Why a Migration Plan is a Must for the Biden Administration

This article originally appeared on Triple Pundit https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2020/migration-biden-administration/708686

As we discussed yesterday, the Biden administration must honor our nation’s collective responsibility to minimize the impacts of the climate crisis on Americans and people everywhere now and into the future. How? The first two priorities, as previously discussed, include rejoining the Paris Agreement and boost jobs in the emerging resilience center. Third, the federal government should launch the long-term migration plans necessary to secure the safety of citizens most vulnerable to climate risks.

As the New York Times said this summer, the “idea of retreating from areas that can’t be defended…is a political minefield.” Nevertheless, with his five-decade career behind him, President Biden can afford to show courage and wade in. Taking on such a complicated plan has many moving parts – but bottom line, it’s time to focus on how we can protect populations throughout regions that are most vulnerable to climate change across the U.S.

Here’s why the Biden White House must focus on both migration and resilience.

Numbers and statistics don’t lie: migration is already underway

Let’s start with the numbers. To start, there were 454,000 disaster-induced displacements within the U.S. in 2019 alone, according to the extreme weather disasters measured by the International Displacement Monitoring Center. In addition, more than 386,000 homes, worth a total of about $210 billion, are at risk of coastal flooding by 2050 – and nearly two billion homes may become submerged by 2100, estimates the online real estate database company Zillow. At least 13 million U.S. coastal residents are expected to be displaced by 2100 due to sea level rise, says Bloomberg.

Those statistics foreshadow massive risks for the U.S. government – a daunting challenge that to date federal agencies apparently cannot grasp. For example, while FEMA classifies 8.7 million properties as having substantial flood risk, the First Street Foundation Flood Model identifies far more: 14.6 million properties with the same level of risk. This means nearly six million households and property owners have underestimated or been unaware of their current risk.

Meanwhile, the real estate industry has already started to integrate flooding risks into more property listings as cities like Miami Beach (pictured above) keep building along the shore even as it’s clear communities of color will bear the harshest burden as the climate crisis continues.

The financial sector is already adapting

The U.S. financial sector is responding in kind. The number and total value of flood insurance policies have been declining since 2006, meaning that households that purchased a property in coastal areas may be at increased risk of defaulting on their mortgages. Further, U.S. property insurance rates increased for 10 consecutive quarters since the fourth quarter of 2017 following Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. This 10-quarter streak tracks with greater storm frequency and intensity and follows 17 quarters of rate reductions, from the third quarter of 2014 to the third quarter of 2017.

Research has shown that after disaster-declared hurricanes, various banks have increased by almost 10 percent the share of coastal mortgages that they offloaded to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Additionally, the odds of an eventual foreclosure rose by 3.6 percent for a mortgage originated in the first year after a hurricane, and by almost 5 percent for a mortgage originated in the third year.

Four ways the Biden Administration can secure the housing market during the climate crisis

These data suggest the U.S. housing market is trending toward the next “big short.” How can that trend be halted?

First and foremost, the Biden administration should immediately establish a climate change mitigation program, as recommended by the Government Accountability Office.

Next, the feds must emphasize resource-building in receiving communities as part of a strategy to make relocation from climate change hazards, from river and coastal flooding to wildfires. This is the easiest, most dignified and most attractive option for property owners and renters to pursue. This relocation emphasis should be a priority in fund allocations to FEMA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Both of these agencies have appropriations which explicitly allow for the acquisition and relocation of exposed communities, while the Small Business Administration (SBA) has the tools for risk mitigation and disaster recovery.

The incoming Biden administration also needs to ensure that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) requires investments to assess and address climate change risks, build climate change resilience, and do no harm to avoid perpetuating environmental injustice.

Finally, the U.S. needs a Climate Community Reinvestment Act as the next generation of the CRA. Such legislation would have to focus on community resilience investments including low- and moderate-income housing outside of flooding, combined sewer overflow, and wildfire-risk zones, cooling centers, natural infrastructure for heat and stormwater mitigation, which could become possible through the use of community development financial institutions (CDFIs) and other public-private partnerships.

For other ideas and inspiration for this crucial pillar of a Biden climate action plan, check out The United States’ Climate Change Relocation Plan via the Atlantic Council. 

For the new Biden administration, accomplishing this work will ensure he makes progress on his stated aims to reduce inequality, lower levels of poverty, create a healthier environment, build stronger communities, and generate more and higher-quality jobs. Climate change is the humanitarian challenge of our time.

Lead with this in mind: the Natural Hazard Mitigation Saves report insists that the U.S. could cost-effectively spend $520 billion to reduce its disaster liability by $2.2 trillion. That’s good math for a resilience decade legacy.

Image credit: Carlos Veras/Unsplash

The Biden Administration Can Make the 2020s the Resilience Decade

This article originally appeared in Triple Pundit. https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2020/biden-administration-resilience/708681

With less than two months before the Biden administration starts, here’s a gentle reminder: In April, when I labeled 2020 the start of the adaptation decade, I noted: “If one thing is increasingly clear from this COVID-19 era, it’s that countless millions of Americans – and even more global citizens elsewhere – will grow poorer from it. And this matters immensely for climate change.”

This helps explain why President-elect Biden’s climate strategy includes an important and valid emphasis on climate change mitigation. He favors decreasing greenhouse gas emissions primarily through increasing investments in renewable power, while increasing regulations to direct the private sector toward more efficient technologies and operations. However, to connect this strategy to apply to poor Americans, you must emphasize resilience.

It requires much more than simply the aim of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis to “honor our responsibility to be good stewards of the planet for future generations.” Biden as president must honor our collective responsibility to minimize the impact of the climate crisis on Americans and people everywhere now and in the future. How? Here are three priorities.

Rejoin the Paris Agreement

As the U.S. rejoins the Paris Agreement, the U.S. must act on the agreement’s adaptation priorities. I wrote five years ago that our choice in that agreement is to “adapt or bust.” Consider this: U.S. disaster costs from 2016-2020 have exceeded $550 billion – a record. As of Oct. 7, 16 U.S. climate-related disaster events have triggered losses that exceed $1 billion each. These events included one drought, 11 severe storms, three tropical cyclones and a major wildfire, according to NOAA. 

Indeed, America’s growing disaster liability costs the nation $100 billion annually and grows 6 percent per year, a rate that is surging 10 times faster than the increase in the country’s population.

Hence the incoming Biden administration must take on these four challenges.

To start, the new administration should acknowledge that the U.S. is re-signing the global agreement for adaptation, resilience and reduced vulnerability. In addition, the Biden White House should follow the Paris Agreement’s guidelines, set expectations to plan and implement adaptation. Next, it’s clear the new administration should report on adaptation needs and efforts. Finally, it behooves Biden’s team to measure the adequacy, effectiveness and progress of all adaptation projects.

These steps will prove key to realize the positive returns on resilience. And the business case is real. An October report from the Urban Land Institute figures that Southeast Florida can realize at least $5 in benefits for each dollar of infrastructure resilience investment. A 2019 report from the National Institute of Building Safety maintained that modern building codes save $11 for every $1 invested.

The Biden administration must boost jobs in the resilience sector

Much is being expressed about a national infrastructure bill. And the Biden platform proposes, for instance, that new federal funding to rebuild roads, bridges or water infrastructure consider climate change. Beyond this consideration, the Biden administration should encourage the growth of resilience investments. Just as we celebrate the market viability of solar energy after a decade of government engagement, we also should be able to celebrate the market strength and investment potential of resilience. In these sectors specifically, the White House needs to emphasize the following:  

Water: Flood defense, wetland protection, stormwater management, rainwater harvesting, waste-water treatment relocation, strengthened water distribution systems and desalinization plants should be among the priorities.

Buildings: Start with green roofs and walls, water retention gardens and porous pavements.

Energy: Grid resilience along with back-up generation and storage should be a priority.

Information and communications technology: The Biden administration should strengthen data distributions systems, in addition to climate monitoring and data collection that can inform and build community resilience such as early warning systems that can assist with the relocation of citizens.

Health: Treatment and monitoring for diseases that might increase due to climate change as well as the treatment of respiratory conditions from wildfires.

To be sure, the resilience mission cannot be left to the private sector to steer. Even those corporate leaders purporting to be for poverty alleviation – such as Certified B Corps – have overall not made it a part of their platforms.

Migration plans to protect vulnerable Americans

The New York Times has said the “idea of retreating from areas that can’t be defended…is a political minefield.” But with a five-decade career behind him, a President Biden can afford to show courage and wade in. Taking on such a complicated plan has many moving parts – and that will be the focus of tomorrow’s discussion on rethinking housing across the regions that are most vulnerable to climate change across the U.S.

Image credit: Markus Spiske/Unsplash

Stop Allowing This Decision-Making Strategy to Inhibit Climate Resilience Progress

This article originally appeared in Triple Pundit https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2020/strategy-climate-resilience/707901

Written with Camilla Gardner

When deciding to act on a resilience project, we often linger on the price tag and let it control our decision-making. Perhaps it’s time to focus our attention on the costs of inaction.

Resilience – our new normal

2020, for sure, has forced each of us to contend with many “new normals.” For many municipalities, budget constraints exacerbated by COVID-19 are forcing them to rethink how to allocate available resources. Wage cuts compounded by health challenges and, for many, a hellish hurricane and fire season have precipitated a multi-crisis reality. At a time when resilience is key more than ever, municipalities increasingly axe sustainability positions and projects.

Why are our priorities so severely shuffled? A primary culprit is the traditional strategy that municipalities employ to make decisions. This process – known as cost-benefit analysis, or CBA – weighs the sum of the benefits of an action against the negatives, or costs, of that action. Frankly, the conventional CBA approach is an archaic process that is incompatible with the modern climate crisis. Here’s why:

Time to rethink the cost-benefit analysis

For starters, the dollar values placed on resilience and mitigation projects (and which, ultimately, dictate whether to pursue a project or not) are an incomplete picture of the outcome. CBA is myopic in the sense that it is structure-centric and lacks a holistic, human-focused tone. It excludes the social and environmental benefits that accrue over time, even decades after project completion.

So many of the most important outcomes of resilience projects – the intangibles that make a city livable and bolster people’s well-being and capacity to thrive – aren’t communicated within the bottom line. Similarly, the costs are immediate and upfront while taking mitigatory action usually has remote, delayed and uncertain benefits. Consequently, economic and social needs and desires that are felt immediately seem more pressing than climate resilience efforts.

Consider a green infrastructure (GI) project, which involves a network that provides the “ingredients” for solving urban and climatic challenges by building with nature. In addition to maintaining water quality and mitigating flooding, GI installations can clear and cool the atmosphere, increase local property values, enhance aesthetics, and improve local health outcomes and social connectivity.

Yet not all of these co-benefits can be reaped right away. When trees are involved, the rate of carbon sequestration, stormwater capture, or urban heat island mitigation may be greatest 20 to 50 years after a project’s completion.

3 ways to take a new approach toward your long-term planning

It is increasingly essential to enhance the visibility of the local impacts derived from climate resilience projects by communicating these co-benefits in the one language that drives decision-making: dollar value. We are losing out a lot by allowing seemingly unfavorable cost-benefit ratios to inhibit progress toward a future we cannot afford not to create. To do so, the following needs to become standard practice for conducting cost-benefit analyses:

Conduct a triple bottom line (social, environmental and financial) CBA

The triple bottom line (or otherwise noted as TBL or 3BL) is an accounting framework with three parts: social, environmental (or ecological) and financial.

Collectively, we rely too heavily on technical and infrastructural solutions to address a much more holistic problem. Too often, the dialogue around climate resilience investment only weighs avoided losses against the physical costs of the (grey) infrastructural investment. Likewise, this conversation usually occurs after disaster strikes. We must shift to highlight proactively that these investments yield a triple dividend.

These include development potential to local communities by stimulating innovation and economic activity bolstered by reduced climate risk, as well as a web of improved social and ecological outcomes that enhance wellbeing for all involved, even if disaster doesn’t strike. Recently, FEMA incorporated ecosystem benefits into its CBA tool. It is a critical first step forward toward legitimizing nature-based climate solutions. But much more needs to be done to move forward.

Pursue innovative strategies to monetize the “intangible” benefits.

Certain values, such as avoided energy costs, can be determined easily via their market price. However, many values don’t have a direct market value – such as the value of social connectivity, the costs of trauma, the loss of community caused by a hurricane or wildfire, or the costs of having to relocate from one’s community.

One solution is contingent valuation. This is an economic survey technique for eliciting willingness to pay for outcomes such as health or that don’t have an obvious price tag.

The United Kingdom’s Sheffield Hallam University study used this process to determine the value of feeling part of the community or of having neighbors looking out for each other: $16,700 and $13,000, respectively. This method has even been used to value human life by determining people’s willingness to pay for risk reduction devices or services that could prove life-saving. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency had valued “statistical life” at an average of $7.4 million in 2006 dollars.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg of what can and must be valued to make the business case for a more livable future. Unfortunately, contingent valuation is both time and resource-intensive. Moving forward, it is critical to fund research into innovative strategies to monetize these more holistic costs and benefits city by city in a more streamlined, cost-effective manner. Likewise, encouraging policymakers to give greater value to more qualitative considerations – not just the bottom line – is key.

Incorporate a timeline that accounts for longer-term social and environmental benefits.

Even if all co-benefits were internalized, a challenge remains: common discounting practices. They’re designed to take account of the variable timescales over which costs and benefits are distributed. But they give very low (and possibly practically zero) weight to far-off events, namely the social and environmental benefits of resilience projects. Consequently, by discounting, CBA appears to make these benefits disappear. A potential solution: time-declining discount rates. These declining discount rates account for discounting but make future benefits more relevant to the present investors and policymakers.

Finally - making the case for a more equitable future

The effects of climate change are disproportionately felt by lower income and communities of Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC). Accordingly, disaster recovery and adaptation costs and the price of necessary resilience projects are greater. This results in less-favorable cost-benefit ratios. Therefore, resilience investments tend to favor wealthier neighborhoods and overlook the committees with the fewest resources but are the most in harm's way.

By establishing the strategies discussed above as priorities as well as centering on the unique social context in which a project will be applied and focusing more on what is to be gained rather than how much it might cost, our investment decisions can be more informed and equipped to center equity, real climate risk, and the well-being of all.

Camilla Gardner supports the resilience program at the Urban Sustainability Directors Network as a Climate Resilience Consulting associate. 

Image credit: Pxhere

Achieving Social Equity Is Connected with Climate Finance

This article originally appeared in Triple Pundit https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2020/social-equity-climate-finance/707011

In our previous article, we focused on how the world’s poorer citizens are most vulnerable to the globe’s most dangerous crises: COVID-19 and climate change. The people at most risk of contracting COVID-19 – low-income individuals, women, workers dependent on working in the informal economy, and racial and ethnic minorities – are also the same citizens that are most at risk due to the climate crisis. Reaching true social equity will require a focus on both addressing climate risks and ensuring some level of finance is available to all.

Social equity requires a focus on long-term recovery

The past several months of the COVID-19 pandemic can tell us a lot about how to address climate risks, and importantly how to do so in ways that can achieve social equity.  A strong post-COVID-19 recovery could be a unique policy and investment opportunity to address both climate resilience and equity issues by squarely incentivizing, or even mandating, the financial sector to fill what has otherwise been a gap in financing in order to create resilience for the most vulnerable.

Many policy makers are thinking through practical ways to action this right now. For example, a recent OECD report on Green COVID Recovery recommends “integrating environmental sustainability and socioeconomic equity” in policy packages – by, for example, lowering labor taxes concomitantly with raising taxes on pollution - in order to build long-term resilience, boost the prospects for social equity, and mitigate the regressive effects of environmental policies.

In addition, the IMF has been supporting this idea by promoting a “smarter, greener and fairer” recovery. As the current IMF Managing Director, Kristalina Georgieva, has stated, “We cannot turn back the COVID-19 clock, but we can invest in reducing emissions and adapting to new environmental conditions.”

However, how exactly sustainable and equitable COVID-19 recovery plans can support vulnerable communities – particularly those local communities hardest hit economically, and most exposed to climate related risks - remains to be seen. 

There are several ways to do this, and the options to enhance resilience and close the equity gap include both public policy and private investment. There is no need to start from scratch, though, and the following recommendations provide practical mechanisms for achieving social equity within the financial ecosystem, and increasing the availability of affordable financing for climate-resilient investments for vulnerable communities:

The role of financial institutions like CDFIs and green banks

Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs): CDFIs are financial institutions with, with the support of the U.S. Treasury Department, are tasked with providing low- and moderate-income communities, individuals, and smaller firms with affordable capital.

In the United States, there are more than one thousand CDFIs in the form of commercial banks, credit unions, and venture capital firms that are currently financing low-income communities, each of which can be mobilized to create community level climate-resilience. While CFDIs are beginning to take notice of the importance of climate change to the communities they serve, post-COVID mandates can help them better serve these communities’ climate-resilience needs. Nevertheless, coordination, capacity and financial support by the federal government may essential to unlocking CFDIs for climate adaptation.

Green Banks: In addition to CDFIs, Many U.S. states (and more than 35 countries around the world) have green banks or green banking mechanisms, which in a nutshell, “leverage public funding to attract private capital for clean energy projects”.

These institutions are – by design and mandate – focused on climate finance and investment, but traditionally have been far more focused on renewable energy or energy efficiency investments. Expanding the model beyond energy to include a greater variety of climate-related projects that support vulnerable communities, including mobilizing private investment so it can help attain authentic social equity, could help ensure these institutions address all aspects of climate change, not simply mitigation.

Furthermore, these institutions could be critical links in the financial “ecosystem” by bundling and securitizing pools of local investment which can then be bundled to create investment vehicles for larger investors, as was the case with the Connecticut Green Bank’s securitization of solar home renewable energy credits.

In short, the global business community can’t address the COVID-19 crisis without viewing it through the lens of climate change – and we need to retool the financial sector in order to help guide the world’s poorer citizens through both this pandemic and navigate through the long-term risks linked to climate change.

Co-author Stacy Swann is CEO of Climate Finance Advisors, a Benefit LLC with the explicit purpose of creating a material positive impact on society and the environment. Ms. Swann is also a Board Member of the Montgomery Country Green Bank.

Image credit: Lawrence Makoona/Unsplash

The Link Between Climate Finance and Building Resilience after COVID-19

This article originally appeared in Triple Pundit: https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2020/climate-finance-covid-19/706956

Co-written with Stacy Swann

In 2020, the world’s poor find themselves at the nexus of two crises: COVID-19 and climate change. The people most vulnerable to COVID-19 – low-income individuals, women, workers in the informal economy, and ethnic and racial minorities – are the same citizens that are most vulnerable to weather and climate crises.

The poor disproportionately face obstacles to adapting to the effects of climate change due to unstable incomes, little if any savings, their work in the informal economy, a lack of access to credit, and of course, the reality of the landscape in the communities and countries in which they live.

These constraints have only become exacerbated in the COVID-19 global recession. As governments, businesses and financial institutions move into economic recovery, it is necessary to ensure that that recovery is sustainable, resilient and fair – if not, it will be reinforcing an already dire situation for the world’s poor.

A population’s vulnerability to climate change proceeds along three axes: exposure, susceptibility and the ability to cope.

Where it comes to access to finance, low-income populations suffer the impacts of all three. The poor are more exposed to climate change because of where they can afford to live or the economic activities they engage in, such as farming or fishing.

For instance, a Harvard study found that Miami-Dade County was affected by “climate gentrification:” as flood risks increase, wealthier residents are moving inland, displacing local low-income communities. Further, some studies suggest that climate change adaptation expenditures tend to be driven by wealth rather than need, which exacerbates the inequalities between high and low-income communities if not shifting more climate risk onto the latter.

Finally, structural inequalities ensure that low-income communities lack access to the social, cultural and financial assets they need to cope with the onset and consequences of climate change. Low-income urban households tend to hold most of their wealth in a single asset – housing – which means they have a single and significant point of financial vulnerability to climate change. Conversely, high-income households generally hold better-diversified portfolios of assets and wealth, both financially and geographically making them better able to withstand financial shocks from climate impacts.

Taken together, these factors imply that the costs of climate change may make vulnerable communities even more vulnerable over time, increasing proportionate costs of climate change for these groups exactly when they cannot afford it, and in doing so, accelerating inequality. This is the exact opposite of progress. 

Investing in resilience is really the only option to address these headwinds and ensure a fair and just transition. Finance, both public and private, has a powerful role to play in mitigating the cycle of income inequality and climate vulnerability, but historically this sector and its leaders have been deaf to the needs of the most vulnerable, deeming these groups as higher risk from a credit perspective. Furthermore, there has been an increasing gap in the financial ecosystem of banks and investors serving vulnerable communities and those that do exist often provide capital at significant cost, effectively reducing the availability of credit to low-income communities.

In our next article, we’ll focus on two strategies that can help these struggling communities recover in the long term.

Co-author Stacy Swann is CEO of Climate Finance Advisors, a Benefit LLC with the explicit purpose of creating a material positive impact on society and the environment. Ms. Swann is also a Board Member of the Montgomery Country Green Bank.

Photo: a 2019 climate change protest in Nuremberg, Germany. More observers see links between the global COVID-19 pandemic and climate change risks.

Image credit: Markus Spiske/Unsplash

COVID-19 Makes the 2020s the Adaptation Decade for Climate Change

This oped originally appeared on Triple Pundit: https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2020/covid-19-makes-2020s-adaptation-decade-climate-change/87386

If one thing is increasingly clear from this COVID-19 era, it’s that countless millions of Americans – and even more global citizens elsewhere – will grow poorer from it. And this matters immensely for climate change.

Why? First, remember that climate action embodies two halves: mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation to physical impacts. Poverty relates to each in very different ways.

Take climate change mitigation and how it relates to poverty. Mitigation actions include enhanced energy efficiency, especially in industrial, commercial and multifamily properties, utility-scale renewable energy and public transit investments. If done well and with intensity, all of these down the road will diminish climate change impacts on poor people and – and all people.

Of course, if you first want to explore how to decrease poverty while increasing climate change mitigation, you might focus on distributed energy generation in poorer neighborhoods; jobs for the poor in renewable energy; and public transit to employment, day care and school. Yet, as many investors will maintain, these initiatives may deliver less impact dollar for dollar on greenhouse gas reductions than would utility-scale renewables, transit infrastructure, and commercial and industrial energy efficiency.

Thus, the intersection of poverty reduction and greenhouse gas reduction may be less of a priority for the market.

COVID-19 exacerbates three huge climate change risks

So, pivoting to climate change adaptation – i.e., decreasing physical risk – how does it relate to poverty in America? Risk has three components: hazard, exposure and vulnerability. As for hazard, whether you’re poor or rich, each of us faces the same climate change peril. That is, the same scorching heat, sea level rise and wildfires.

As for exposure, those who live in harm’s way – along coasts or rivers or in the wildfire/urban interface – are more exposed to these hazards. To be sure, as a global recession strikes, there might theoretically be a decrease in climate change exposure, as demand declines for new housing along the flood-prone coasts and rivers or in wetlands and marshes. This also may stem the tide of older people continuing to move to the coast to live out their retirement dreams. Poverty has a way of quashing those aspirations.

The biggest intersection of physical climate change impact and poverty is vulnerability. That’s because the poorer you are, the higher your vulnerability – to most anything. When you lose your house or car in a flood or fire, you have fewer resources for alternate housing or transportation, when your asthma increases with extreme heat, you have less funds for medical care, when food prices go up due to drought, your purchasing power goes down. In the case of climate change risk, vulnerability separates the rich from the poor and illuminates the disproportionate impact of loss.

While the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions has been a “nice to do” to involve the poor in job creation adaptation to climate change is a “must do.” We must focus on poverty alleviation and serving poorer neighborhoods as the priority of climate adaptation, or the result be even more profound suffering.

What must we do?

First, focus climate change adaptation on poor neighborhoods along the coasts and rivers’ edge, improving infrastructure and establishing the means and mechanisms for poor families to move out of harm’s way. And lest you think flooding is an issue for another time, consider that by 2050, U.S. coastal floods previously expected once every half century will occur almost every year in many areas.

Next, cool cities and neighborhoods to decrease deadly pockets of extreme heat (a.k.a. urban heat islands). Ensure that the poor have access to reliable air conditioning and the ability to pay electric bills. The urban heat island effect is predicted to increase heat by half. So, when temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius (3.6F), city heat could rise 3 degrees Celcius (5.4F). 

Finally, focus public health in poor neighborhoods to ensure that fewer people suffer from debilitating cardiopulmonary illnesses such as COPD and asthma, which become more dangerous as temperatures rise. Today under 10,000 Americans die from extreme heat each year. The federal Global Change Research Program estimates that the number of Americans who die annually from extreme heat will almost double by 2050 from the present number approaching 10,000. For high heat states like California, Florida and Louisiana, among other, climate change is expected to increase death rates by between 3.5-4%, particularly among the poor, by the end of the century.

The environmental and social impacts of COVID-19 will linger a long time

And while COVID-19 has tragically taken over 60,000 Americans’ lives, with startling percentages being lower-income Americans, estimates of future climate change deaths are also sobering. More poor Americans will die from rising temperatures and the increased frequency, intensity and duration of coastal storms. Around the world, unless climate change adaptation focuses on the poor, a tragic rise in deaths will occur from malnutrition, vector-borne disease, extreme heat exacerbating chronic illness, extreme weather-caused disruptions to health service and food supply, and deaths of despair as outdoor labor productivity plummets.

As poor Americans grow poorer in the post-COVID-19 era, this creates a priority to act on climate adaptation. If we choose to be agnostic about income levels in climate change adaptation in the same way we are in climate change mitigation, millions more Americans in the coming decade will not only be poor, they’ll be dead.

The post-coronavirus economic environment will demand extraordinary leadership from all sectors. In your climate action strategies, remember the poor.

Image credit: Victor He/Unsplash

Rousing the Real Estate Sector to Anticipate and Manage Climate Change Risk

This OpEd and Image Originally Appeared on Triple Pundit: https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2020/real-estate-sector-climate-change-risk/86791/

Take note, owners and operators of the nation’s 120 million residential, commercial and industrial buildings: It’s time to wake up to the impending climate crisis and to anticipate and manage climate change risk to your buildings, and their inhabitants.

Or else, you’re likely to face destructive consequences – especially if your buildings are in flood plains, exposed coastal settings are seismic zones.

Sure, it’s a common response to practically any perceived risk to delay taking precautions and actions until visible signs emerge. But those climate-related danger signals are becoming more real almost daily.

Consider recent warnings about climate change risk

A new report by U.S. national security, military and intelligence professionals warns that future climate change risk “presents high-to-catastrophic security threat.”

The World Economic Forum global risk perception report this year determined that the climate crisis dominates the top five risks for all stakeholders.

Global investment banker BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink, in his influential annual letter to CEOs, warns that companies that don’t assess and address climate risk will not be part of the investing giant’s portfolio.

McKinsey’s recent climate risk and response report on physical hazards and socioeconomic impacts report is groundbreaking and is a must-read. The consulting firm, known for its greenhouse gas mitigation curve, now assumes that higher global temperatures are being triggered by business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions and, for the first time, urges businesses to focus on climate adaptation.

Stakeholders in the real estate sector must look beyond their buildings

Fortunately, for business owners and operators struggling to wrap their heads around climate change risk, help is at hand: The Disaster Resilience Scorecard for Industrial and Commercial Buildings. The scorecard was developed by real estate investors, developers, architects, engineers, government professionals and community leaders increasingly concerned about the physical impact of climate change on their built assets. It seeks to motivate building owners and operators to take action to increase building resilience.

The scorecard also is intended as an analysis of overall building resilience by looking beyond issues that are in the immediate control of the building. These include transportation, water and energy infrastructure as well as local policy. And, if provides a “resilience agenda” of sorts for when building owners and operations hold discussions with city planners and investors.

The scorecard — developed by ARISE, the Private Sector Alliance for Disaster Resilient Societies that is a global network led by the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction — includes 10 “essentials.” These essentials include measures to plan for resilience, measuring future risk scenarios and effective disaster response plans.

The scorecard can be used as a tool in exploratory workshops with stakeholders including building tenants, community representatives, city planners, emergency managers and representatives of the owner or manager. As Peter Williams, the scorecard’s lead author and formerly of IBM, sees it: “With existing buildings, improving resilience may require retrofitting existing structures and processes but ‘build to last’ should be the objective.”

In sum, here’s the memo for the global real estate sector: this scorecard is an excellent vehicle for the action each of us needs to lead as we do our part to take on climate change risks.