Heat waves, floods, storms and droughts caused by climate change are making life difficult for people around the world. Societies will have to adapt to these changes, but governments, businesses and individuals will not be able to afford protection everywhere, and many people will not want to live with high levels of risk.
As I argue in my new book, Sink or swimwe will have to make some difficult decisions about how best to adapt to this new world. Such choices include where we can live safely, who makes those decisions, and how we can change the global food system to meet everyone's needs in times of scarcity.
Negotiators at COP30 in Brazil later this month will focus on mobilizing finance to help low-income countries cut emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change.
At the annual UN conference last year in Baku, Azerbaijan, governments agreed to mobilize at least $300 billion by 2035 and seek to raise up to $1.3 trillion from public and private sources. But many high-income countries are not doing their part. fair shareAnd UNEP estimates that the adaptation financing gap in low-income countries ranges from $187 to $359 billion per year.
More money is needed, but even a large increase alone will not be enough to cope with the risks the world faces. As I have seen in my own adaptation work with governments and civil society, adaptation efforts are still often small-scale and gradual. Measures such as early warning systems, cooling rooms and flood barriers are important and can help – for now. But this approach will not be enough to adapt to the consequences we face, such as heat wavesfloods, crop failures and potential ecosystem collapse, and we will have to deal with the difficult issues facing us.
One of those difficult choices will be when and how to relocate communities from low-lying coastlines. Eat examples planned resettlement in many places, including China, Fiji, India, Japan, the Philippines and the United States. But it's real hard to do well. Residents of Wales have learned from local media that naval defenses around their town will not be maintained in the future, but many more places in the UK are under threat.
Governments will need ways to choose which places to defend in the face of rising sea levels and flooding, and which places will require retreat. At each of these sites, we will need consultation to enable communities to identify what is important to them, and support from government to help those forced to move.
Another difficult choice will be how to balance diversity and food system performance to ensure sufficient resilience to withstand turmoil and enough food to feed the world's growing population. The food system is especially vulnerable to climate change because there is so little diversity. A huge number of major crops are grown in several regions of the world. limited variety dominate global consumption. A diverse system with more built-in redundancy would be more resilient, but creating it involves difficult decisions and trade-offs with efficiency and performance.
Governments will need to invest in or subsidize more diverse food varieties, support local food systems, and establish a wider range of trade relationships. This will entail higher short-term costs but also greater long-term benefits in the event of shocks.
Making difficult decisions like these, and in areas such as migration, water use and biodiversity, will require high levels of public and private investment, as well as trade-offs, trade-offs and short-term political costs.
But by failing to recognize what needs to be done, we risk dooming ourselves forever to the chaos of the climate crisis.
Suzanne Fisher – author Sink or swim: how the world needs to adapt to a changing climate
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