Tag: real estate

bookmark_borderThe Missing Risks of Climate Change

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The Journal Nature published the report The missing risks of climate change. The paper found that there are many risks associated with climate change that are not being considered in economic analysis. (The Climate Endgame also found inadequacies in current risk management analysis.)

Abstract

The risks of climate change are enormous, threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions to billions of people. The economic consequences of many of the complex risks associated with climate change cannot, however, currently be quantified. Here we argue that these unquantified, poorly understood and often deeply uncertain risks can and should be included in economic evaluations and decision-making processes. We present an overview of these unquantified risks and an ontology of them founded on the reasons behind their lack of robust evaluation. These consist of risks missing owing to delays in sharing knowledge and expertise across disciplines, spatial and temporal variations of climate impacts, feedbacks and interactions between risks, deep uncertainty in our knowledge, and currently unidentified risks. We highlight collaboration needs within and between the natural and social science communities to address these gaps. We also provide an approach for integrating assessments or speculations of these risks in a way that accounts for interdependencies, avoids double counting and makes assumptions clear. Multiple paths exist for engaging with these missing risks, with both model-based quantification and non-model-based qualitative assessments playing crucial roles. A wide range of climate impacts are understudied or challenging to quantify, and are missing from current evaluations of the climate risks to lives and livelihoods. Strong interdisciplinary collaboration and deeper engagement with uncertainty is needed to properly inform policymakers and the public about climate risks.
Main

There is overwhelming evidence that the risks and impacts from increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are very significant, will impact nearly every aspect of human life and the environment, and could ultimately prove to be devastating. An apparent incongruity exists between the pervasiveness of anticipated physical changes and the relatively modest total losses often estimated in economic evaluations1,2. Part of the explanation for this mismatch comes from ‘missing risks’: the risks that are not currently included in economic evaluations because of their uncertainty, because of our limited understanding of them or because existing economic models do not capture them in sufficient detail.

The interplay within and between different physical and social systems plays a crucial role in defining when and where impacts will manifest themselves, and these interactions are often only poorly understood. This leads to large and growing uncertainty estimates and a wide range of incompletely understood and underestimated risks3. For example, the potential for climate change impacts to drive social discontent, dislocation and relocation, and instability and conflict, are all deeply uncertain, but potentially crippling.

Excluding these risks from economic assessments is equivalent to placing a probability of zero on their occurrence. This, clearly, is not the case. Similarly, the common practice of engaging with only the expected levels of impacts and reporting central confidence bounds can undermine the ability of decision-makers to engage with the actual range of risks. The overall consequence is an underestimation of the total risks of climate change. This Perspective aims to identify, classify and suggest ways to engage with some of the most significant risks that are not currently captured by socioeconomic evaluations of climate change, from both a natural perspective and a social perspective. As an example of how this can be achieved, we present a demonstration of how diverse impact estimates or assumptions can be coherently combined.
Background

The complexity of feedback systems has slowed the process of both understanding them and modelling them. Compound, sequential, and concurrent extremes would lead to lower thresholds (for a single driver) for substantial impacts as well as deeper impacts when two drivers align53. The overall lack of representation for this type of secondary effect leads to an underestimation of risk.

Understanding the risk of 2 °C, 3 °C and 4 °C global mean surface temperature anomalies requires not only a reporting of the existing risks that models provide but also the incorporation of new classes of risks as well as the potential for disruptive unknown risks that could dramatically alter the context of future societal systems and anthropogenic climate change risks. It is hoped that recognition of these ‘missing risks’ will improve the overall level of accounting for consequences associated with climate change under credible warming scenarios.

Global Warming

bookmark_borderClimate Change: No Credible Pathway to 1.5C Limit

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The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) insisted there is “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place.” The report Climate change: No ‘credible pathway’ to 1.5C limit found:

National pledges to reduce harmful emissions offer little hope of avoiding climate disaster, UN climate experts said on Thursday, in an urgent appeal for a radical transformation of the energy sector, before it’s too late.

There’s “no credible pathway to 1.5C in place” today, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) insisted in a new report, despite legally binding promises made at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference to prevent average temperatures rising by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Uncomfortable truth
“This report tells us in cold scientific terms what nature has been telling us all year, through deadly floods, storms and raging fires: we have to stop filling our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and stop doing it fast,” said Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP.

“We had our chance to make incremental changes, but that time is over. Only a root-and-branch transformation of our economies and societies can save us from accelerating climate disaster.”

Despite Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) promises made by governments in favour of reducing their carbon footprint, pledges made since the last climate summit in Glasgow in 2021 will lead to cuts of less than one per cent of projected 2030 greenhouse gas emissions, according to UNEP.
Paltry reductions

This is the equivalent of just 0.5 gigatonnes of CO2, UNEP calculated, adding that only a 45 per cent emissions reduction will limit global warming to 1.5C.

As it stands today, latest data indicates that the world is on track for a temperature rise of between 2.4C and 2.6C by the end of this century.

“In the best-case scenario, full implementation of unconditional NDCs and additional net-zero emissions commitments point to only a 1.8C increase, so there is hope. However, this scenario is not currently credible based on the discrepancy between current emissions, short-term NDC targets and long-term net-zero targets,” UNEP said.
Fossil fuel-free solution

For the situation to improve, a “large-scale, rapid” and fossil fuel-free shake-up is needed of our “electricity supply, industry, transport and buildings sectors, and the food and financial systems” to cut emissions by 45 per cent to limit global warming to 1.5C, and by 30 per cent to keep average temperature rise to 2C, the UN agency explained.

And although the transformation towards net-zero greenhouse gas emissions is underway in electricity supply, industry, transportation and buildings, it needs to move “much faster”, the report concludes.

It found that electricity supply transformation had made most progress in some countries, amid dramatically reduced renewable electricity prices.

“It is a tall, and some would say impossible order, to reform the global economy and almost halve greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, but we must try,” said Ms. Andersen. “Every fraction of a degree matters: to vulnerable communities, to species and ecosystems, and to every one of us.”
Food system reform

Rapid and lasting emissions cuts are needed in food production industries too, as this accounts for about a third of greenhouse gases, UNEP continued.

It noted that action in four areas – protection of natural ecosystems, dietary changes, improvements in farm food production and decarbonization of food supply chains – would reduce food system emissions by 2050 to around a third of current levels.

Global Warming

bookmark_borderClimate Change: Flesh Eating Bacteria

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The side effects of climate change are far reaching. Lee County, Florida is where hurricane Ian made landfall. Storm surges and subsequent flooding led to a spike in the potentially deadly infections caused by Vibrio vulnificus. The flesh eating species of bacteria is found in warm, brackish water.

One species, Vibrio vulnificus, can cause life-threatening wound infections. Many people with Vibrio vulnificus infection require intensive care or limb amputations, and about 1 in 5 people with this infection die, sometimes within a day or two of becoming ill.

Some Vibrio vulnificus infections lead to necrotizing fasciitis, a severe infection in which the flesh around an open wound dies. Some media reports call this kind of infection “flesh-eating bacteria,” said the CDC.

At least 29 cases and four deaths have been confirmed in Lee County this year as a result of such infections.

“The Florida Department of Health in Lee County is observing an abnormal increase in cases of Vibrio vulnificus infections as a result of exposure to the flood waters and standing waters following Hurricane Ian,” a spokesperson at the county health department said in a statement to CBS News on Monday, which noted that community members should “always be aware of the potential risks associated when exposing open wounds, cuts, or scratches on the skin to warm, brackish, or salt water.”

“Sewage spills, like those caused from Hurricane Ian, may increase bacteria levels,” the statement continued. “As the post storm situation evolves, individuals should take precautions against and infection and illness caused by Vibrio vulnificus.”

More articles on Climate Change and Health, Extreme Weather Events and Global Warming.

bookmark_borderClimate Change: Increasingly Costly for Americans to Insure Their Homes

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The report by PolicyGenius Home insurance prices are rising even faster than inflation explains how climate change is making homeowners’ insurance more difficult and costly to obtain:

Severe natural disasters
Climate change has increased both the length and severity of the hurricane and wildfire seasons in the U.S., causing many insurance companies to increase rates or stop offering coverage in high-risk areas altogether. When there’s fewer companies doing business in a particular area, the ones left are forced to establish stricter underwriting rules and increase rates on new and existing customers.

Record catastrophe losses
There were 97 natural disasters resulting in $92 billion in insured losses in 2021, according to the Insurance Information Institute (III). This is up from 92 events totaling $74 billion in losses in 2020. As a result, insurers have had to increase rates to account for higher reconstruction costs in affected areas, and to make up for the record losses.

Without decisive action to mitigate climate change, frequent droughts will threaten jobs and agricultural yields in Oklahoma and Texas; extreme heat will devastate an already high proportion of vulnerable residents in Mississippi and Kentucky; and the number of homes with flood risk will increase significantly in Louisiana and Delaware, according to our 2021 Policygenius Best & Worst States for Climate Change Index.

Last October, FEMA revamped its program to more accurately assess flood risk, causing insurance premiums for some coastal properties to rise to $4,000 or $5,000 annually, up from just $700 or $800, Porter from First Street Foundation said.

These hikes may be prohibitively expensive for lower-income families or retirees, especially those who may be living in a property inherited from family, Wright said.

“These family houses have been around forever, and they may not have a mortgage, so flood insurance may not be required,” he said. “But they should have it anyway.”

More articles on Flood Insurance, Extreme Weather Events and Global Warming.

bookmark_border10% of Canadian Homes Uninsurable Due to Extreme Weather and the Climate Crisis

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The Guardian reports The uninsurables: how storms and rising seas are making coastlines unliveable.

“In Canada, the number of uninsurable homes has reached 10%, according to industry figures. The Magdalen archipelago is losing half a metre each year to erosion, roads have fallen into the sea and the sand dunes that once offered protection from squalls are disappearing faster than they can be saved, but it is not just there. Most of Canada’s major cities are built on the frontlines of a changing climate – along rivers and coastlines or on flood plains.”

“Over the past 15 years, insurance claims from severe weather events in Canada – windstorms, flooding, wildfire and drought – have more than quadrupled. Seven of the country’s costliest disasters occurred in the last decade. Insurers now expect to disburse C$2bn (£1.3bn) in disaster-related payouts annually, with costs only expected to rise.”

“A federally run fund, meant to help communities build disaster-resilient infrastructure, is quickly running out of money years before it expires at the end of the decade. It has already received far more requests than it can pay for, and despite the federal government repeatedly topping it up, more than half of the money has been spent.”

“Without any sort of concerted effort or gameplan, that figure will only grow. We’re continuing to build in harm’s way, largely on water, because that’s where people love to be. And the modelling shows that these storm events are just going to become more frequent and more intense in the years ahead,” says Craig Stewart, vice-president of the IBC’s climate change and federal issues portfolio. “The risk is growing. And so far, our efforts at risk reduction have been terrible.”

“The private market, on its own, cannot handle the level of risk that’s escalating in the system without some sort of formal government backstop or direct participation.”

In the US, Florida has blocked insurers from withdrawing from the market for at least two months after Hurricane Ian. Officials in the US have also warned residents about the dangers of rebuilding in areas likely to suffer weather-related disasters.

In November 2021, a powerful “atmospheric river”, a plume of water-laden air, led to widespread flooding in the province of British Columbia. Highways and bridges were washed away and thousands of homes – built on an old lake bed that was a known flood plain – were submerged in turbid waters. The damage cost insurers nearly C$675m – with billions more in uninsured costs having to be borne by residents and government.

The floods also hit the town of Lytton, British Columbia, which a few months earlier had been the site of scorching temperatures before it was all but destroyed by a wildfire. In the aftermath, the uncertainty of how to rebuild – or whether to rebuild – has become a flashpoint.

“There was conflict between people who wanted to rebuild Lytton better, and those who were traumatised by the fire and they wanted to put their lives back together as quickly as possible without any change,” says Porter. “They didn’t want to be told what to do. They didn’t want outsiders coming in and telling them you must change your life in such a way.”

Governments are bracing for the mounting costs from extreme weather to upend life in cities. A recent report warned that floods and droughts could cost the global economy US$5.6tn by 2050.

More articles on Flood Insurance, Extreme Weather Events and Global Warming.

bookmark_borderHeat Waves Make Regions Uninhabitable Within Decades

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The U.N. humanitarian aid agency OCHA and the International Federation of Red Cross report Extreme heat: Preparing for the heatwaves of the future (October 2022) says large parts of the earth will become uninhabitable in the near future.

“We don’t want to dramatize it, but clearly the data shows that it does lead towards a very bleak future,” said IFRC secretary-general Jagan Chapagain.

There are clear limits beyond which people exposed to extreme heat and humidity cannot survive. There are also likely to be levels of extreme heat beyond which societies may find it practically impossible to deliver effective adaptation for all. On current trajectories, heat waves could meet and exceed these physiological and social limits in the coming decades, including in regions such as the Sahel and south and southwest Asia.

Projected future death rates from extreme heat are staggeringly high — comparable in magnitude by the end of the century to all cancers or all infectious diseases — and staggeringly unequal.

If emissions of the greenhouse gases which cause climate change are not aggressively reduced, the world will face “previously unimaginable levels of extreme heat”.

The Human Induced Climate Change Experiment

bookmark_borderHurricane Ian: Florida Becoming Uninhabitable

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October 2, 2022

How long would it take to go 100% green?
“It depends on cooperation. If we all cooperated, we could change over within 6 months. However, we don’t expect the climate deniers will cooperate. In the meantime, many countries plan to reduce fossil fuels by 2030. Some countries, such as China, are building nuclear plants. The UK will transition from natural gas to green hydrogen with most of the regulations in place by 2030.”

“The key to how fast the US transitions is in the cost to ourselves (since we don’t seem to care about the rest of the world.) This can already be seen in Florida and Louisiana where almost all of the homeowners/hazard insurance companies have pulled out. FEMA is a good place to focus our forecasts. FEMA’s flood insurance is the only government subsidized insurance available to everybody. When the government stops subsidizing extreme weather events, you will see an instant turnover to 100% green. The intensity and frequency of extreme weather events is growing exponentially; therefore, we expect FEMA will be bankrupted in short order. At that time, much of US real estate will become worthless and the cost of burning fossil fuels will be deemed too costly. The people impacted by financial and life losses will litigate the fossil fuel industry out-of-business,” said climate scientist Daniel Brouse.

The Costs of Climate Change
Hurricane Ian will be one of the most costly disasters on record, both in terms of money and lives. Over 2 million people lost power. Roads and bridges were destroyed. Some inhabited islands literally got washed away. The hurricane was so powerful that it is difficult to calculate the number of deaths as the bodies can not be found.

The Insurance Journal reports:
Wind and storm-surge losses from Hurricane Ian could reach as $47 billion in Florida alone, a figure made larger by inflation and rising interest rates, the property analytics firm CoreLogic said in a new analysis.

“This is the costliest Florida storm since Hurricane Andrew made landfall in 1992 and a record number of homes and properties were lost due to Hurricane Ian’s intense and destructive characteristics,” said Tom Larsen, associate vice president for hazard and risk management at CoreLogic.

“Hurricane Ian will forever change the real estate industry and city infrastructure,” Larsen said in a news release. “Insurers will go into bankruptcy, homeowners will be forced into delinquency and insurance will become less accessible in regions like Florida.”

More articles on Flood Insurance, Rising Sea Levels and Global Warming.

bookmark_borderRising Sea Levels: 100’s of 1,000’s of Buildings in Danger of Submerging by 2050

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Real estate across millions of acres in the United States are projected to be submerged under seawater by 2050 as reported in Sinking Tax Base Land and Property at Risk from Rising Seas.

ZME science summarizes the findings as follows:
The research group Climate Central, a nonprofit that analyzes and reports on climate science, looked at sea level rise that has been projected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), tidal boundary lines, and records of more than 50 million properties in coastal areas. When they put everything together, they found that about 650,000 individual properties are most at risk of being flooded within the next three decades.

The state of Louisiana has the largest percentage of homes and other buildings at risk, with over 25,000 properties across over one million hectares expected to fall below tide level boundaries by 2050. This means that 8.7% of the state’s total land area could be filled with seawater. However, Louisiana is far from being the only one on the list.

Florida, Texas, and North Carolina are the next three states that are more at risk, accounting for 87% of the land area expected to be lost to the sea. New York, New Jersey, and Maryland were also identified by the researchers as states that are likely to have thousands of properties, from homes to office buildings, flooded in the coming years.

Don Bain, one of the authors of the study, told The Washington Post that the analysis should be a wake-up call for communities that have to adapt to sea level rise as a direct consequence of the climate crisis. “People really haven’t internalized that yet — that ‘Hey, I’m going to have something taken away from me by the sea.’” Bain said.

Scientists have repeatedly warned that the carbon built up in the atmosphere after generations of burning fossil fuels would lead to an increasing level rise. Earlier this year, NOAA found that sea levels could rise along US coastlines by about a foot between now and 2050, which is as much change in three decades as over the past century.

NOAA says, “For businesses along the coast, knowing what to expect and how to plan for the future is critical,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo. “These updated projections will help businesses, and the communities they support, understand risks and make smart investments in the years ahead.”

“This new data on sea rise is the latest reconfirmation that our climate crisis ⁠— as the President has said ⁠— is blinking ‘code red,’” said Gina McCarthy, National Climate Advisor. “We must redouble our efforts to cut the greenhouse gases that cause climate change while, at the same time, help our coastal communities become more resilient in the face of rising seas.”

The Human Induced Climate Change Experiment

bookmark_borderTrees, Climate Change, and Wildfires

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by Daniel Brouse
September 5, 2022

Pollution, droughts, and pests are killing many of our trees. Climate change is involved in all these causes. In addition, climate change feedback loops are accelerating the extinction of trees.

Feedback loops accelerate global warming. For example, global warming has resulted in tree deaths and deforestation. Trees are a natural carbon sink for carbon dioxide, as well as, provide shade, retain moisture, and aid in cooling. As trees die from the effects of global warming, climate change is accelerated resulting in more tree deaths. Scientists’ warning to humanity on tree extinctions, “This evidence suggests that a third of the world’s tree species are currently threatened with extinction, which represents a major ecological crisis. Large-scale extinction of tree species will lead to major biodiversity losses in other species groups and substantially alter the cycling of carbon, water and nutrients in the world’s ecosystems. Loss of tree diversity could lead to abrupt declines in ecosystem functions and services, and ultimately ecosystem collapse.”

Wildfires also are a climate change feedback loop. As the planet warms, wildfires increase. Wildfires destroy the carbon sink of forests, and spew massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. The result is an increase in global warming. The increase in global warming results in more wildfires resulting in desertification.

In 2020, 20% of all the forests in Australia burned. Some of these forests hadn’t seen fires in the last 35,000 years. “More than 24 million hectares (59 million acres) burned during Australia’s devastating ‘Black Summer’ bushfire season of 2019-2020, which formed part of a confirmed climate change-driven trend of worsening fire weather and larger, more intense forest fires,” reported Mongabay News.

The 2021 fire season saw a record number of acres burned in the Northwestern USA and Canada. In California a total of 8,835 fires were recorded, burning 2,568,948 acres (1,039,616 ha) across the state. Over 1.4 million acres burned in Oregon and Washington. “Three times in the past five years, over 10 million acres have burned nationwide. On average, over 2 million more acres burned each year in the 2010s than during the 1990s,” reports Spokane’s KXLY.

Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports, “by 2070, around 2 billion people are expected to live in extremely hot areas” similar to the Sahara Desert.

The Human Induced Climate Change Experiment

bookmark_borderThe Cost of Climate Change: USD 178 trillion

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“Time is no longer running out to act on climate change; it’s up,” reports Deloitte. Unchecked climate change could cost the global economy USD 178 trillion over the next 50 years. “The human costs would be far greater: a lack of food and water, a loss of jobs, worsening health and well-being, reduced standard of living.”

Time is no longer running out to act on climate change; it’s up. Download the report.

Time to act—accelerating to zero

With global emissions continuing to rise over the last two decades, we have squandered the chance to decarbonize at our leisure. The global economy needs to execute a rapid, coordinated, sequenced energy and industrial transition that will play out in distinct phases.

* Bold climate plays: Coordination and collaboration set the stage for decarbonization by formulating policies and frameworks for a low-carbon future.
* Accelerating to net zero: Deep investment across systems instigates structural economic adjustments. The decline of emissions-intensive industries would create growing pains for some economies.
* Turning point: Investment in structural economic adjustment is almost complete. Economies would realize the dividend of the transformation and experience net positive growth.
* Low-emission future: Interconnected, low-carbon systems underpin a clean economy that would grow at an increasingly faster rate than its carbon-intensive alternative.

The Human Induced Climate Change Experiment