Climate Justice in a State of Emergency: What New York City Can Do

NYC Climate Justice Agenda – Climate Justice in a State of Emergency: What New York City Can Do is a roadmap with policy recommendations for how a progressive city can lead the way on environmental and climate issues while challenging the reactionary policies of the Trump administration

UK emergency preparedness: a holistic local response?

Purpose – This paper aims to argue that to address the consequences of climate change and variability a greater focus on pre-emergency planning that engages a wider stakeholder group must be adopted. Design/methodology/approach – The paper discusses UK emergency management and approaches to climate change and climate variability risk. Findings – The internal focus of UK emergency management inhibits the contribution that it can make to societal resilience and public preparedness. Effective risk reduction requires that all actors, including the public, are engaged in the social learning process. From a UK emergency management perspective this requires a culture shift to an outward proactive focus. Originality/value – This paper offers insights into emergency preparedness in the UK

Climate change and transport infrastructures: State of the art

Transport infrastructures are lifelines: They provide transportation of people and goods, in ordinary and emergency conditions, thus they should be resilient to increasing natural disasters and hazards. This work presents several technologies adopted around the world to adapt and defend transport infrastructures against effects of climate change. Three main climate change challenges have been examined: Air temperatures variability and extremization, water bombs, and sea level rise. For each type of the examined phenomena the paper presents engineered, and architectural solutions adopted to prevent disasters and protect citizens. In all cases, the countermeasures require deeper prediction of weather and climate conditions during the service life of the infrastructure. The experience gained supports the fact that strategies adopted or designed to contrast the effects of climate change on transport infrastructures pursue three main goals: To prevent the damages, protect the structures, and monitor and communicate to users the current conditions. Indeed, the analyses show that the ongoing climate change will increase its impact on transport infrastructures, exposing people to unacceptable risks. Therefore, prevention and protection measures shall be adopted more frequently in the interest of collective safety

How Mobile Devices are Transforming Disaster Relief and Public Safety

With its growing usage, mobile technology is greatly improving disaster relief and public safety efforts. Countries around the world face threats from natural disasters, climate change, civil unrest, terrorist attacks, and criminal activities, among others. Mobile devices, tablets, and smart phones enable emergency providers and the general public to manage these challenges and mitigate public safety concerns.In this paper, part of the Brookings Mobile Economy Project, we focus on how mobile technology provides an early warning system, aids in emergency coordination, and improves public communications. In particular, we review how mobile devices assist with public safety, disaster planning, and crisis response. We explain how these devices are instrumental in the design and functioning of integrated, multi-layered communications networks. We demonstrate how they have helped save lives and ameliorate human suffering throughout the world

It Is Time to Factor Natural Disasters into Macroeconomic Scenarios

Over the recent year, humanity has faced natural disasters of unprecedented magnitude and impact. However, governments and international aid organizations do not systematically plan for preventing and mitigating the effects of natural disasters, and macroeconomic scenarios seldom take into account the results of their increasing incidence, damages, and costs. Using evaluative lessons from the experience of the World Bank, this note highlights the urgent need to invest in climate change mitigation, disaster preparedness, early response, and postdisaster reconstruction.earthquake, climate change, mitigation, adaptation, flood, drought, development, developing countries, weather, World Bank, emergency planning

CLIMATE FORECASTING AND EMERGENCY POLICIES EVIDENCE OF OPPORTUNITIES FROM CEARÁ, BRAZIL

We take small steps towards the approximation between economic analysis and the science of climate forecasting in the formulation of policies to alleviate the impact of climatic shocks. We do so by estimating the relationship between climate variables and corn production in Ceará, an important State in the Brazilian semi-arid. Using parametric and non-parametric regression models, we first estimate the relationship between contemporaneous sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and the local rainfed corn market. Next, we investigate the forecasting potential of future corn production conditional on information on current SSTs. We find strong evidence that climate determinants are important in determining current and future corn production, a key indicator of the climatic stress to which a large number of small farmers are subject in the Brazilian semi-arid. Additionally, corn production in the region is negatively correlated with federal government transfers meant to mitigate the impact of local droughts. These resources have been subject to lethargic bureaucracies, corruption and economic inefficiencies in general. The observation and forecasting of corn production can be invaluable in the design of more efficient, expeditious and transparent policies to mitigate the effects of droughts in the region.

The human impact of heatwaves and extreme weather

In the last century, Australia\u27s average temperature rose by slightly less than one degree over the pre-industrial average. Without concerted action by all countries, including Australia, the world is on a path to exceeding 4°C by the 2060s. While some further warming is already locked in to the climate system, the worst is still avoidable.The tasks now are to avoid the unmanageable consequences of full-blown climate change and, at the same time, manage the unavoidable. This means recognising the full human cost of disasters, an early investment in community resilience—strengthening communities’ capacity to recovery, as well proper resourcing of emergency services.To delay action is to court a lot of unnecessary human suffering

Buffalo Niagara at the Crossroads: How State Energy Policies can Lead Western New York to a Green, Prosperous, and Just Future

Buffalo Niagara stands at a climate crossroads. Looking down one road, we can see a chance to rebuild impoverished neighborhoods with quality jobs, green affordable housing, community-owned renewable energy, urban farms, and community gardens, building on the highly successful example of the Green Development Zone on the city’s West Side. Looking down another road, we can see an inequitable region made even more unjust and vulnerable by climate change impacts such as heat waves, extreme weather events, and governments too overwhelmed with emergency response to provide quality services to their residents. Which road we travel will depend in part on the new energy policies that New York State is in the process of creating. With thoughtful legislation and regulation, we have a narrow window of opportunity to move rapidly toward clean energy and to make sure, in the transition, that our most vulnerable workers and residents gain, rather than lose, from the new economy that is rising around our eyes

Assessing the Risk of 100-year Freshwater Floods in the Lamprey River Watershed of New Hampshire Resulting from Changes in Climate and Land Use

What is the coastal resource issue the project sought to address? Both the magnitude and frequency of freshwater flooding is on the rise in seacoast NH and around much of New England. In the Great Bay watershed, this is the result of two primary causes: 1) increases in impervious surface stemming from a three-to-four fold increase in developed land since 1962; and 2) changing rainfall patterns in part exemplified by a doubling in the frequency of extreme weather events that drop more than 4 inches of precipitation in less than 48 hours (Wake et al., 2011) over the same time period. Moreover, the size of the 100-year precipitation event in this region has increased 26% from 6.3 inches to 8.5 inches from the mid 1950’s to 2010 (NRCC and NRCS, 2012). One consequence is the occurrence of three 100-year floods measured on the Lamprey River at Packers Falls since 1987, and a fourth if the three days of flooding in March of 2010 had occurred instead in two days (Figure 1). Flooding events are expected to continue to increase in magnitude and frequency as land in the watershed is further developed and climate continues to change in response to anthropogenic forcing (e.g., Hayhoe et el., 2007; IPCC, 2007; Karl et al., 2009). Land use management strategies, in particular low impact development (LID) zoning requirements, are one strategy that communities can employ for increased resiliency to flooding with the greatest influence in urban environments

Health Problems Heat Up: Climate Change and the Public's Health

Examines the health effects of climate change, the needed public health response, concerns for communities at high risk, and state planning and funding for climate change assessments and strategies. Makes federal, state, and local policy recommendations