Moonshot Musings

We at Climate Resilience Consulting asked our network for their climate resilience moonshot – their ambitious idea and grand vision for achieving a resilient future as the Apollo program did in landing the first astronaut on the moon. The responses were inspiring for our future. I share several here to fuel your imagination and forge your impactful idea.   

From a research scientist based in North America with expertise in adaptation measurement:

Change the method for assessing investment time frames to correspond to the lifetime of the project’s impact. Integrated coastal zone management, water management, flood management and forest management project impacts may be even longer than the end of this century. Many of these projects impact markets. Yet most investment decisions are annual at best.

From a member of the UNFCCC Adaptation Committee based in Europe:

When we think of adaptation, we often focus on big events and focus on a time horizon of a decade or two. For instance, most National Adaptation Plans have a time horizon of 2030. We should look even further into the future for the many relevant slow onset climate change events – including sea level rise, loss of snow cover, loss of permafrost, loss of glaciers, desertification and ocean acidification – that have significant impacts in the long term and need to be addressed now to keep the challenges manageable.

From a City sustainability director in North America:

Use a gas tax for a federal, state or city revolving fund for resilience.  This would be a way to generate revenue, creating a pool of capital to fund “unbankable” resilience.

From a community leader bridging between people in vulnerable communities and local government in North America: 

Create a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) mechanism, Property Assessed Resilience (PAR).  Like PACE, PAR financing would stay with the building upon sale and could be shared with tenants. State and local governments could sponsor PAR financing to create jobs, promote economic development, and protect the environment through projects related to flood, heat and fire mitigation.

From a water conservation leader in North America: 

Create a Work Projects Administration-type jobs program, similar to the Depression-era program that kickstarted jobs, to address the millions of acres that need to be re-treed in the American West.  Along with increasing water security and decreasing fire risk, jobs would include dead tree removal, biomass technology creation and new tree planning.

What is your moonshot?

Source:https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=mm#search/Thanksgiving

February 16, 2017