Asking the Climate Question: How to Create a Climate Adaptation Plan

Asking the Climate Question: How to Create  a Climate Adaptation Plan

So let’s save ourselves some time and use not only public resources but the example of a public process to ensure we are climate resilient. 

Here are five steps to climate resiliency with excellent city resources to enhance your company’s preparedness:  

1.    Review local climate-change impact projections.

(See Climate Change Adaptation in New York City: Building a Risk Management Response, Volume 1196 of the Annals of the New York Academy of Science; and Chicago’s)

2.    Identify relevant vulnerabilities.

(Chicago’s are extreme heat, extreme precipitation, ecosystem changes. New York’s includes inundation.)

3.    Prepare an economic risk analysis.

(In Chicago, conservatively estimated the total cost impact of anticipated climate changes on city departments and functions for the 2010-2099 period as $2.54 BN.)

4.    Create adaptation strategies

5.    Use a short- and medium-term plan that:

a.    Focuses on existing adaptation.

b.    Considers, especially, adaptations that also mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

c.    Sets as priorities adaptations with a collateral improvement to your bottom line and your employees’ quality of life.