Technology may prevent the worst climate scenarios, but how do we adapt now?

叠测听Lisa Marshall

Ask a room full of experts for their solutions on addressing the climate crisis, and talk of promising new technologies often takes center stage.

Indeed, things like expanded solar and wind power and alternative transportation systems will play a critical role in mitigating some of the worst-case scenarios a warming planet could bring. But for those already living those scenarios, the time to adapt is now. It鈥檚 often the quieter, grass-roots strategies鈥攍ike implementing new farming practices, financially empowering women and including the most vulnerable when making plans for the future鈥攖hat can have a big impact, experts say.

According to by the World Economic Forum, more than half of adults on the planet believe climate change has already had a severe impact on their part of the world, and 35% fear it may force them from their homes in the next 25 years. In 2020 alone, weather-related events displaced .

鈥淭he reality is, we have already warmed the planet a lot and we need to be thinking about a world where climate-related disruptions are the new steady state,鈥� said sociologist Lori Peek, director of the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder. 鈥淭echnical fixes are important, but they can only get us so far. We need social fixes, too.鈥�

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鈥淭he reality is, we have already warmed the planet a lot and we need to be thinking about a world where climate-related disruptions are the new steady state.鈥�

鈥�Lori Peek

Empowering the vulnerable

For Constance Okollet, summit panelist and founder of the Osokura United Women Network, that means empowering women, who, as the traditional family caregivers in many areas, tend to bear the brunt of climate change impacts.

鈥淭he woman is the engine of the home,鈥� Okollet said via Zoom from her home in Asinget village, Uganda. 鈥淚f you want something to change, look to the woman.鈥�

Three-quarters of Uganda鈥檚 population relies on subsistence agriculture, with farmers using the money from selling surplus crops to pay for basics like children鈥檚 school fees and medicine. When crops fail, the effects ripple.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, already the world鈥檚 most food-insecure region, climate change is making things worse.

鈥淲hen I was growing up, we had good yields and times were good,鈥� recalled Okollet, a 58-year-old mother of seven.听

Now, people must travel long distances for water, and scorching droughts are followed by floods that wash away crops. Every season is a gamble.听

鈥淣ow, there is no food,鈥� she said. 鈥淧eople go to sleep hungry. People are dying.鈥�

She helped establish the Osokura United Women Network in the late 2000s, after lethal floods washed away crops, livestock and homes in her own village. At the time, she didn鈥檛 know what climate change was. When she learned that pollution from industrialized nations was essentially killing her neighbors, she was stunned. People in her region didn鈥檛 cause the problem, but she had ideas on how to help solve it.

With about 2,000 members, the group sends participants across the region to educate their neighbors about climate change and how to adapt. They teach them how to pool and save money so they can survive when crops fail, start small businesses, and manage their farmland in ways that make it more resilient.

Meanwhile, Okollet travels the world encouraging policymakers to invest in and replicate grassroots programs like hers.

About 2,000听 miles to the south, in Johannesburg, panelist Ndivile Mokoena, project coordinator for Gender CC Southern Africa, takes a similar approach. The organization brings women from different regions and generations together to learn from one another about how to handle new pests, extended dry spells or torrential rains in their kitchen gardens or farms.

If a particular seed isn鈥檛 working in one area anymore but working in another, they trade.

They teach one another how to preserve and can, so if there is no harvest, they have food听 to live on. They learn how to get credit or even buy their own land, a practice once unheard of due to patriarchal traditions. And they learn how to engage in the political process.

鈥淲e are teaching them to be a part of the dialogue around climate change, so that no decisions are made about them without them,鈥� Mokoena said.

Constance Okollet. Image credit:听Edward Echwalu

Rethinking home

Some models project that as many as 340 million people in coastal areas could be displaced by rising sea waters by 2050.

For many of these communities, adaptation will mean picking up and permanently leaving home.

To ensure that relocation is successful and just, policymakers around the world should be making plans now, inviting communities to talk about what this migration might look like, said听Jola Ajibade, an associate听professor of geography at Portland State University who studies managed retreat due to climate change.

In one of 138 case studies of relocations, she concluded that just 46% were successful. All of the relocations came with unintended consequences.

In one case in Lagos, where Ajibade is from, about 30,000 people were violently forced out of a coastal community with guns and teargas, with no place to go. In several instances, often in poor communities in developing countries, top-down government plans have moved people from one threat, such as sea level rise, to another, drought or landslides. Often, people are moved to new communities to find the houses poorly built, and no access to transportation or cultural touchstones, like churches or burial grounds.

In contrast, the paper points to the Blue Acres buyout program in New Jersey as, in many ways, a standout model to improve community resilience amid a changing climate. Established in 1995, it offers homeowners pre-disaster market value for their properties while extending relocation assistance to renters. Vacated land is converted into parks. And community members are largely driving the process. Blue Acres has purchased over 700 properties statewide and negotiated nearly $6 million in debt relief for people owing more than their home is worth, Ajibade reported.

鈥淎 paradigm shift in retreat policies, planning and implementation is urgently needed,鈥� she wrote, noting that such success stories are the exception, particularly in the developing world.

Ajibade鈥檚 advice to policymakers: 鈥淪tart talking to communities now, long before deciding whether relocation is the appropriate adaptation, about what that would look like. And make sure the most vulnerable people鈥檚 voices are not just heard, but taken seriously.鈥�

Jola Ajibade

Building community resilience

Relocation plans aside, nearly every community must face the fact that natural disasters are now a norm, not an exception, Peek said.

鈥淭he single most important thing we can do is invest in our community before the next disaster comes,鈥� she said.

That means, in addition to making buildings and infrastructure stronger, making our social fabric stronger.

鈥淭here is growing recognition that these events are not 鈥榞reat equalizers,鈥欌€� Peek said. 鈥淧eople at the margins suffer first and worst.鈥�

Peek encourages communities to develop communication strategies to ensure that everyone,听including the elderly, children and people with听 disabilities, knows how to get out when disaster comes, and plans to be sure schoolchildren can continue to learn (and ideally stay connected with one another) if evacuated.

Peek听also said she hopes to see policy changes that support people, both socially and financially, if they can鈥檛 return home.

鈥淥ur whole structure of recovery has been predicated on people recovering in the places where they were, but what if those places are no longer safe?鈥� Peek said. 鈥淭hose are the kinds of discussions we need to be having鈥攓uestioning the whole basis of disaster recovery.鈥�

Another way to become more resilient to climate change: Get to know your neighbors. You may need their help someday.

鈥淚f we are ever going to come up with real solutions, it鈥檚 going to be through mutual connections and investments in this one great planet that we call home,鈥� Peek said.

Lori Peek

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