Jumpstart Resilience

For those communities that can manage to muster the political will to act in the absence of “no more” moments, this chapter identifies the easy wins for building resilience. One crucial step is requiring companies to disclose climate risk, giving them a deeper understanding of what they are up against and what they might need to do to prepare. Another is using scenario analysis to test operations against different imagined futures. More generally, all investments, policies, plans, and programs should be routinely screened for climate resilience. At a minimum, to avoid wasting precious resources, any investments in long-lived infrastructure should both implement the lessons from past disasters and account for future climate-worsened calamities. Ultimately, the choices we make now—especially with regard to infrastructure and land use—can help us thrive even as climate change unleashes unfamiliar weather extremes on the planet.