The Cost of Climate Change
To people in a lot of areas, the cost of climate change is what it may cost them to deal with repairs and improvements due to weather events. That’s a big deal, but there’s a lot more.
University of Pennsylvania held a “Climate Week” in October with talks and programs about climate change. To address this, the world needs equipment and buildings that produce less carbon dioxide. We also need to construct structures that allow us to live with sea level increases, increased warmth, and weather events.
I watched a talk by Simon Richter whose specialty is how Holland copes with climate change. This spring, Nancy and I took a bucket-list bike trip in Holland. The formal name of the country, Netherlands, means “lowlands” in Dutch. Lots of the country already is below sea level. The Dutch reclaimed it over many years with dikes. Climate planning in Holland is for two levels of sea rise: 2 meters (about 6 feet) and 5 meters.
There is a huge set of gates at the mouth of Amsterdam Harbor right now to keep out the sea. Depending on the amount of sea rise, plans call for allowing some land that is now dry to be reclaimed by the sea. Rivers will have to be pumped up and over the dikes into the sea. These are big-bucks plans. Netherlands is a prosperous country and should be able to figure out how to pay.
The Maldives is a poor country consisting of islands in the Indian Ocean. They have already diked their main island. They don’t have much income, and say that with their farming and fishing economy, they didn’t cause climate change, and the developed countries should pay.
In the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting a 1-foot sea level rise in the next 30 years. The hundred-year sea rise could be more on the order of 4-6 feet. While the sea level rise is not occurring overnight, it is not going to be insignificant either.
People love to live near and to watch the sea. Because of climate change, the intensity of hurricanes has increased. I have a friend who owns a home in the Florida Keys. When I visited a couple of years ago, it looked to me that at high tide ground level was about 2’ higher than sea level. In 30 years, absent dikes or other provisions, water will be lapping at the foundation daily.
Some insurers have exited Florida because they see the conditions now and in the future. That leaves the state and federal governments as the only alternatives to individuals to pay for steps to adapt. Another Climate Week session I attended talked about financing adaptation. I can’t see much alternative to doing what the Dutch plan to do – let some areas return to the sea – and plan on protecting the remaining areas. FEMA already has a program in place to buy houses in flood areas and turn them into public space.
The US Global Change Research Program released its 5th National Climate Assessment. The report says that whatever we do to mitigate the drivers of climate change is the most cost-efficient way of dealing with it. In other words, trying to address the things that cause warming is more effective than raising house foundations, or relocating people to less flood prone areas.
Scientists know what we must do. Whether we citizens and the politicians do the right thing remains to be seen. All the incentives to convert to energy efficient low carbon emissions make sense.
Can we afford what we need to do? I read in the New York Times that the US is modernizing our nuclear weapons at a cost of a trillion dollars. Our planes and missiles with nuclear warheads are all 30+ years old.
Our president could appeal to China and Russia. Milton Friedman, the economist, said that with limited production, we can produce guns or butter, not both. Why can’t we get together to reduce nuclear arms? Then we can use that money for Climate Change. Problem solved.
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