On March 2nd, 2021, the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative (MRCTI) hosted its 9th Annual Capitol Meeting in a virtual format due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The conference was a 3-day event with attendees from the federal government, media, mayors of MRCTI, and partners including Two Degrees Adapt, Cargill, Black & Veatch, US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and Ducks Unlimited. The goal of the event was to engage a new Congress and Administration on a bold set of proposals to safeguard the nation’s most important River Corridor. On day 3 of the event, MRCTI Mayor Gallagher of Bettendorf, Iowa introduced our joint research project on nature-based solutions to river flooding and emphasized Two Degrees Adapt’s role in bringing in financial support, providing expertise and gathering data to support natural infrastructure policy proposals. Two Degrees Adapt co-founder and partner Aditya Ranade presented the background, goals, and initial findings of the study.
Despite massive advancement in air travel over the past century, railroad transit remains a crucial element of domestic transportation. In 2019 alone, over 500 million passengers and $80 billion in cargo—28% of the nation’s total—depended on railroads. However, increased precipitation driven by climate change promises to cause more frequent occurrences of track flooding and destructive landslides. In this article, we outline the climate perils faced by railroads, highlight possible solutions, and discuss the early stage of railroad climate adaptation research.
The rapid expansion of high-speed fiber optic internet connection has ushered in an era of unprecedented business, personal, and emergency communication. However, climate change-induced rises in global sea levels and extreme storm precipitation pose a direct threat to the physical infrastructure empowering our world’s connectivity. Over just the next 15 years, it is predicted that over 4,000 miles of fiber optic cables will become unsustainably inundated with sea water, leading to signal attenuation and loss. In this blog post, we reveal the technologies capable of mitigating some of this risk, and provide recommendations for each of the players involved in adapting fiber optic infrastructure.
New Orleans faces a significant climate change driven flood risk owing to multiple sources of flooding i.e. Mississippi River, hurricane storm surge, sea level rise in the Gulf of Mexico, and extreme precipitation. However, over the past 15 years the City of New Orleans together with the state of Louisiana and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) have invested a significant amount of money in gray as well as green infrastructure, and plan to invest even more in the decades to come, thereby reducing the risk somewhat. REITs should build multiple scenarios and assess the impact of flooding on their assets and operations, invest in on-site urban greening such that it derives the maximum benefit from existing gray infrastructure, and support the State of Louisiana with its adaptation measures.
Cities across the US are responding to continued urbanization and increased climate risk by assessing climate change impacts and enacting adaptation policies. These policies will minimize risks due to natural disasters, raise taxes unless external sources of funding are identified, and result in building code changes. As a result, these policies will also have an impact on annual financials for real estate investment trusts (REITs) and should be considered when expanding REIT portfolios.
Climate perils pose serious and significant risks to society. From an economic perspective, the period 2010-2019 was the costliest decade in the modern record for natural disasters globally–nearly $3 Trillion USD–according to Aon’s Weather, Climate & Catastrophe Insight -- 2019 Annual Report. 2019 brought flooding to the US Midwest, fire to Australia and Russia, tropical cyclones to the Bahamas, East Africa, and East Asia, and widespread record-breaking heat to Europe. The consequences of these disasters have been far ranging: increased socio political pressure associated with climate migration; reduced environmental quality and ecosystem services; and disrupted economic markets like tourism, insurance, agriculture, fisheries, and forestry.