Climate change is occurring, and it is altering and will continue to alter peoples’ lives. U.S. policy makers can choose to implement adaptive measures cost-effectively before conditions deteriorate significantly, or they can decide to wait until conditions are so dire that adaptation is forced upon them, but at far greater cost once the damage is done. In other words, recognition of the problem must precede adaptation for it to be preventative and cost effective.
The United States will have to adapt to the changes caused by global warming in much the same way as other nations. Fortunately, the United States has the money it needs to adapt, provided that it has the political will to spend its capital on adaptation in a timely fashion. Like other nations, the United States will have to build levees or seawalls to keep the rising ocean from inundating its coastline, particularly around major cities and ports.
Two U.S. cities rank among the world’s top 20 in population threatened by coastal flooding by 2070 (Miami, Florida; New York-Newark, New Jersey), and four U.S. cities rank in the top 20 in terms of assets vulnerable to coastal flooding (Miami, New York-Newark, New Orleans, Virginia Beach). The United States could reduce coastal storm damage by restoring protective wetlands; however, this continues to be a low priority. Even in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, one football field–sized swath of Gulf wetlands continues to be destroyed every 38 minutes. Ensuring food security demands that the United States rein in the sprawl that is devouring agricultural land.
A 2007 report showed that, between 1973 and 2000, there was a 60 percent increase in suburban—and especially rural exurban—sprawl. Food security also makes it imperative that Americans develop drought-tolerant crop varieties that can thrive in the increasingly arid agricultural regions of the Midwest and West. Agricultural specialists should also begin devising means of combating new species of invasive plants and insects that could threaten our forests and food supply.
If food scarcity or skyrocketing food prices becomes severe, agricultural land now given over to raising corn for ethanol production will likely have to be returned to food crops. At some point, rising demand for shrinking water resources will force the United States to impose some types of water conservation measures. Cities in drought-prone regions must also implement serious water conservation measures and emergency plans.
In 2007, the Atlanta, Georgia, area experienced its worst drought in 100 years. It was not until the lake that provides 5 million people with drinking water had only 66 days worth of water left that local officials finally enacted water-saving measures. Water conservation is particularly vital in irrigation-dependent agricultural areas. Flood control along rivers, limiting or prohibiting development on floodplains and in wildfire-prone areas, and other measures will likely be required sooner or later to prevent loss of life and property. Adaptation should also entail strengthening or building alternatives to existing infrastructure, especially the outdated electric grid and roads and highways, which currently carry most goods and food. Alternative transport, such as high-speed rail, is a viable backup to highways and a low-carbon means of transporting people and goods.
Public health departments should be prepared to deal with new types of tropical infectious diseases, as well as large numbers of people displaced by extreme weather events. Towns and cities will likely have to expand weather emergency shelters, air-conditioned facilities for use during more frequent and intense heat waves, and stockpiles of emergency supplies of food and medicine. These adaptive measures will require the type of huge investment only the federal government can finance. It is primarily a matter of political will, of facing the realities on the ground, and of reordering priorities to adapt effectively to climate change.
Mitigation So far, U.S. states and localities have been far more proactive than the federal government in addressing global warming. The mayors of more than 300 municipalities have signed the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Many states are mandating high automobile fuel-efficiency standards. Thirty one states have passed laws requiring that increasing amounts of energy come from renewable sources. States are passing laws to cap GHG emissions, while implementing tax incentives for renewable energy. They’re requiring that new buildings be energy efficient and are offering incentives for installing alternative energy.
They are helping local businesses and their employees with programs that encourage residents to “buy local” and thus reduce the huge carbon footprint resulting from long-distance transport of goods. They are improving mass transit and buying only new buses and other municipal vehicles that have hybrid engines. Even the Big Apple has its PlaNYC, a 30-year project to make New York City sustainable.
Among other measures, the plan provides incentives and financing for building new infrastructure, making existing buildings energy efficient, and expanding public transit with hybrid buses and taxis. The comprehensive plan has attracted huge investment from banks and brokerages that expect handsome returns on their money because the plan is comprehensive, will boost the city’s economy by creating jobs and cutting energy costs, and will generally improve the quality of life in the city while cutting carbon emissions.
Many corporations, such as the members of the United States Climate Action Partnership (US-CAP), are climbing on the mitigation bandwagon. These corporations have undertaken programs to reduce their GHG emissions. For example, DuPont began its climate change mitigation program in 1991, with the goal of reducing its GHG emissions 65 percent by 2010; it has already achieved a 67 percent reduction in emissions and has saved about $2.1 billion through energy efficiency and alternative energy. Since the demise of the GCC, hundreds of corporations have pledged to reduce their carbon emissions and make their offices and manufacturing processes more energy efficient. Today, more corporations are asking the federal government for guidelines on deep emissions cuts rather than for exemptions from them. Unfortunately, the federal government has lagged behind both the public and the business community in its mitigation response.
In December 2007, Congress finally passed a clean energy bill, which was generally viewed as a small first step in the right direction. It provided funding for improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings, funded a program for training workers for jobs in the new “green economy,” promoted increased use of bio-fuels (especially from Midwest corn), and set a renewable portfolio standard for the percentage of electricity production to come from renewable (15 percent). The bill raised auto fuel-efficiency standards to an inadequate 35 mpg by 2020.
The bill failed to extend tax and other financial incentives that are sorely needed to invigorate the alternative energy sector. The legislation’s apparent weakness is in part a result of legislators’ fears that a bold program for reducing GHG emissions will also reduce GDP. As economic analyses make clear, there are costs associated with climate change mitigation, but they are far lower and less painful if they are made sooner rather than later. It is possible that citizens’ electric bills may rise temporarily, but this increase can be offset by providing subsidies and implementing feed-in provisions that require electric utilities to buy the electricity generated by alternative energy systems.
Fears of untenable economic costs also do not factor in the huge number of new jobs that would be created in energy efficiency and alternative energy industries as the nation cuts its carbon emissions. A study issued by the American Solar Energy Society showed that 40 million “green collar” jobs could be created by 2030 if the United States commits itself to and helps finance alternative energy and energy conservation.
The new jobs, which could account for 25 percent of the U.S. workforce, would be in engineering and related fields, manufacturing, construction and related fields, management, and accounting. A report issued by McKinsey & Co. in late 2007 showed that U.S. GHG emissions could be cut by 28 percent through “negative cost opportunities” (cost savings), such as energy-efficient lighting, heating, and cooling. An energy-savvy public that chose to buy more efficient electronics would also significantly reduce carbon emissions. If tax laws, subsidies, and emissions limits were added, the emissions reductions would be far more dramatic.
A 2008 analysis of 25 leading policy papers on the economic costs and benefits of climate change mitigation conducted at Yale University concluded that reducing U.S. GHG emissions by 40 percent over the next 20 years would still lead to economic growth of 2.4 percent annually (U.S. GDP growth has averaged about 3 percent per year in recent decades). Using currently available technologies, and with rising fossil fuel prices, even the most pessimistic assumptions predict better economic growth with emissions reductions than under a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario.