Poor Countries Are Losing Ground in the Race to Adapt to a Changing Climate

The World Economic Forum released their 2014 Global Risk Report with a write up crafted by WEF’s Global Agenda Council on Climate Change based, where Juan Jose Daboub (the Global Adaptation Institute’s founding CEO) is co-chair.  I drafted the original write up which resulted in this piece: The year 2014 is likely to be crucial for addressing climate risks, a point made by United Nations (UN) climate chief Christiana Figueres at the Warsaw Climate Change Conference. Countries made only limited progress on issues such as emissions reduction, loss and damage compensation, and adaptation. Greater progress is urgently needed to create incentives and mechanisms to finance action against climate change while efforts are made to keep temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius.

Even as governments and corporations are called upon to speed up greenhouse gas reduction, it is clear that the race is on not only to mitigate climate change but also to adapt. Droughts, super-storms and other natural disasters are increasingly causing systemic risks around the world.

Failure to adapt most strongly affects the most vulnerable, especially those in the least developed countries. They tend to lack the infrastructure and capacity to deal with extreme droughts and floods, reduced crop yields and increased stresses on energy and water supplies.

According to the latest Notre Dame-Global Adaptation Index, it will take more than 100 years for the world’s poorest countries to reach the current adaptive capacity of higher-income OECD countries. The World Bank estimates the cost of climate change adaptation for developing countries at US$ 70-100 billion per year through to 2050.

Gradually, however, promising models are emerging of collaboration between the public and private sectors and civil society to strengthen resilience to climate change. An example is the US$ 3 billion Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT), intended to create the infrastructure to nurture new value chains. Through techniques such as rainwater harvesting, efficient irrigation and crops that can produce more nutrients for the same input of water, SAGCOT aims to increase food production in a way that is both environmentally sustainable and benefits small-scale farmers and the rural poor.

Such innovative and ambitious projects, unlocking investment funds through public-private partnership, showcase the kind of multistakeholder collaboration that will be needed across all sectors to meet the twin priorities of climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Sources

ND-Global Adaptation Index http://news.gain.org/post/69787249752/2013-nd-gain-data-show-worlds-poorest-countries-lag

Scherr, S. J., J. C. Milder, L. E. Buck, A. K. Hart, and S. A. Shames. 2013. A vision for Agriculture Green Growth in the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (SAGCOT): Overview. Dar es Salaam: SAGCOT Centre. Available at http://www.ecoagriculture.org/documents/files/doc_483.pdf

World Bank. 2010. Economics of Adaptation to Climate Change: Synthesis Report, Washington DC: World Bank. Available at http://climatechange.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/documents/EACCSynthesisReport.pdf

Business on the Front Lines

BOTFL ND GAIN

A benefit – and deep pleasure – of working at the University of Notre Dame is rubbing shoulders with eminent thinkers.  I had the joy last year of meeting Viva Bartkus, Ph.D., Associate Professor at the university’s Mendoza College of Business. She not only is a , University of Notre Dame who is not only a great sage, but also a fine director. In her course, Business on the Front Lines, Notre Dame graduate students serve in post-conflict societies to inspire  business initiatives through the humanitarian lens.  In two-week installments, they play a role in building long-term community capacity for local resiliency and stability by partnering with local institutions to give people a stake in peace. Earlier this week, I noted in a blog about food security that in employing its Pilot Program for Climate Resilience, the World Bank found flagging demand from the private sector in climate-resiliency issues.  Fully 90 percent of their PPCR resources were tapped by government, and only 7 percent by the private sector. The Bank cited as a possible cause the lack of development of markets in these communities.  Looking at the ND-GAIN scores for the countries Dr. Viva’s class has impacted, her course is embracing these markets.

Her goal: to explore the role of business in rebuilding war-torn communities.

Students have worked with Uganda farmers to consider cultivation measures to enhance the quality of the food they bring to

Viva notes that BOTFL is a “Journey of discovery where students ask ‘what should be the role of business in society.’”market; in Kenya to inform supply-chain variables with new business models and in Lebanon to determine new approaches to the public/private/political interface in government-run utilities.  After students depart, Catholic Relief Services staff members continue working with local experts to put them into effect.

Business on the Frontlines is demonstrating to students—and to the world—the powerful impact business can have in pulling populations out of poverty and stabilizing society following a conflict or disaster.  It’s a great example of building resiliency through private sector efforts.

Climate on the Davos Agenda

I’m thrilled that the World Economic Forum has placed climate change squarely on the agenda for next week’s forum at Davos.  It makes sense since its 2013 Risk Report noted climate change, combined with economic upheaval, as a top hazard to the global economy. This emphasis for the Forum is particularly important. The convening of corporate and private sector leaders has played a lesser role in the global climate change efforts, which primarily have been driven  by the United Nations.  Fortunately, it appears the private sector, through the power of the Forum, is going to play a bigger role in this discussion. Perhaps that will turn the UN efforts toward more action.

Next week, all World Economic Forum participants can attend sessions specifically dealing with adaptation and resiliency, including:

• An ideas lab on adapting to climate change

  • A discussion of the role of business and supply chains in making sustainability a mainstream issue

  • A plenary on the interaction of the climate and development global agendas toward 2015

  • A conversation about building resilience to natural disasters linked to extreme weather events and climate change

I’m eager to see the direct and indirect impact of The Forum’s climate adaptation conversations.

Beyond Davos 2014, World Economic Forum will participate actively in the Climate Summit at the UN in New York on Sept. 23,  the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conferences of the Parties in Lima, Peru, in late 2014 and subsequent convening.  This work reflects a set of robust Forum partnerships. The lead is Dominic Waughray, a member of ND-GAIN’s Advisory Board.

Feeding a climate-altered world

How will we feed the world amid drought, fire, floods and population shifts?  While I don’t yet envision a Malthusian catastrophe, per se, I think it critical to begin a conversation about this question as it relates to our work.  At last month’s ND-GAIN Annual Meeting at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., I derived several key takeaways from our panelists*:

1. Climate change could undermine development advances of the 20th Century, such as the interrelated issues of food security, global health and poverty reduction, the World Bank contends.

2. The largest demand for funds in the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience is for agricultural and landscape-management projects and, among fund recipients, water is the second largest.  Project examples include $5M to Mozambique (ND-GAIN Rank 137 http://index.gain.org/country/mozambique ) for drip irrigation and other agriculture enhancements, $15M to Zambia (ND-GAIN Index http://index.gain.org/country/zambia ) to insure farmers against extreme weather and $22M to Bangladesh, (ND-GAIN Rank 145 http://index.gain.org/country/bangladesh) for a seed selection and storage and cropping cycles project.

1. As climate portfolios grow to include resiliency and adaptation, in addition to greenhouse gas mitigation, the World Bank notes a decreased participation from the private sector, says Patricia Bliss-Guest Program Manager of Climate Investment Funds there. Through its pilot program for climate resilience, the Bank works to incent additional private participation in addition to government assistance.

1. Microinsurance is a major priority for the insurance sector in emerging markets and insurance can send important price-based signals to the market, notes Lindene Patton Chief Climate Product Officer at Zurich Insurance Group Ltd. She cautions against subsidizing insurance too much, adding that the question of climate risk is generally understood by the reinsurance industry to be a people, not a physical science, problem.

2. The key to resiliency in the food supply (taking cocoa as a case) involves examining all the vectors impacting farmers, including demographic shifts, community engagements, diversity of crops and agrarian livelihoods, maintains Perry Yeatman Principal, Mission Measurement, based on her work at Kraft Foods. She says it matters to our ample supply of chocolate bars that cocoa farmers are aging, their children are migrating to cities, the farmers need to raise chickens to diversify their nutrition and their community structures are crucial to their farms’ viability.

3. While climate change might favor the Eastern Europe and the Americas, a tremendous amount of investment for water infrastructure is necessary elsewhere in the world, believes David Gustafson Senior Fellow and Environmental and Ag Policy Modeling Lead at Monsanto. He favors partnerships with local and global institutions to address this concern, especially as the global agricultural community looks to intensify its production efforts sustainably to feed our  ever-growing world population.

In a future post, I plan to address the approaches for increasing this agricultural intensity. As I write this, my alumni magazine arrived with the cover story, “GMO vs. Fresh Food….”   I’ve had a study diet of this issue and look forward to continuing the dialogue.

*A video of the panel can be found here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V09U8W00Mk4&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLF545132229EF6E68

Turn Tragedy in the Philippines to Adaptation Action

I mourn with my Philippine kaibigans about the incalculable death and destruction wrought by Typhon Haiyan on that beautiful country and its people.  I lived and worked in the Philippines in the mid-1990s while at the U.S. Agency for International Development. I consider the country my second home.  I feel a deep sadness that so many lives were lost. Yet, I do not feel hopeless.  I know that  ways exist to increase the Philippine’s resiliency, and the solutions lie within the country, the corporate sphere and the development community. When a climate-related disaster strikes, I turn to ND-GAIN to help provide me with answers to how to prevent future calamities.   It probably isn’t a surprise to those who have seen the Haiyan destruction that the Philippines ranks 99 of 176 countries on the ND-GAIN index..  When looked at from the perspective of the country’s vulnerability to climate disruption and its readiness to adapt, it is in the highly vulnerable and not-ready quadrant of the Readiness Matrix. It possesses a great need for investment and innovation to improve readiness as well as a great urgency for action.

Since 1995, however, the Philippine’s’ relative GAIN score has headed in the wrong direction, initially ranking 87th of 176 countries.   Several factors related to ND-GAIN account for this deterioration, including the growing perception that political unrest will trigger a destabilized government or an actual coup by unconstitutional or violent means. Other factors: its rate of population growth in urban centers and the natural-disaster risk for populations living in cities of more than 750,000 people.  If they reflected awhile that they rank with Burundi, Cote d’Ivoire and Iran in terms of their political stability and nonviolence score, they might strive to strengthen the institutions that hold the government accountable.

Several initiatives could help the Philippines in the near and longer term.  First, simply assume that decreasing the country’s exposure to extreme events involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and that the Philippines always will lie in the eye of the storm during typhoon season regardless of the extent of climate change.

The real opportunity lies in decreasing Filipinos’ sensitivity to climate disruption, increasing their adaptive capacity and boosting their economic, social and political readiness. These will increase their resilience and keep them on a path to market growth, human thriving and a caring and outward-looking world view for which they’re famous.

Based on ND-GAIN, here are three places from which to start. None are easy, but all generate hope for both the Philippines and the global community:

• Shore up the political stability of local, regional and national government.
• Increase the percentage of paved roads to trigger more expeditious travel on islands within the archipelago during the monsoon season.
• Improve sanitation facilities and access to water to strengthen the population and decrease disease while freeing up community energy for commerce.

The Philippines is nababanat, or elastic, as well as resilient, and Filipinos face many more typhoons ahead.  Working together, we can save lives and improve livelihoods there and in other vulnerable regions.  As an adaptation professional deeply immersed in questions of how, I employ ND-GAIN to guide the way.

National Security: A driver for climate adaptation prioritization?

I got involved in the corporate sustainability space through civil conflict. In Vietnam, actually, while investigating innovations in water infrastructure service delivery sparked by a community fight over access to water in Haiphong. That escalated into a major conflict that left two water workers dead before the People’s Committee came to its senses and considered a new way to approach fair water access. That was two decades ago. Yet that question of water and conflict continues to erupt and spill over from small-town skirmishes to all-out wars.  Noted journalist Tom Friedman has written about it in an April 2012 column, The Other Arab Spring, and a May 7, 2013, column, Postcard from Yemen. And I’m hearing rumblings from my Notre Dame colleagues who suggest a rear-view mirror look at Darfur reveals that the conflict that forced people off their land was less about sectarian strife and more about lack of access to water. My colleague Peter Annin has written a book with the provocative title of “Water Wars.”

When I think about water conflict, though, I ask myself if we know more now than we did about the relative vulnerability to water risk. It turns out that we do know a lot more.  For instance, examining countries on a short fuse in water-stressed regions of the world through the ND-GAIN index, it’s apparent that the Sahel and the Horn of Africa both show significant water vulnerability. Indicating that are such barometers as the projected change in precipitation and percent of population with access to improved water supply. Their vulnerability could possibly be having an impact on other  susceptibilities, such as food and health and wellness.

It is plausible that climate change is causing internal and cross-boundary migration that is affecting security around the world. At the recent New York Climate Week, Brigadier General Steven Cheney, CEO of the American Security Project, noted that 70 percent of global militaries consider climate change a threat to security.  He identified regions such as S. Asia Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, Mali and the Middle East as “tinder boxes” for various  reasons that concern flooding and drought, which are triggering competition for resources.

The U.S. military is taking a close look at this. A 2011 Defense Department Report,  “Trends and Implications of Climate Change for National and International Security,” firmly recommends to “institute water security as  a core element of DOD strategy” since “the availability of water underlies all other elements of human security.”

Percent changes in length of growing period changes to 2050.

So what  specifically do you analyze and consider to determine if a war or significant conflict is caused by climate change?   One approach involves looking at countries that are less vulnerable, or that have become less vulnerable over time, than their neighbors or peers and measure the degree of conflict in them.  In Africa, according to ND-GAIN, countries like Tanzania and Zambia have become less vulnerable over time.

The upshot? Investing in adaptation could be one way to mitigate civil conflict.

Post Script October 23. 2013.  Thanks to Josh Foster - a wiki of all things climate adaptation - for sharing the following with me from Science:

QUANTIFYING THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON HUMAN CONFLICT

A rapidly growing body of research examines whether human conflict can be affected by climatic changes. Drawing from archaeology, criminology, economics, geography, history, political science, and psychology, we assemble and analyze the 60 most rigorous quantitative studies and document, for the first time, a striking convergence of results. We find strong causal evidence linking climatic events to human conflict across a range of spatial and temporal scales and across all major regions of the world. The magnitude of climate’s influence is substantial: for each one standard deviation (1σ) change in climate toward warmer temperatures or more extreme rainfall, median estimates indicate that the frequency of interpersonal violence rises 4% and the frequency of intergroup conflict rises 14%. Because locations throughout the inhabited world are expected to warm 2σ to 4σ by 2050, amplified rates of human conflict could represent a large and critical impact of anthropogenic climate change.

Science 13 September 2013: Vol. 341 no. 6151 1235367

Three Steps to Better Decision-Making

Three Steps to Better Decision-Making Many tools are available for corporate and development decision-makers to help them plan and devise their business strategies.   Corporate leaders I speak with say they use the Consumer Confidence Index, Corruption Perceptions Index, and Human Development Index among other well-regarded tools, to help relay complex information quickly to their boards of directors and C-Suite peers.  The ND-Global Adaptation Index joins these business barometers to provide quick insights into a country’s climate vulnerability and readiness to adapt.  And since risk experts view climate change as ranking among our principal threats to business, the tool proves to be a timely resource for strategic planning.

As you seek to protect your investments and supply chains while identifying fresh market opportunities, it will pay to absorb how the ND-Global Adaptation Index can assist you.  A quick tour offers three steps (each requiring just a minute) that can generate actionable information about country-level vulnerabilities from climate change and the readiness of countries to absorb and use new investments. By taking the tour, you’ll be able to apply climate savvy to the decisions you make this year.

The Index, free and open source, employs a layered structure, starting with the so-called GAIN ranking

3. The GAIN ranking orders every country by aggregating all measured factors into a single score. It allows a quick look at combined vulnerability and readiness. View the full rankings to find your countries within the index and compare their GAIN ranking with one another.

2. The GAIN Matrix shows the evolution of vulnerability and readiness over the past 15 years. It allows deeper insights into country risk and opportunity.  Add your countries to watch their evolution.

3. The GAIN Country Profiles provide you with all of the data and their sources, organized by specific vulnerability and readiness measures such as water availability, food security and education level.

So if you want to use the Index to size up your supply chain, you can examine a cross-section of the data most germane to your supply chain with just a few clicks on the rankings page. Here’s a snapshot for water, http://index.gain.org/ranking/vulnerability/water for example. Simple, fast, insightful.

Check it out, then tell me what you learn about your business through using this tool.

National Climate Assessment – getting people to do something about it

A few weeks after a spirited conversation with a client about how best to communicate sustainability, I spied an opportunity at the National Adaptation Forum early this month. The Forum was chock-a-block full of convincing data that emphasize we need to act.  But fewer actors than I would have liked attended; corporate participants were noticeably absent, except for a few private sector consultants, like me. Image from the January, 2013 DRAFT National Climate Assessmen

while the NCA process is designed to be highly inclusive and participatory, we need to ensure that the private sector is, indeed, meaningfully engaged.  The corporate sector has real risk and opportunity related to climate change and they should join the brave folks who have the temerity to ask what can be done to bring the rich resource – the national climate assessment – into the space of action.

(By the way, if you read no further, please note that the National Climate Assessment (NCA) will go to President Obama in December, and you have until the end of this week to comment.  Whoever you are, if you have a stake in your home, your business or your community, the report relates to you, so give it a gander!)

I maintain that the NCA nurtures several super powers:

1.       The power of the prez: Obama can meet with a key group of corporate scions (as he does when seeking assistance with passing key legislation) to share the national climate assessment and ask them to relate and discuss their own adaptation actions and challenges.

2.       The power of story:  There are millions of companies in America.  Climate change already has affected countless numbers of them.   What are they and other companies with foresight doing to adapt?  A nonfederal convener as impartial and neutral as Facebook could offer a cloud on which corporate adaptation stories could reside, with the NCA serving as a foundation.  For each chapter – health, agriculture, forestry, etc…..we could create a wiki of examples to inspire and cajole others to action.

3.       The power of accountability: Somewhere between the big donor and the common man sits the 300-plus U.S. companies that are part of the Carbon Disclosure Project or the more than 4,000 companies from 60 countries that report through the Global Reporting Initiative.  These companies are embracing accountability as a way to earn and burnish their license to lead. We must strongly encourage CDP and GRI to create a community of climate adaptation leaders by giving credence to adaptation.

The Carbon Disclosure Project has cast a spotlight on supply-chain engagements.  How about illuminating climate adaptation next?

In the meantime, check out NCAnet, a network of organizations working with the NCA to engage producers and users of assessment information across the United States.  Perhaps a group you collaborate with has already joined.  Or perhaps you can be the spark to ignite engagement.

Job Posting: Climate Adaptation Expert?

I am noticing something remarkable in arguably the most important job category: elected officials. Might we see a 180-degree shift in the qualifications for this unusual job category?  In 2010, six-term South Carolina Republican Bob Inglis lost his House seat because he believed in human-caused climate change. Now we have Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie who gets it, as do some former “flat earth” proponents. (Even Charles and David Koch, the oil tycoons who for years have bankrolled climate-change deniers, may be changing their tune since a study on earth surface temperatures, that they financed, in part found that global warming is occurring and humans have played a role in it.)

The way Christie ably managed the Hurricane Sandy climate crisis in his state has provided cover for politicians of all political persuasions to claim leadership in this area.  A good thing too, since  Yale Project on Climate Change Communication recently reported that 58 percent of registered voters consider global warming when determining for whom to vote.

Those numbers are for the U.S., but it appears to be true elsewhere. Greenland just elected a new prime minister, Aleqa Hammond, whose primary strength over the incumbent was her handling of mineral and metal rights in those growing areas of Greenland no longer covered by ice.  Thus, that election was settled over an already-changed climate.

Business may be a bit closer to making these choices, too. CDP Supply Chain Report 2012-13,  73 percent of surveyed companies  say they feel that climate change presents a physical risk to their operations. Still, fully 44 percent of CEOs in the survey acknowledged that climate change isn’t a significant item on their agendas.

Perhaps Greenbiz’ State of Green Business 2013 addresses it best when it asks (page 13) “at what point will climate, extreme weather and resource constraints be similarly seen as a patent threat that requires changes to the design and operation of our businesses and supply chains?  What will be the dramatic event(s) that provide the tipping point?  How much disruption and inconvenience will the public be willing to tolerate?”

So, let’s see if the hot new job of the 2020s will be Corporate Climate Research and Adaptation Strategic Advisor.   For thoughts on what that job entails, see Ten Point Checklist for Making Corporations Resilient and Asking the Climate Question: How to Create a Climate Adaptation Plan.

Adapt, media, we need you!

I’m sure you’ve noticed, as I have, the pick up in media reporting on climate change whenever a weather-related disaster occurs, especially around major events such as Hurricane Sandy, the prolonged Texas droughts and the Colorado wildfires.  And reporters are coming from a wide variety of beats, including politics, community affairs and real estate.  That diversity of story approaches is a dream come true for communications professionals such as I.  I am eager to see more proactive climate-change coverage, not just that in response to a crisis. That encouraging development is why I’m so bummed – and disturbed – to see the demise of the environmental desk at some of the top news outlets in the U.S.  This is troublesome because objective third-party reporting helps us understand the issues, the politics that often surround them, and the solutions to these precarious challenges. We need that coverage, perhaps even more than we need the reporting that accompanies a weather-related emergency.

What does it reflect that the NYTimes is dismantling its environment desk of seven reporters and two editors and placing them elsewhere, while at the same time dropping its Green Blog?  Why is the Washington Post reassigning its lead climate reporter off the environmental beat? They’re not alone. Four years ago, CNN dropped its environmental team and the network’s environmental coverage today is weaker. NBC slashed its staff of environmental reporters in 2008 – in the middle of Green Week!

Have the continual readership studies that news shops take in today’s fiercely competitive media world revealed that readers and listeners tune out on such coverage? Are other beats suddenly becoming more newsworthy and requiring additional resources?  I would like to know.  I also would love to ask veteran Pulitzer Prize judges whether they see fewer entries of investigative stories or series on environmental issues.

We’ve seen environmental-reporting cycles before. But why is this happening again at a time when Congress, the administration and corporate leaders are acknowledging climate change and the damages it’s triggering? As for consumers, surveys certainly indicate they are interested in environmental issues and what companies are doing to combat greenhouse gases and other pollutants. So what gives?

I seriously doubt that Mother Jones can go it alone on the environmental front within the print media, along with respected bloggers such as Marc Gunther and Aman Singh to pick up the slack.

In less than a week, a sell-out crowd will converge at the National Adaptation Forum in Denver.  Government, corporate and academic voices will debate, provoke and solve.  It’s a frame up for the media to get ahead of climate adaptation or, if they would prefer to think about it in their market’s terms, the next storm that undoubtedly will grace their websites’ home pages in the next 12 months.

I, for one, am going to look with interest at how many journalists – environmental specialists and those who aren’t – will attend the Forum. It will serve as another litmus test of the media’s genuine interest in covering issues that will determine if our planet withstands what the experts maintain lies ahead on climate change.

One more thing: Let’s give a shout out to a kickstarter-type campaign to pay for climate journalists. And let’s all ante up to help us adapt! Because what are the consequences when media interest evaporates as our environment evaporates?

Is Climate Adaptation CSR?

Is Climate Adaptation CSR? “Private Sector Engagement in Adaptation to Climate Change,” a new report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development is a worthwhile read, especially for discovering solid examples of extractive industry, water utility and agricultural adaptation.  However, the report notes that adaptation “does not fit neatly within standard Corporate Social Responsibility narratives.” This is because a defining characteristic of adaptation is that its benefits are often local and private, whereas mitigating greenhouse gas emissions has global and public benefits.

I believe that climate adaptation fits squarely within CSR for at least three reasons.  They are:

Community: Climate change requires community resiliency, and corporations have an opportunity to both show a commitment to their communities and gain market share through their community-level response to climate change.  After Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005, the early-in companies that provided goods more efficiently than did FEMA exemplified this. Their reputations benefited.

Social: Climate adaptation can help ensure the health and well-being of employees, in preventing climate impacts as well as mitigating harm during and after climate events.  Helping to prepare your workforce, from your headquarters to the factory floor, safeguards the safety – and contentment – of your employees.

Governance: Climate adaptation involves a great deal of risk mitigation, for which investors are always on the lookout. Of course, risk management at many organizations isn’t (yet) called climate adaptation.

What’s clear is that, say, without utilities, with shuttered stores and with impacted supply chains, the public experiences the direct local and global impacts of major climate events.  Indeed, the global benefits of a private sector resilient to changes in climate are more direct and tangible than the global benefits of private-sector greenhouse gas reductions.

My bet is that a handful of leading 2012 CSR reports will include a chapter on climate adaptation.  Good for them.

Climate and Society - A Look Back at 2011

Happy Lunar New Year!  It’s 4710 on the lunar calendar and, having reflected on the myriad end-of-year/start-of-year lists in my inbox since December began, Jan. 23 seems a good day to reflect on the most thought-provoking events and items concerning corporate climate adaptation in 2011.  Here are my top three – plus a wish for 2012:

1. Studies show that one-in-five major civil conflicts since 1950 may be linked to climate extremes associated with El Nino. Those big climate disturbances rooted in the tropical Pacific Ocean remind us to prepare for the collateral dis-benefits possible from shifting conditions.
2. Japan’s multi-layered tragedy – the worst earthquake there on record followed by a meter-high tsunami and concluding with the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl meltdown – prompts us to consider the domino effects of extreme events. It also changes the parameters of corporate extreme-event scenario planning.
3. Reflecting rising temperatures between 1980 and 2008, farms around the planet produced 3.8 percent less corn and 5.5 percent less wheat than they could have, suggesting that climate change is having an impact faster than we are adapting.

Between 1980 and 2008, climbing global temperatures took millions of tons of wheat off the dinner table, scientists say. Some countries experienced big losses due to weather (red), while in others, wheat production held steady (blue). (Science/AAAS)

My wish for 2012:  That companies boldly embrace the opportunity that climate adaptation sparks – leveraging intellectual property to sell climate-proofed and climate-resistant products.  I’ve mentioned some winners in previous blogs.  Here’s another set:

• Construction equipment – for clearing debris and rebuilding weather-stricken communities
• Mold removal – for helping communities cope with basements swamped by overbank flooding or basement backups
• Power tools – for chopping up felled trees that fall victim to arbor pests that weaken them or intense storms
• Auxiliary-powered equipment- such as generators and transistor radios for use in power outages during extreme weather

And what are your wishes?

Ten Point Checklist for Making Corporations Resilient

The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction has published an interesting guide:  Making Cities Resilient:  My City is Getting Ready. Its ten-point checklist for making cities resilient begs for a companion list.  I’ve added my two cents by developing a “Ten Point Checklist for Making Corporations Resilient.” http://www.unisdr.org/english/campaigns/campaign2010-2015/documents/campaign-kit.pdf

Ten-Point Checklist
	For Making Cities Resilient (UNISDR)	For Making Corporations Resilient
1	Put in place organization and coordination to understand and reduce disaster risk, based on participation of citizen groups and civil society. Build local alliances. Ensure that all departments understand their role regarding disaster risk reduction and preparedness.	Include climate adaptation in a member of the C-suite’s job description. Establish a cross-function climate adaptation working group and connections with local and regional governments in key geographies in your enterprise – especially operations and supply chain.  Consider collaborating with key members of your supply chain, industry peers and neighboring businesses on climate adaptation planning and execution. Ensure that all departments understand their role regarding disaster risk reduction and preparedness.
2	Assign a budget for disaster risk reduction and provide incentives for homeowners, low-income families, communities, businesses and the public sector to invest inreducing the risks they face.	Include budget lines for both proactive adaptation measures and recoup from extreme event.  Include climate adaptation in performance reviews for the C-suite, lieutenants and managers.
3	Maintain up-to-date data on hazards and vulnerabilities; prepare risk assessments; and use these as the basis for urban development plans and decisions. Ensure that this information and the plans for your city’s resilience are readily available to the public and fully discussed with them.	Include climate adaptation in your emergency preparedness and continuity plans initially, with annual updates.  Ensure that this information and the plans for your corporation’s resilience are readily available to your leadership team and fully discussed with them.
4	Invest in and maintain critical infrastructure that reduces risk, such as flooddrainage, adjusted where needed to cope with climate change.	Invest in and maintain critical infrastructure that reduces risk, such as flood drainage, snow removal, vector-borne disease prevention, and heat mitigation for workers and machinery, adjusted where needed to cope with climate change. Consider supply chain and building decisions with these risks in mind.
5	Assess the safety of all schools and health facilities and upgrade these asnecessary.	Assess the safety of all facilities, especially those in locations vulnerable to extreme weather events (coastal, arid) and upgrade or move.
6	Apply and enforce realistic, risk-compliant building regulations and land-use planning principles. Identify safe land for low-income citizens and develop upgrading of informal settlements, wherever feasible.	Engage with local governments to ensure that climate adaptation regulations protect residents and economic growth. Identify your most vulnerable employees (age, income, tasks, geography) and plan especially for their safety.
7	Ensure education programs and training on disaster risk reduction are in place in schools and local communities.	Ensure education programs and training on disaster risk reduction are in place throughout your enterprise, not just for disaster preparedness, but also for heat exhaustion, vector-borne disease, and the like.
8	Protect ecosystems and natural buffers to mitigate floods, storm surges and other hazards to which your city may be vulnerable. Adapt to climate change by building on effective risk-reduction practices.	Protect and enhance ecosystems and natural buffers in and near your holdings to mitigate floods, storm surges, extreme heat and other hazards.
9	Install early warning systems and emergency management capacities in your city and hold regular public preparedness drills.	Install early-warning systems and emergency-management capacities in your enterprise and hold regular preparedness drills.
10	After any disaster, ensure that the needs of survivors are placed at the center of reconstruction with support from them and their community organizations to design and help implement responses, including rebuilding homes and livelihoods.	After any disaster, ensure the needs of survivors are placed at the center of reconstruction.  See http://climateadaptationexchange.com/crisis-communications-are-you-ready-for-a-climate-related-crisis-in-your-business/ for communications guidelines.

Introducing Climate Adaptation Exchange!

Climate Adaptation Exchange is for people who understand climate change is already happening. It’s for those interested in what this means for the corporate sector and those considering what we can do to adapt to alterations in supply chains, buildings, infrastructure, markets and employees.

As noted in “Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change – America’s Climate Choices – 2010,” “Adaptation is an adjustment in natural or human systems to a new or changing environment that exploits beneficial opportunities or moderates negative ones.” This definition provides the first two of the three reasons I’m writing Climate Adaptation Exchange:

1. It will help companies exploit new business opportunities. 2. It will help companies to avoid negative impact. 3. It will help companies contribute to more resilient communities, so that climate threats will minimally damage social well-being, the economy and the environment.

Companies should engage in climate adaptation not only because money can be made, but because: 1. We’re missing out: if the corporate sector does not begin to engage, it risks being shut out of the climate-adaptation policy decisions emanating from federal, state and local governments. 2. We’re futurists: one big challenge with applying climate-adaptation thinking to any problem is that it’s based on a future we cannot predict. It’s no longer safe to assume the next 20 years are going to look like the past 20. Corporations get that. We’re good at creating opportunities for uncertain futures. 3. Our stakeholders are affected: whether you’re a B2B OR B2C firm, our stakeholders feel the impact of climate change, which will continue to influence their behavior and needs. We need to be ready to serve them - our bottom line depends on taking leadership here.

My blog will discuss questions such as: • What are “no regrets” corporate-climate adaptations? • How can we reap collateral benefits from climate mitigation to enhance climate adaptation? • How can we integrate climate scenarios into existing decision processes, including risk management, business continuity planning and new market realization? • What lessons can we glean from disaster mitigation for climate adaptation? • Can we turn climate-related crisis into opportunity? • What are the basic steps to executing climate-adaptation plans? • In the event of a climate-related crisis that affects your business, who serves as your spokesperson? • What are examples of leading-edge corporate climate adaptation?

Ultimately, I hope this blog helps you to ask and ponder the climate-adaptation question of your work and your teams. How will climate change impact this decision, and what should we do to adapt to exploit business opportunities, decrease risk and contribute to the community?