Adapting to climate change will require more ‘transformative changes’
A major new UN report has warned that relying only on sea walls and other engineering improvements will not be enough to keep communities safe from rising sea levels or other consequences of climate change. Seawalls may be able to temporarily stop rising tides and storm surges, but the report's authors say "transformative changes to our behavior and infrastructure" are needed as the climate crisis worsens.
The report emphasizes that green cities and healthy ecosystems are just as important as the infrastructure built to keep people safe. And urban planners may have to give up developing some of the most vulnerable coastal areas, or risk building in places that will be flooded in the future.
The report, authored by hundreds of experts from 67 countries, also synthesizes what the vast body of research tells us about how the climate crisis affects society – and what humans will need to adapt to. Deadly heat stress could affect 76 percent of humanity by the end of the century, the report said. If world leaders fail to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement, 3 billion people worldwide (about 40 percent of the current global population) could face chronic water shortages.
But in many places there is a problem of too much sea water. More than a billion people living in low-lying coastal areas around the world will be exposed to climate-related risks such as frequent flooding or even permanent flooding by the middle of the century – which allows many people to move to higher ground. can force.
The report finds that communities around the world have not done nearly enough to prepare for climate change, so they must take immediate action to avoid unnecessary pain. Sometimes, protecting a community requires building physical defenses, such as sea walls, acknowledges the report. But seawalls are not a one-size-fits-all solution, and they are not always the best option.
This makes them a classic example of what the report's authors call "abuse"—strategies that are supposed to help people cope with dramatic changes, but wind up with unintended negative consequences. Seawalls can work well to protect a small area of coastline, but can damage neighboring coral reefs, which serve as natural barriers that keep the shoreline from swelling during major storms. Seawalls could increase risk in the long run by encouraging more residents to settle in a more dangerous place than they thought.
There are other solutions that are often overlooked. "In many cases, "re-establishing wetlands is cheaper and more effective and more resilient to impending climate change than difficult barriers to climate change to come," said report co-author Camille Parmesan in a press call. are like sponges that can make flooding less severe and prevent erosion. But around the world these types of nature-based solutions have received less funding than concrete infrastructure projects, notes the report.
Without cutting down on planet-heating pollution, in some places the savings are already expected to be beyond that. "It looks like people won't be able to adapt," report co-author Adele Thomas said in the press call. "For coastal communities, things like ocean walls ... pouring into sand dunes or relying on ecosystem-based adaptations like restoring coral reefs or wetlands will no longer be economically feasible, or no longer technically feasible. Will not done."
Some coastal communities have picked up and abandoned or are preparing their homes to become real-life Atlantis. And while the report is clear that climate change affects people and infrastructure everywhere, some places struggle more than others. "People and ecosystems that are least able to cope are being hit hardest," said a press release for the report. And "finance has favored the richest rather than the poorest," says an accompanying fact sheet.
The new report released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the second in a series. The first piece came out last year, detailing how climate change is supercharging extreme weather and causing other catastrophic changes on the planet. The third in the series is expected next month, and will focus on solutions to slow global warming.