anywhere, but it would be devastating in regions already rife with political turmoil and humanitarian crises.
At the same time, rising sea levels would cause severe damage to coastal areas. The decline in property values would have far-reaching implications not only for individual wealth, but also for the tax bases of communities and the industries that serve them.
A related concern is that homes and businesses around the world would eventually become under-insured or even uninsurable, owing to the frequency of weather-related catastrophes.
ClimateWise, a global network of insurance industry organizations, has already warned that the world is facing a US$100 billion annual climate risk “protection gap.”
No single international organization or authority has all the answers to the cascade of challenges that climate change has triggered, but some are taking key leadership roles, and pushing governments and local communities to act with more urgency.
One of the more promising initiatives to accelerate solutions is the Global Commission on Adaptation, chaired by former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, and World Bank chief executive Kristalina Georgieva.
Over the next 15 years, the world needs to invest about US$90 trillion in infrastructure improvements. How these projects proceed, and whether they are designed with low-carbon features, could lead the world toward a more-climate resilient future — or they could undermine food, water and security for decades to come.
Patrick Verkooijen is CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation, and non-resident professor of practice of sustainable development diplomacy at Tufts University’s Center for International Environment and Resource Policy.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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