Climate Change-TED Talks-Vicki Arroyo: Let´s prepare for our new climate

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Transcript:


This is the skyline of my hometown, New Orleans.It was a great place to grow up,but it's one of the most vulnerable spots in the world.Half the city is already below sea level.In 2005, the world watched as New Orleansand the Gulf Coast were devastated by Hurricane Katrina.One thousand, eight hundred and thirty-six people died. Nearly 300,000 homes were lost.These are my mother's, at the top --although that's not her car,it was carried there by floodwaters up to the roof --and that's my sister's, below.Fortunately, they and other family members got out in time,but they lost their homes, and as you can see,just about everything in them.

Other parts of the world have been hit by stormsin even more devastating ways.In 2008, Cyclone Nargis and its aftermathkilled 138,000 in Myanmar.Climate change is affecting our homes, our communities,our way of life. We should be preparingat every scale and at every opportunity.

This talk is about being prepared for, and resilient tothe changes that are coming and that will affect our homesand our collective home, the Earth.

The changes in these times won't affect us all equally.There are important distributional consequences,and they're not what you always might think.In New Orleans, the elderly and female-headed householdswere among the most vulnerable.For those in vulnerable, low-lying nations,how do you put a dollar value on losing your countrywhere you ancestors are buried? And where will your people go?And how will they cope in a foreign land?Will there be tensions over immigration,or conflicts over competition for limited resources?It's already fueled conflicts in Chad and Darfur.Like it or not, ready or not, this is our future.

Sure, some are looking for opportunities in this new world.That's the Russians planting a flag on the ocean bottomto stake a claim for minerals under the receding Arctic sea ice.But while there might be some short-term individual winners,our collective losses will far outweigh them.Look no further than the insurance industry as they struggleto cope with mounting catastrophic lossesfrom extreme weather events.

The military gets it. They call climate changea threat multiplier that could harm stability and security,while governments around the world are evaluatinghow to respond.

So what can we do? How can we prepare and adapt?I'd like to share three sets of examples, starting withadapting to violent storms and floods.In New Orleans, the I-10 Twin Spans,with sections knocked out in Katrina, have been rebuilt21 feet higher to allow for greater storm surge.And these raised and energy-efficient homeswere developed by Brad Pitt and Make It Rightfor the hard-hit Ninth Ward.The devastated church my mom attends has beennot only rebuilt higher, it's poised to becomethe first Energy Star church in the country.They're selling electricity back to the gridthanks to solar panels, reflective paint and more.Their March electricity bill was only 48 dollars.

Now these are examples of New Orleans rebuilding in this way,but better if others act proactively with these changes in mind.For example, in Galveston, here's a resilient homethat survived Hurricane Ike,when others on neighboring lots clearly did not.And around the world, satellites and warning systemsare saving lives in flood-prone areas such as Bangladesh.

But as important as technology and infrastructure are,perhaps the human element is even more critical.We need better planning and systems for evacuation.We need to better understand how people make decisionsin times of crisis, and why.While it's true that many who died in Katrina did not have access to transportation,others who did refused to leave as the storm approached,often because available transportation and sheltersrefused to allow them to take their pets.Imagine leaving behind your own pet in an evacuation or a rescue.Fortunately in 2006, Congress passedthe Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act (Laughter)— it spells "PETS" — to change that.

Second, preparing for heat and drought.Farmers are facing challenges of drought from Asiato Africa, from Australia to Oklahoma,while heat waves linked with climate changehave killed tens of thousands of peoplein Western Europe in 2003, and again in Russia in 2010.

In Ethiopia, 70 percent, that's 7-0 percent of the population,depends on rainfall for its livelihood.Oxfam and Swiss Re, together with Rockefeller Foundation,are helping farmers like this one build hillside terracesand find other ways to conserve water,but they're also providing for insurance when the droughts do come.The stability this provides is giving the farmersthe confidence to invest.It's giving them access to affordable credit.It's allowing them to become more productive so thatthey can afford their own insurance over time, without assistance.It's a virtuous cycle, and one that could be replicatedthroughout the developing world.

After a lethal 1995 heat waveturned refrigerator trucks from the popularTaste of Chicago festival into makeshift morgues,Chicago became a recognized leader,tamping down on the urban heat island impactthrough opening cooling centers,outreach to vulnerable neighborhoods, planting trees,creating cool white or vegetated green roofs.This is City Hall's green roof, next to Cook County's [portion of the] roof,which is 77 degrees Fahrenheit hotter at the surface.Washington, D.C., last year, actually led the nationin new green roofs installed, and they're funding this in partthanks to a five-cent tax on plastic bags.They're splitting the cost of installing these green roofswith home and building owners.The roofs not only temper urban heat island impactbut they save energy, and therefore money,the emissions that cause climate change,and they also reduce stormwater runoff.So some solutions to heat can provide for win-win-wins.

Third, adapting to rising seas.Sea level rise threatens coastal ecosystems, agriculture,even major cities. This is what one to two metersof sea level rise looks like in the Mekong Delta.That's where half of Vietnam's rice is grown.

Infrastructure is going to be affected.Airports around the world are located on the coast.It makes sense, right? There's open space,the planes can take off and land without worrying aboutcreating noise or avoiding tall buildings.Here's just one example, San Francisco Airport,with 16 inches or more of flooding.Imagine the staggering cost of protectingthis vital infrastructure with levees.But there might be some changes in storethat you might not imagine. For example,planes require more runway for takeoffbecause the heated, less dense air, provides for less lift.San Francisco is also spending 40 million dollarsto rethink and redesign its water and sewage treatment,as water outfall pipes like this one can be flooded with seawater,causing backups at the plant, harming the bacteriathat are needed to treat the waste.So these outfall pipes have been retrofittedto shut seawater off from entering the system.

Beyond these technical solutions, our workat the Georgetown Climate Center with communitiesencourages them to look at what existing legal and policy tools are availableand to consider how they can accommodate change.For example, in land use, which areas do you wantto protect, through adding a seawall, for example,alter, by raising buildings, or retreat from,to allow the migration of important natural systems,such as wetlands or beaches?

Other examples to consider. In the U.K.,the Thames Barrier protects London from storm surge.The Asian Cities Climate [Change] Resilience Networkis restoring vital ecosystems like forest mangroves.These are not only important ecosystems in their own right,but they also serve as a buffer to protect inland communities.

New York City is incredibly vulnerable to storms,as you can see from this clever sign, and to sea level rise,and to storm surge, as you can see from the subway flooding.But back above ground, these raised ventilation gratesfor the subway system show that solutions can be bothfunctional and attractive. In fact, in New York,San Francisco and London, designers have envisionedways to better integrate the natural and built environmentswith climate change in mind.

I think these are inspiring examples of what's possiblewhen we feel empowered to plan for a world that will be different.But now, a word of caution.Adaptation's too important to be left to the experts.Why? Well, there are no experts.We're entering uncharted territory, and yetour expertise and our systems are based on the past."Stationarity" is the notion that we can anticipate the futurebased on the past, and plan accordingly,and this principle governs much of our engineering,our design of critical infrastructure, city water systems,building codes, even water rights and other legal precedents.But we can simply no longer rely on established norms.We're operating outside the bounds of CO2 concentrationsthat the planet has seen for hundreds of thousands of years.

The larger point I'm trying to make is this.It's up to us to look at our homes and our communities,our vulnerabilities and our exposures to risk,and to find ways to not just survive, but to thrive,and it's up to us to plan and to prepareand to call on our government leaders and require themto do the same, even while they addressthe underlying causes of climate change.

There are no quick fixes.There are no one-size-fits-all solutions.We're all learning by doing.But the operative word is doing.Thank you. (Applause)(Applause)