Climate threatsCan we prepare for climate impacts without creating financial chaos?
Likely sooner than we think, the destruction that warmer global temperatures are inflicting — through record floods, wildfires, droughts, and hurricanes — could physically overwhelm our ability to maintain many communities in their existing form. Communities face a tricky dilemma as climate changes: How to prepare for impacts without scaring away homeowners and investors and setting off a damaging economic spiral.
There is a perverse and hidden danger from climate change that few people, even those who unquestionably accept the science, know how to deal with. Someday, likely sooner than we think, the destruction that warmer global temperatures are inflicting — through record floods, wildfires, droughts and hurricanes — could physically overwhelm our ability to maintain many communities in their existing form.
But by talking openly about this, and taking the necessary steps to address it, communities open the door to another danger. If markets suddenly value the risk of climate change properly, it could lead to a mass withdrawal of investment that kills real estate values, dries up tax revenue and leads to a wider financial crisis.
That is the reality confronting Ted Becker, the mayor of Lewes, Delaware, a town of about 3,000 people in which some buildings sit just steps from the Atlantic oceanfront. “When you live here every day, and you see things change, it’s hard to accept that climate change isn’t happening,” he says.
Flooding that can deluge low-lying properties and make roads impassable is becoming much more frequent. Of the 549 flood days in Lewes since the 1950s, more than 200 have taken place in the past 15 years. The town has rewritten building codes so homes in flood-prone areas are built higher off the ground. About a year and a half ago it took the more aggressive step of abandoning plans to develop several roads and properties in Lewes Beach, the mayor says.
The proportion of Delaware land area exposed to coastal flooding — 5.4% — is expected to grow to 7.1% within three decades because of rising seas. By then, just for the 771 homes built between 2010 and 2017, chronic flooding could imperil US$526 million worth of coastal real estate. The number of homes at risk could surpass 23,000 by 2100 in the worst-case scenario.
