About the Book
Climate change impacts--more heat, drought, extreme rainfall, and stronger storms--have already harmed communities around the globe. Even if the world could cut its carbon emissions to zero tomorrow, further significant global climate change is now inevitable. Although we cannot tell with certainty how much average global temperatures will rise, we do know that the warming we have experienced to date has caused significant losses, and that the failure to prepare for
the consequences of further warming may prove to be staggering.Building a Resilient Tomorrow does not dwell on overhyped descriptions of apocalyptic climate scenarios, nor does
it travel down well-trodden paths surrounding the politics of reducing carbon emissions. Instead, it starts with two central facts: climate impacts will continue to occur, and we can make changes now to mitigate their effects. While squarely confronting the scale of the risks we face, this pragmatic guide focuses on solutions-some gradual and some more revolutionary-currently being deployed around the globe. Each chapter presents a thematic lesson for decision-makers and engaged citizens to
consider, outlining replicable successes and identifying provocative recommendations to strengthen climate resilience. Between animated discussions of ideas as wide-ranging as managed retreat from coastal
hot-zones to biological approaches for resurgent climate-related disease threats, Alice Hill and Leonardo Martinez-Diaz draw on their personal experiences as senior officials in the Obama Administration to tell behind-the-scenes stories of what it really takes to advance progress on these issues. The narrative is dotted with tales of on-the-ground citizenry, from small-town mayors and bankers to generals and engineers, who are chipping away at financial disincentives and bureaucratic hurdles to
prepare for life on a warmer planet. For readers exhausted by today's paralyzing debates on yearly "fluke" storms or the existence of climate change, Building a Resilient Tomorrow offers better ways
to manage the risks in a warming planet, even as we work to limit global temperature rise.
Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Craig Fugate
Introduction: Building a Resilient Tomorrow
PART I: SYSTEMS FOR LARGE-SCALE CHANGE
1. Rethink Where and How We Build
2. Lawyer Up
3. Make Markets Work for Resilience
PART II: TOOLS FOR THE DECISION-MAKER
4. Find Better Ways to Pay for Resilience
5. Get the Data and Make Them Usable
6. Work with Human Nature
PART III: THE UPENDERS
7. Harden the Health Care System, and Make It Smarter
8. Buffer Growing Inequality
9. Relocate People to Safer Ground
10. Reconceive National Security
Conclusion: Silo-Breakers, Translators, and Communicators
About the Author :
Alice Hill is David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. She has also served at the White House as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director for Resilience Policy on the National Security Council. As a member of Obama's climate team, Hill led the creation of national policy regarding catastrophic risk, including the impacts of climate change. Hill previously served as
Senior Counselor to the Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, as an ex-officio member of the Third National Climate Assessment, a supervising judge in California, and as chief of the white-collar crime unit in
the Los Angeles US Attorney's Office.
Leonardo Martinez-Diaz is Senior Director for Climate Finance in the Office of Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. During the Obama Administration, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy and Environment at the US Department of the Treasury, representing the United States in international climate negotiations and multilateral bodies. He is the author of Globalizing in Hard Times: The Politics of Banking-Sector Opening in the Emerging World (Cornell,
2009) and co-editor, with Ngaire Woods, of Networks of Influence? Developing Countries in a Networked Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2009).
Craig Fugate is Chief Resilience Officer of One Concern and former Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Review :
Climate change has already produced harmful effects, and further change is inevitable, say the authors. They outline potential solutions – some gradual and others more 'revolutionary' – being tested around the world while profiling some of the officials involved in these efforts.
In Building a Resilient Tomorrow, Hill and Martinez-Diaz discuss the practical aspects of how to prepare communities for climate change.... Pragmatists over alarmists, they don't linger on doomsday scenarios or retread the debate about whether climate change is real. Instead, using sharply curated global and domestic policy examples and stories, they offer applied strategies that communities, governments, and private companies can use to ready society for the new extremes caused by a changing climate.
If you, like any sensible person, are worried about the effects of climate change, this book may be a boon. Hill and Martinez-Diaz state their thesis early; resilience is possible, but it's not accidental. There is hope; for every extreme weather event that lives on in names like "Katrina", "Irma" and "Sandy", there are stories of communities taking action, sometimes relocating to safer places and certainly planning for their futures. Utilising their shared career experience in US government, Hill and Martinez-Diaz, set out clear discussion points and recommendations at the end of each chapter. This thoroughly accessible book gives readers food for thought and the realisation that, while we won't stop extreme weather events, we can deal with them - perhaps not today, but definitely tomorrow.
As we race to awaken conscience and countries to meet an existential challenge, building resilience is an urgent and underappreciated part of the fight against global climate change. This timely and important book, by deeply knowledgeable veterans of that fight, offers practical ideas and lessons on how to do it and each story underscores a reality with which the world must reckon now
Climate change is real and Building a Resilient Tomorrow illustrates what it looks like and what we can do about it by building up resilience, even while we work to cut emissions. This is exactly the kind of honesty and sobriety that is needed to confront this unique challenge and to build consensus in favor of viable solutions.
One aspect of solving the climate crisis is preparation for the calamities ahead that emissions have already set in motion. Alice Hill sees critical dimensions of the resiliency imperative, and with Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, has written an important book.
This is an essential guide for policymakers at all levels. All of us who exist on this warming planet should heed its warnings about the need to incorporate resilience into our community planning, beginning today.
At a time when volatility and change are the only certainties, we must find ways to build resilience. This important book, focused on the United States but informed by global insights, tackles the central challenge of climate resilience.
Climate Change is no longer far-off hypothetical-the time for solutions is now. This book offers a comprehensive, yet fine-grained guide to help all of us better face the forthcoming climate disruption.
Building a Resilient Tomorrow is an important, unique, and useful guide for learning how to build in resilience and cope with the real and increasing impacts of climate change.
