Gregory C. Johnson

The report draws new connections between climate impacts, food scarcity, and conflict. Here are the key findings:

• Food security: "The main way that most people will experience climate change is through the impact on food: the food they eat, the price they pay for it, and the availability and choice that they have," said Tim Gore, head of food policy and climate change for Oxfam.

• Global security: Migration, food shortage, and water security could increase violent conflict and unrest. The Department of Defense has already highlighted climate change as an increasingly important threat to global security.

• Inequality: Risks will not be borne equally: Tropical developing countries will bear a greater share of the physical impacts of climate change. The poor, the young and the elderly in all countries will all be more vulnerable; scientists say that governments lack systems to protect vulnerable populations. Climate impacts will slow economic growth, prolonging existing and creating new poverty traps.

• Humanitarian crisis: The report catalogued some of the disasters that have taken place around the planet since 2000: killer heat waves in Europe, wildfires in Australia, and deadly floods in Pakistan.

• Infrastructure: Relocation of industries and communities will cost billions of dollars even in wealthy countries. Transport infrastructure, homes, industries, and agriculture will face damage from increasingly extreme weather, droughts and storms, especially in low-lying coastal areas. Extreme weather will disrupt critical services such as electricity, water supply, health, and emergency.

• Water: The loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems will pose severe risks for biodiversity and the ecosystem goods, functions, and services. Insufficient access to drinking and irrigation water will lead to reduced agricultural productivity, loss of rural livelihoods, and reduced income, particularly for farmers with minimal capital in semi-arid regions.

• Many global risks will be concentrated in urban areas: Urban adaptation will benefit from effective multi-level urban risk governance, alignment of policies and incentives, strengthened local government and community adaptation capacity, synergies with the private sector, and appropriate financing and institutional development

• Global threat multiplier: The biggest risk from climate change extends from a number of scenarios unfolding at the same time, leading to conflicts and wars, or turning a regional problem into a global crisis. 

• Building resilience: While governments are starting to recognize the importance of adaptation, existing efforts have been mostly limited to assessments of vulnerability and adaptation planning, with implementation levels still low. Governments are starting to incorporate climate change into development plans; the report particularly mentions that North America's efforts are mostly at the municipal level, in contrast to national-level efforts on other continents.(IPCC Summary for Policymakers, The NY Times, The Guardian) 

The website will bring together the enormous amount of data at various federal agencies and make it more accessible to communities, researchers, and industries. Spearheaded by NASA and NOAA the Climate Data Initiative will provide data on sea-level rise, coastal flooding, food supply, health, and energy. Private-sector projects will help provide the data in more user-friendly formats such as apps and cloud-computing tools to create tools for planners. For example, Google will donate 1,000 terabytes of cloud storage, create a map of the Earth's terrain in high resolution, and provide drought monitoring and mapping for the continental U.S. in near-real time. (www.data.gov/climate/)

The CA Sustainability Research Hub is an online database of over 800 State-funded reports on sustainable communities research. It expands search functionality by allowing users to search CARB, CEC, and Caltrans sustainable communities reports in one place by keyword or by sustainability topic. The Research Hub also provides a brief summary of each report in the results section. (California Sustainability Research Hub)

Resilient Communities for America Webinar

Mitigate, Prepare, Respond: Emergency Managers as Partners in Climate Adaptation 

Tuesday, April 8th, 10:00am - 11:00am (PT)

Workshop: Southern Sierra Fire and Hydroclimate

April 22-24, 2014, Yosemite National Park

UC Drought Science, Policy and Management Summit

April 25, 2014, State Capitol, Sacramento

Climate Change: Challenges to CA's Agriculture & Natural Resources

The UC Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics 

Monday - May 19th, The California Museum in Sacramento

Resilient Sacramento is a membership based collaborative network designed to promote greater climate change resilience planning coordination in the six-county Sacramento Region. The purpose of this collaborative network is to create a forum where leaders from government, academia, environmental and community groups, the business community, and labor can come together to exchange information, identify vulnerabilities and data gaps, leverage resources, and advance comprehensive solutions in an effort to create stronger, sustainable, and economically viable communities in the Sacramento Region.  

Resilient Sacramento's current members include: UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment and the Economy; Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District; Sacramento Area Council of Governments; Greenwise Joint Ventures; Sacramento Municipal Utility District; Pacific Gas & Electric Company; and the Local Government Commission. If you are interested in learning more about Resilient Sacramento, joining the Collaborative, or being added to the list serv, please contact Jenny Woods.