Adapting to climate change

After facing the harrowing prospects of nuclear catastrophe, the globe is now grappling intensive climate change. The concerns in this respect are genuine though the constraints of states about the costs to pay for adopting radical policies are also visible. Altering the current reliance on fossil fuels entails substantial financial and logistical concessions and the leading global economies are understandably worried about doing so.

Despite the limitations it is now manifest that global efforts to mitigate climate change are reaching greater scales of activities. It is reported that governments are pledging to slash greenhouse emissions to zero by 2050, investments into renewable energy now account for 70% of funding for new electricity generation, economies are being restructured around the taxation and trading of carbon emissions, climate tech accounts for 6% of early-stage VC funding, and geo-engineering projects may modify the atmosphere to reflect solar radiation or change the biological composition of the oceans to better capture and store carbon.

The scale of such pledged projects is indeed huge but many experts still feel that they are insufficient at adapting to the inevitable climate shocks already unfolding. It is common knowledge that environment is a complex system, always changing in new directions, not snapping back to familiar parameters from centuries past. It is becoming increasingly clear that the climate is not going to adapt to the human race but humans have to adapt to it. This realisation was strongly visible in the Glasgow summit as all global stakeholders evinced worry about the extent of damage caused by the climate change that is now upon the mother earth.

In this context it is mentioned that the 2016 Paris Climate Agreement and latest COP-26 summit in Glasgow represent a sea-change in commitments to mitigating climate change. 191 nations have pledged to make all efforts to keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius and more than $100 billion has been pledged to help developing countries transition their economies. Still, the fact remains that climate conditions will get worse before they get better, if they ever recover at all. The most recent IPCC report states that the world is on track to exceed the 1.5-degree target by 2040. Already, extreme weather phenomena such as cyclones and heat waves are becoming mass casualty events. The impending collapse of crucial oceanic currents coupled with irreversible sea level rise are a stark warning that there are effects from our past behavior already baked into the future irrespective of today’s mitigation efforts.

It is relevant to state that by focusing almost exclusively on mitigation strategies that will take decades to have impact, policy makers appear to be acting myopically. Building wind farms in America and Europe does little to help flood victims in many other parts of the world particularly in the developing countries. In the same vein it is mentioned that closing coal plants in China does not stop sea level rise in the Bay of Bengal and surrounding areas that are always in the eye of storm. Much of the world population needs some form of adaptation policy now, not after mounting efforts to bring emissions under control. Climate adaptation implies efforts to build defences against climate effects in the global infrastructure or to relocate populations to climate resilient areas that cannot remain the neglected sibling of climate mitigation any longer. Currently, such measures represent an alarmingly low 5-6% of total climate-related finance. For climate change policy to be humane, it must recognise that climate change already exists and the need to adapt to it is a reality.

Human race is also required to engineer a new Green Revolution led by vertical farming, hydro and aquaponic agriculture, and plant and cell-based protein are fast-growing industries that allow for far more localized and circular food production rather than our far-flung agricultural supply chains that currently account for nearly 15 percent of global emissions. Vertical farming allows up to ten times more crop growth in a given area and fourteen times more growth cycles than traditional farming. These developments allow people to control their food production more closely, freeing people from the mercy of the weather in growing food. And even where farmers remain exposed to meteorological volatility, genetically modified seeds capable of producing crops under water-stressed conditions can help them weather difficult growing seasons.

It is also noted that approximately 2.4 billion people live within 100 kilometers of a shoreline, with a density three times greater than non-coastal areas, making greater investments in coastal defenses an essential adaptation measure. Despite the returns on investment from adequate coastal protection, iconic cities such as Venice have made only sub-par efforts such as the floating barrier called MOSE which has failed to prevent significant flooding of St. Mark’s Square. The extreme scenario is represented by megacities such as Indonesia’s Jakarta, which plans to relocate itself as the country’s capital to the island Borneo. It is emphasised that if cities could be moved then people could also be moved. China has already undertaken comprehensive resettlement programmes for vulnerable areas such as Guizhou province, which has faced extensive deforestation, soil erosion, and extreme weather, relocating 2 million people between 2012 and 2020. Even though domestic climate migrants face short-term challenges such as higher unemployment, skills training programmes have contributed to restoring social mobility. In the long run, people are better off having relocated than being trapped in survival mode.

In this context the UN commitment to mobilise $100 billion of climate finance for developing countries is an important step in helping them overcome the path of hydrocarbon powered industry towards renewable energy but it does not address the need to provide equivalent support for societal resilience. A recent World Bank report found that spending just $1.8 trillion on adaptive measures in the next decade could produce $7.1 trillion worth of benefits. Ignoring these measures only raises the costs that countries face by an estimated $70-$100 billion annually by 2050. Adaptation, therefore, is a sound investment. Adaptation measures should also be incorporated into future climate agreements, both in order to create metrics for progress as well as a forum for sharing best practices in protecting vulnerable populations.

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