Coastal infrastructureClimate change discussion: Shifting from mitigation to adaptation
Many infrastructure protection experts say that there is a need to discuss not only how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also how to plan for and adapt to the inevitable consequences of those emissions, which are already changing the climate. One area in which adaptation to climate change is likely to be especially painful is in coastal areas affected by sea level rise. In some coastal regions, communities will be forced to retreat from the coast as a result of rising sea level and increasing damage from storms and flooding. Part of the problem is that policies such as disaster relief programs and insurance regulations create a system that protects many property owners from the true costs of building in risk-prone areas of the coast. “We have a system of private gains and externalized costs,” said one expert.
Most of the discussion at the second annual UC Santa Cruz Climate & Policy Conference was not about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but about how to plan for and adapt to the inevitable consequences of those emissions, which are already changing the climate.
A UC Santa Cruz release reports that in his keynote speech Friday night, Penn State geologist Richard Alley provided an overview of how our society’s reliance on fossil fuels for energy is driving climate change, and he described how costly the impacts of global warming will be, in both economic and human terms. Alley also made the case that the technology is available now to make the transition to a sustainable energy system, and that it makes sense economically to do so.
“If you just look at dollars and cents, the economy is still better if we start to wisely reduce our use of fossil fuels,” Alley said. “Dealing with it makes us better off–it gives us a stronger economy and more jobs.”
The transition will take time, however, and in the meantime carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels continues to pour into the atmosphere, where it traps heat and warms the planet. The result is a changing climate, but taking action now can still make a big difference, said Daniel Schrag, director of the Harvard University Center for the Environment.
“We can’t stop climate change, but we can stop climate change from being truly catastrophic,” said Schrag, a panelist in a Saturday afternoon session that focused on the “wicked tradeoffs” that are inevitable in dealing with a warming planet. “There is a big difference between two degrees and four degrees or eight degrees,” he said, referring to the increase in global average surface temperature expected under different emissions scenarios.
Adaptation and tradeoffs
“Adaptation is now upon us, and it will involve tradeoffs,” said moderator Daniel Press, the Griswold Professor of Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz. For example, panelists discussed the growing competition for reduced water supplies, pitting cities against agricultural and environmental needs. That particular conflict has become familiar to Californians as the state enters its fourth year of drought.
“We’re already not in the climate we used to have,” said panelist Noah Diffenbaugh, a Stanford University climate scientist who earned his Ph.D. at UC Santa Cruz. Diffenbaugh noted that drought is not just a result of reduced snow and rainfall.
