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How might urban climate change affect business? What can business -- and cities -- do about it? And how might each help the other prepare for a potential threat to what's clearly a mutually beneficial relationship?
Who better to answer the questions than Cynthia Rosenzweig, Senior Research Scientist at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Columbia University Earth Institute, and Adjunct Professor at New York City's Barnard College.
The world-renowned urban climate change expert is the Co-Editor of the recently released book, Climate Change and Cities: First Assessment Report (ARC3) of the Urban Climate Change Research Network (UCCRN) published in 2011 (Cambridge University Press). The UCCRN was hatched at the C40 Large Cities Summit in New York City in 2007, with more than 300 members in cities around the world.
Urban Climate
Depending on scientific estimates, cities account for 40-80 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. The urban population is forecast to nearly double to 6.4 billion, or 70 percent of the world's population, by mid-century, according to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division.
That would lift emission levels, along with urban temperatures. ARC3 projects that temperatures in the 12 cities it studied (including New York, London, Shanghai and Sao Paulo), could rise between 1 and 4 degrees Celsius by 2050.
Those radical changes challenge cities to re-evaluate how to protect people, prioritize investments, deploy assets, and rethink growth and development.
Nimble Agents
Yet, with their hands-on experience as first responders to weather-related crises, like floods, cities are also proving to be nimbler agents for addressing climate risk than national governments, Rosenzweig believes, noting that the recent international climate talks in Durban produced little tangible progress.
The book provides three sets of indicators for cities to use climate science and socio-economic research to: map vulnerability to climate hazards; manage risk; and enhance capacity for adaptation and mitigation over various time horizons.
4 Tips at the Tipping Point
The report's summary offers cities four tips on delivering effective climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Those might apply equally to companies:
1) effective leadership;
2) efficient financing;
3) jurisdictional coordination (the rough equivalent of "connecting silos" across business functions);
4) citizen participation (aka "employee engagement").
If we're approaching a tipping point in the climate, we may also be at a tipping point in solutions, Rosenzweig believes.
Cities are already home to half the world's population, and "mega-cities," -- those with a population of 10 million or more -- are on the rise. Projected changes in the climate are likely to increase risks to urban infrastructure, transportation, resources and populations alike.
3 Business Challenges
Rosenzweig says climate risk poses at least three major challenges to business: risk framing (in both mitigation and adaptation); adaptive capacity and strategy; institutional management and structure.
A good analogy between cities
A good analogy between cities and companies in their risk management analysis with respect to climate change. Everyone is at risk to climate change and hence should be part of the solution too. Businesses with a lot of risk assessment and management experience should work together with the city management to mitigate the risk as they adapt to it together. It all starts with a committed leadership in these companies. They should make the issue of climate change a priority and should create a culture shift in the company to be actively involved in providing a solution to this massive problem. This change is very difficult to achieve unless all the stakeholders see the problem and are committed to solving it. The top management should ensure that these goals are clearly communicated at every organizational level in the company. Looking at it this way, the problem ultimately boils down to how much each of us is committed to making a difference because we are all affected.