we shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

-winston churchill, 1943

our buildings define us. not only do we need them to survive, but—consciously and subconsciously—they shape our worldview. as world temperatures rise, we will rely on them even more in the face of oppressive summer heat, intensifying blizzards, and other extreme weather events. but air conditioning buildings and producing concrete—the most important building material—amount to 12% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. so to move our planet forward, we need scalable innovations in how we build and what we build with.

the innovation center at the pontificia universidad católica de chile looks stylish, promotes more collaboration than a traditional office building, and cuts electricity consumption by two-thirds just because it uses fewer but larger glass windows. the canada-based company carbicrete has developed concrete that actually captures concrete from the atmosphere. and the best part is: these solutions are easy to implement! some might even call them common sense. by expediting the rollout of these production and architectural techniques, we can drastically limit the damage of climate change and help provide for a better future.

full transcript below:

francisco camacho, host:

i want to take you back to about a year ago when i was studying in santiago, chile. everyone—and i mean almost literally everyone—in chile had bemoaned that the mountains didn’t have snow year-round anymore. in the summer, it now melts. even 6 years ago, there was always a little snow visible at the peaks year-round. unlike in the united states, the chileans never gave me any sense of climate change skepticism: they knew for certain that the increased co2 in our atmosphere was warming the earth and melting their beloved snow.

so, how do we stop the snow from melting? obviously, tackling climate change is an enormous problem with almost-infinite components, but i want to focus on one aspect that is rarely mentioned: our buildings. according to a 2022 study from researchers at the national renewable energy laboratory, energy generated for air conditioning buildings accounts for 4% of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. moreover, the world’s most important building material, concrete, is incredibly carbon intensive: concrete production accounts for a whole 8% of global emissions. so, these are the two questions i come to this story with: how can we design buildings to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and how can we make more eco-friendly concrete?

first, let’s talk about the building’s design—the architecture. for this, i want to take you back to chile. it was june of 2022 and my brother had just arrived to visit me. since my brother was—is—studying architecture, i took him to the main campus of the pontificia universidad catolica de chile, where i was studying, and brought him to what at first just looks like a concrete cube near the entrance. it’s called the innovation center and when you enter onto one of the large balconies you get a view of the andes mountains that is hardly paralleled anywhere else in the city. it was winter in the southern hemisphere and i remarked to my brother that i was very happy to see snow on the mountains—again, i had done all summer hardly seeing any.

my brother pointed out some interesting features of the building’s architecture. mainly, there weren’t many windows, and the large ones behind the balconies were well-shaded from above. this meant that sunlight rarely came into direct contact with glass in the building even as a healthy amount of natural lighting did come through. this, my brother observed, must save dramatically on ac costs. that’s because the greenhouse effect caused by sunlight hitting the glass would warm the building, meaning the ac needs to run more intensely to keep the same temperature. think i’m exaggerating? the average glass office tower consumes 120 kilowatts of electricity per square meter per year. the innovation center uses only 40 kilowatts per square meter per year. so this design cut the building’s electricity consumption—and therefore long-run carbon emissions—by two-thirds!

but not only is the building environmentally friendly, it’s practical and good looking! here’s the architect of the innovation center: chilean architect and winner of the pritzker prize, alejandro aravena in his ted talk:

alejandro aravena, architect:

it is accepted that for such an aim, knowledge creation, interaction among people, face-to-face contact, it’s important, and we agreed on that. . . . and what we did was, let’s have an open atrium, a hollowed core, the same collection of floors, but have the walls and the mass in the perimeter . . . you are able to see what others are doing from within the building, and you have a better way to control light.

francisco camacho:

so by putting the building’s essentials—plumbing, cables, etc—in the walls and leaving the center open, not only does sunlight reflect away from the building but people can more easily communicate on their work.

but as i said, the practicality is only one aspect: the innovation center looks good, too! one might see in the innovation center similarities to the monumental architecture of louis kahn. in the 60s and 70s, architects focused on making buildings feel lighter with thinner walls and more glass, but kahn saw the importance of monumentality, which in turn contradicted the course of architecture at the time. aravena, like khan, uses concrete to highlight light, shadow, and the authenticity of a building.

to hear his take, i sat down with chilean architect marco diaz. this is what diaz had to say about the innovation center and its architect aravena:

marco diaz, architect (translated):

i believe in itself, the building presents an important aesthetic impact, from the point of view that it comes out as an innovator. in this way, with the objective being to build an innovation center, its aesthetic, its tectonic, its form, and its proportions are very distinct from what is typically done. from that point of view, the aesthetic point of view and from the scale of how he works, he is very innovative. i think he has a first objective completed in some way because of what he was assigned and the product he created.

francisco camacho:

okay, so that’s the architecture question out of the way: by following the models of architect alejandro aravena and the innovation center, we can design more environmentally-friendly, collaborative, and stylish buildings! but this still leaves one big problem: the innovation center is made almost entirely of concrete. and concrete burns a lot of carbon emissions—8% of all annual greenhouse gasses. in fact, if the world’s concrete production was its own country, it would only be behind the us and china in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

well, for this we come to part 2 of our solution to green buildings: the material itself. on paper, there is actually an almost-miraculous solution for concrete’s pollution problem: carbon capture. one of the companies leading this charge is the canada-based carbicrete. i wanted to understand just how their product worked.

martin escarbelt, carbicrete:

you mentioned that concrete is a very carbon-intensive battery, which is true and it is not mostly due to the presence of cement within it. cement’s production process is extremely emissions-heavy. so we say that typically for a traditional cement manufacturer, there is 800 kilograms of co2 that are emitted. and that is in the origin of the fossil fuels that are burned and because of the chemical process that happens in the kiln when it is being produced.

so at carbicrete we decided to tackle the root of the problem by entirely removing cement from concrete. but it is important to note that cement is extremely important in concrete. we usually say that cement is to concrete what flower is to bread. you cannot do with it – without. and so we replace the cement with a byproduct from the steeling industry that’s at the moment in 2023, and it has always been a waste for steel manufacturers. once the concrete is a phone using steel slag, we use the same processes. the same machinery. we place the concrete products into a curing chamber. so curing is a fancy world to say solidifying. it’s the process that needs to take place to give the concrete – insert strength. and once in there, we inject co2 into the chamber that will react chemically with the steel slag to form caco3—calcium carbonate.

this makes the concrete – its strengths up to 30% better than conventional concrete. and co2 is as a consequence permanently within the concrete and removed from the atmosphere.

francisco camacho:

absolutely. it – it does sound very much on its face like a win-win. but my question is, you know, is it, is it scalable? like, is it actually, is it hard to reproduce this on a wide scale or is it relatively easy?

martin escarbelt:

yes, so it is a scalable solution. there is some limiting factors. as they just said, it is – what we are using is a byproduct of the steel industry, which means that we need to have a steel industry in the neighbor – in the neighborhood. but fortunately, most of the big markets that we’ve targeted have that. so the us produces a lot of steel: canada, europe, china, india. so that’s something to keep in mind, but we are able to scale up. we have just proven our technology in an operational setting in quebec where we’ve been producing for quite some time, thousands of blocks every day and we are in the process of scaling up at the moment in the same facility and now we are ready to – we have this province solution, this proven recipe – we are already ready to implement the technology elsewhere and that includes canada. so quebec, ontario for now, the us, europe, and india, as i said, as well as other places.

francisco camacho:

so carbon capture concrete, like what carbicrete makes, is 30% stronger, cheaper, and uses waste from steel manufacturers. it seems pretty amazing. but at this point, i was worried that there might be a catch. i can consider what i like to call the electric vehicle problem. evs are way better for the environment over the course of their lives than a typical gas-fuelled car is. however, because of how much energy it takes to make a new car of any model, the environmentally optimal option is usually to just ride gas-guzzling cars until they’re broken for good before buying an ev. believe it or not, this isn’t a problem with carbicrete’s carbon-negative concrete.

martin escarbelt:

first off, what we do – what we do most of the time is retrofit existing plants. so we don’t need to build an entire new thing every time we want to implement our solution. and what we are – and the solution we are using is not carbon-intensive as of itself. and we are very attentive to the authentication and verification processes. we’ve performed fcas and other analysis, and we are communicating on a case-by-case basis to make sure that the carbon reduction and the carbon removal is verified as real.

and what we can reasonably achieve once the plant is operational is 250% reduction in carbon emissions. so both through carbon emissions avoidance and carbon removal and so we can just try to visualize a concrete block. we can achieve carbon footprints as low as -1 kilogram per block. which, as we mentioned, is in the carbon-negative zone.

francisco camacho:

there you have it! a combined 12% of the world’s annual greenhouse gas emissions—4% from air conditioning and 8% from concrete production—has the potential to be almost completely eliminated! the technology and designs are already here. so to move our planet forward, we need to lean into these techniques! even though carbicrete is cheaper and aravena’s designs are common-sense practical, change moves slowly on its own. to really make this impact felt, governments, ngos, and ordinary people need to be aware of and promote their use. and heck, by doing this, maybe we’ll come across even better technologies and architectural models.

each night as the sun sinks, thousands of crows descend on sunnyvale, california. the birds overwhelm the downtown, raising a ruckus as they alight in tree tops to roost for the night. though welcomed by some, the daily spectacle has become a source of frustration for many of the city’s business owners and locals. 

“the crows are very noisy, and their droppings and feathers have created quite a mess,” says jennifer garnett, sunnyvale’s communications officer. “our council members have received many complaints from residents and businesses. we also have had to increase our frequency of pressure washing both areas.” 

most of the birds gather at sunnyvale’s plaza de sol, an open area bordered by trees and mixed-use buildings at the heart of the city. the 1.6-acre urban oasis boasts an amphitheater for summer outdoor concerts and sits adjacent to historic murphy avenue—a tree-lined street that hosts many restaurants and businesses. the plaza has always attracted crows, but the pandemic-fueled increase in outdoor dining—and the food scraps that comes with it—led to record numbers, garnett says. 

in an unsuccessful attempt to deter the birds, the town first tried hazing them with trained hawks and falcons. reflectors meant to confuse the flocks have also seen limited success. so, last month, sunnyvale turned to a $20 tool found at any office: a laser pointer. every weeknight for three weeks, beginning in later january, a trained city employee wielded a handheld green laser purchased on amazon. for 30 minutes at dusk, the staff person would shine the laser pointer into the plaza treeline where crows are beginning to settle in for the evening. the goal was to startle them each night until they eventually scatter for good. 

so far, sunnyvale is seeing success. “the laser pointer does seem to be working, “ garnett says. “however, we know that the crows are very smart and are likely to return when the deterrent goes away.” sunnyvale ceased the pilot program the week of february 14 and has not said whether it will resume the initiative if the birds return. 

sunnyvale is not alone in its corvid conundrum. urban populations of crows have been increasing in recent decades, and as a result, more cities and towns have tried to discourage them and other prolific species like canada geese using a variety of methods, including lasers. green has been found to be most effective laser color for evening hours—the light scatters in the atmosphere and produces a stronger beam that is more visible in the sky. the beams are also considered to be a safe deterrent. a 2002 study conducted by the u.s. department of agriculture’s national wildlife research center found that low-to-moderate power, long wavelength lasers can disperse birds in low-light conditions while presenting “no threat to the animal or the environment.” 

green lasers create “flashing movements” that are foreign to crows’ natural environment, says kevin mcgowan, instructor and crow expert at the cornell lab of ornithology. “there’s nothing magic about lasers, just that the small tool has an effect across a great distance.” lasers also aren’t a one-and-done solution, mcgowan says, noting that the approach isn’t foolproof and works best in combination with other hazing methods.

timing can be important for success, experts say. 

as an example, he points to several cities in new york that have had varying success with lasers. in 2005, auburn spent $14,000 on a hazing program spearheaded by the united states department of agriculture’s wildlife services. at the time, auburn’s crow population of roughly 64,000 birds outnumbered humans more than two-to-one. a mixed-use approach of lasers, pyrotechnics, and speakers blasting recordings of calls from distressed crows drove almost half of the population out of the city in just one week. yet, many simply relocated to nearby cortland or geneva. and 17 years later, auburn’s crow problem persists to enough of a degree that local artists recently embraced the city’s divisive mascot with fluorescent mosaics.

timing can be important for success, experts say. lasers are most effective at the beginning of the winter season, within a few days of the crows’ establishment, says john griffin, senior director, urban wildlife programs at the humane society of the united states. crows are intelligent creatures, and griffin notes that it gets “harder [to drive them away] the longer they’re there.” by the time spring rolls around, the birds will migrate elsewhere—but many return to the same city blocks winter after winter, only growing in numbers.

even if cities like sunnyvale manage to temporarily drive out downtown roosts, the crows will likely return unless they can find another suitable habitat. for this reason, matthew dodder, executive director of the santa clara valley audubon society, thinks that the best solution in sunnyvale is to learn to live with the birds. “from my point of view, it seems like not much can be done to change the situation,” he says. “so we should adapt to accept it, and appreciate it, and work around it.” dodder offers up ideas like covering dining areas and being better about trash management to help mitigate the impacts of the birds around the plaza. 

bigger picture, dodder hopes to see more changes in the development of urban and suburban spaces that would contribute to a more harmonious coexistence between bird and man. “if we can create new green spaces, that might just work,” he says. mcgowan agrees, recalling that he and his colleagues considered creating a designated “crow oasis” for the auburn flocks decades ago. but the city stuck to its ongoing hazing strategy instead.

another solution is cultural—teaching people to appreciate crows and other urban birds. instead of finding large flocks creepy or annoying, mcgowan says, we should see them as fascinating examples of species adaptation in an age where even the most common species are disappearing. “they’ve been doing this for thousands of years,” he says. “it’s actually a spectacle.” 

• the u.n. climate summit will take on “adaptation, loss and damage” monday. what does today’s conference theme mean? how is cop26 tackling the topic?

• 12 great examples of how countries are adapting to climate change. the thames barrier, risk-pooling in africa, community involvement in indonesia, and more — learn about current adaptation projects around the world.

• new u.n. report: step up climate change adaptation efforts, or face huge disruption. why is improving worldwide adaptation efforts such an urgent task, and what’s been holding us back? researchers explain their work in the united nations environment programme’s 2021 adaptation gap report. 

• a “just” climate change adaptation needs arts and culture. visual artists are increasingly teaming with climate change adaptation experts to help communities achieve the needed “just transition.” see how creatives and adaptation experts can make change together.

check back tomorrow for more info on what is being explored at cop26 — and good reads to keep you informed!

why don’t we have ac, you might ask? because it just isn’t that popular. in 2019, less than a fourth of households in france were equipped with at least one air conditioning system, compared to 90% of households in the united states at that time.

but temperatures will continue to rise until at least 2050. how will we be able to cope? 

—

editor’s note: check back each day during cop26 for more pieces in planet forward’s climate hits home series.

the niagara river is a very popular fishing destination for anglers. however, legacy pollution from past industries has contaminated waterways and aquatic life. with every fish caught, anglers and fish-consumers are at risk for poisoning. ddt, pcbs, heavy metals, and other toxins accumulate in the fish through biomagnification. this video describes the protective measures that you can take while fishing and provides some representation to those who greatly depend on fishing as their main source of food.

we watched waves pour over our front yard, our mailbox looking like it had been mistakenly plopped down in the middle of the ocean. waves hit the windows on our second-floor deck, water rushed past our windows, and i began to wonder if we might float away, too.

when the storm had mostly passed, the neighborhood began to come out of hiding to check on each other and fulfill our curious natures. the massive jersey barriers – made of concrete and bolted down with steel – had been pushed across the street onto our lawns. our backyard was covered in inches of sand, and there were starfish lying prone in the driveway. the ocean we all loved so dearly came closer than ever before to pay us a visit, and maybe to give us a warning.

the following year we evacuated for hurricane sandy and returned the following day to find that the sand beneath the state road had been washed away, leaving the road suspended in the air. the granite blocks in front of our house had dropped into the ground as it opened up, and i remember staring at the hole where my front yard used to be and feeling that we were in over our heads in more ways than one.

for me, growing up in a beach house in a town that comes alive in the summer was paradise. but it will soon be paradise submerged.

the seawall

at a neighborhood meeting in may 2018, i lingered at the back of the room, letting my parents and their neighbors contend with the reality of their disappearing property. familiar faces leaned over the map held by a state civil engineer who seemed too young to be in charge of saving a neighborhood.

the state of connecticut is building a $5.8 million seawall on the state road that stands between the long island sound and my neighborhood, which consists mostly of old beach cottages set back less than 50 feet from the place where land gives way to water. the state is aiming not to protect houses but to protect route 146, since it was severely undermined when hurricane sandy washed the land out from beneath it.

the u.s. army corps of engineers estimates the long island sound will rise 6.24 inches higher in the next 15 years; the road is only three feet above the current high tide mark, so it’s no wonder the state is starting to worry.

the people who built my house and others like it in the 1920s looked at an undeveloped beach and saw only opportunity. then the deadly hurricane of 1938 and countless other hurricanes and nor’easters hit the town with growing intensity, but beachfront houses continued to pop up on my street like elaborate sandcastles just waiting for the tide to come. perhaps unsurprisingly, the desire for beachfront property remains constant even as the beachfront creeps ever closer. 

we severely underestimate the power of the ocean, just as we underestimate the impacts of a changing climate. whether the year is 2018 or 2033, a category 3 hurricane like hurricane katrina or hurricane irma would flood my family’s entire property with a layer of 11 feet of water, while another category 1 storm like hurricane sandy would dump five feet of water on us. nor’easters and hurricanes become more extreme as they’re fueled by increasing ocean temperatures and they reach further onshore due to sea-level rise, meaning we can expect more starfish in the driveway every year.

climate change and the resultant sea-level rise is the most significant reason we need a seawall, but rarely was the phrase “climate change” uttered at that neighborhood meeting. there’s a major cognitive distance between sea-level rise as an abstract concept and a sea-level that could reach our driveways in less than a century.

but in 2019, the town of branford did something amazing — something that surprised me. the town invested $1 million in a new coastal resiliency fund as a way to save for the future climate costs like repairing washed-out roads and bridges. quietly, without any fanfare, branford made a commitment to its future and acknowledged the threat of climate change in a major way.

the sandcastles

i have this apocalyptic vision in my head of fish swimming by the stop sign where i once waited for the bus, of my childhood bed floating through sunlit water long after my parents have fled for higher ground. there’s no violent destruction or fear in my vision because i’ve grown up with this reality. maybe the next hurricane will knock the house down, but in my head, my childhood home stays in the same place as the ocean overtakes it, a symbolic reminder that the land was never ours to begin with, and that humans have majorly screwed up.

in some ways, i believe my drive to become an environmental journalist stems from my life experiences of reckoning with the rising sea. it’s hard to grow up with hurricanes as a character in your life story and not develop a curiosity about the climate. i’m not trying to save myself – seawall or not, i believe it may be too late for my neighborhood – but i want to help turn our trajectory around for other people, if i can, or at least help people adjust to the new world we’ll be living in.

i’m most concerned about people who are far less privileged than i am: people who live in places like the bahamas or puerto rico and have no way to escape the fury of a hurricane. people who have played little to no role in carbon emissions still must watch the sea approach them, suffering the crash of a wave that began on shores far away.

while i may one day lose my house and my neighborhood, other people will lose their jobs, families, and lives. entire countries will be wiped off the map. every island you’ve ever vacationed on could be just decades away from being a memory that geographers point to, identifying the spot where land and lives used to be. not all sea-level rise is equal in effect, and compared to other people in the world, my story is far from a tragedy.

people like my family and neighbors got lucky, living in the middle of a new england beach postcard, and then because of the choices we made, our luck ran out. but maybe we can prolong the daydream for a little longer…

and so we’re building a seawall, which will hold off the storms and seas for some time. but if there’s anything i’ve learned from playing in the sand, it’s that human constructions are trivial compared to the power of the ocean. we’ve seen that with the destruction of levees in new orleans, piers in new jersey, and entire towns in the bahamas. there is plenty we can do to become more resilient in the meantime, like building seawalls and lifting homes onto stilts, but the reality for places like branford is that people will one day have to move away.

high on a cliff over the branford river, there’s a big, sandy-colored mansion complete with turrets and crenellations that we jokingly refer to as “the sandcastle.” but the irony is that that house will survive far longer than the houses on my street. the real sandcastles are houses like mine; hastily constructed too close to the sea with the optimism of a child building sandcastles and believing they’ll be there forever. i long for the days when i, too, thought that the rising sea would never reach me.

civilization as we know it depends on a diversity of plants, animals and bacteria for crop pollination, food from land and sea, medicines, and for maintenance of livable temperatures. our over-consumption of earth’s resources has destroyed animal habitats, polluted the environment, and decimated wildlife populations.

humans created this crisis. we are also able to stop it. the first step is to immediately lower the levels at which we consume the earth’s limited resources. we must also break the mold of our existing approach to animal species conservation, and implement more effective solutions, ones based on the reality that the health of human beings, wildlife and the planet itself are inextricably linked. it is essential that we forge new partnerships that break the silos which currently constrain conservation efforts.

health in harmony is a planetary health organization whose conservation programs are driven by an understanding that human wellbeing is fundamentally linked to the health of surrounding wildlife, and vice-versa. to help in our efforts, we have forged critical partnerships with the places where more americans learn about our natural world than from any other: zoos.

zoos accredited by the association of zoos and aquariums (aza) provide a connection to the natural world for nearly 180 million people every year, including 51 million students. in fact, more people visit zoos annually than attend every major league professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey game in the unites states, combined.

the idea that zoos are nothing more than arks for animal species doomed to extinction is antiquated and untrue. aza zoos are at the forefront of conservation efforts that save animals in the wild from extinction. with the support of their local communities, north american zoos and aquariums have helped bring the whooping crane, the california condor and the black-footed ferret back from the brink of extinction.

this year, zoos have funded $220 million worth of conservation initiatives like health in harmony’s in indonesian borneo. zoos are critical partners in health in harmony’s efforts to preserve rain forest coverage for orangutan populations and hundreds of other species.

more than a decade ago, borneo’s gunung palung national park was losing tree cover at an alarming rate. this was mostly due to illegal rain forest logging by people in marginalized communities bordering the park, who had no other way to afford food and health care for their families. because of the resulting habitat loss, innumerable species were completely lost, while others, such as the bornean orangutan, became endangered.

health in harmony spent over 400 hours listening to people in 40 villages bordering the park. what emerged was a greater awareness of the critical connection between their health and the health of the surrounding rain forest. during our listening exercises, members of these communities designed a holistic intervention that combined health care with jobs training and a reforestation program. in the decade since, there has been an 88 percent reduction in the number of households logging rain forest inside gunung palung national park. the loss of primary rain forest has stabilized, 20,000 hectares are growing back, and – significantly – habitat for 2,500 endangered bornean orangutans has been protected.

our partner zoos around the united states are now able to integrate the story of our success within their own extraordinary orangutan exhibits. guests learn how the merger of human development and rainforest conservation protects these charismatic animals. and the zoo’s orangutans themselves magnify that understanding: guests learn through these exceptional ambassadors what is needed to protect their wild cousins, as well as other animal and plant species.

news of biodiversity loss and climate change is too often apocalyptic and dire. we have the ability to avoid a sixth mass extinction and must shine a light on these success stories. unique partnerships like the one between aza zoos and organizations like health in harmony represent an untapped resource for galvanizing efforts to reverse species extinction. zoos connect game-changing conservation efforts like ours to millions of zoo guests each year, renewing hope for a world where all people respect, value and conserve wildlife in wild places.

—

jonathan jennings is the executive director of health in harmony. jeff wyatt, dvm, is chair of the aza accreditation commission.

world leaders and stakeholders gathered at the ridderzaal in the hague, netherlands, for the commission’s opening ceremony. speakers cited last week’s ipcc report, which warned of catastrophic climate change as soon as 2030, as a call to action. their talks emphasized what’s at stake with warming temperatures: climate change could force 100 million people into “extreme poverty” by 2030, georgieva said.

even if countries meet the paris accord goal and maintain a global temperature rise below 2 degrees celsius, ban said, climate change will continue to escalate. 

“we must learn from one another,” ban said. “adapting to climate will require a complete transformation of policies, programs and projects across government, the private sector, and civil society to ensure the well-being of humanity.” 

here are five takeaways from the historic event:

1. climate adaptation is worth the investment

commissioners and national leaders stressed the role of finance as climate change threatens the world’s natural resources.

adaptive development is a “good economic action,” said kristalina georgieva, providing a financial return four to seven times higher than business as usual with the prevented damages. the commission will work to transform “food security and rural livelihoods, global supply chains, cities, infrastructure, finance, social protection and nature-based solutions,” according to a press release.

a nation battling intense cyclones, bangladesh was the first country to institute a climate change trust fund. the fund has collected more than $400 million since its founding in 2010, prime minister sheikh hasina said.

the global cost of adapting to climate change could reach $500 billion per year by 2050, ban said. water scarcity in africa and the middle east will cause a nearly 6% decline in an affected country’s gdp, he added.

“we must realize that the investments needed are small compared with the cost of business as usual,” ban said. “the benefits are many times larger.”

2. current global leadership isn’t enough

netherlands prime minister mark rutte said the scope of the global commission on adaptation is “unprecedented.” still, leaders urged the rest of the world to take responsibility.

former chilean president michelle bachelet hopes the commission will invite new actors to be part of the wide-ranging solution.

“every country should engage now to reduce emissions of and stabilize the levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” bachelet said.

the united states is noticeably absent from the list of convening countries, which include its economic partners and bordering nations. in 2017, the trump administration announced the country’s impending departure from the paris agreement. the president recently modified his views on climate change, stating the damages will eventually reverse themselves.

3. sustainability starts small

speakers also reiterated the need for localized solutions in the fight against climate change. 

small caribbean islands set an important precedent, said grenada cabinet minister simon stiell, particularly when threatened by natural disasters. grenada announced its plans to establish the world’s first “climate-smart” city in 2017. the capital of st. george’s will work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, protect against flooding, and grow the local economy. also as of 2017, the greater caribbean aims to become an entire “climate-smart zone.” 

“the caribbean, and all small island developing states, are at the frontline of the war against climate change,” stiell said. “if we have the right level of support, we believe the caribbean could be the global exemplar of what needs to be done.”

4. vulnerable populations experience the worst of climate change

“adaptation efforts fall short of those who need them most, the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people,” according to a commission press release.

philippines senator loren legarda spoke on the disparate power dynamic created by climate change. globally, the philippines is the third-most susceptible to climate change, she said, yet the country contributes only one-third of one percent of harmful emissions.

“i represent a vulnerable nation,” legarda said. “yes, we are not responsible for what’s happening.”

bill gates spoke via video message on the agricultural shortages faced by developing countries as temperatures rise. he said innovative technologies, such as enhanced seeds, are the key to adaptation. gates also mentioned his fund breakthrough energy ventures, which works to make clean energy globally accessible.

“climate change is affecting the entire world,” gates said. “but the people already experiencing its devastating impacts, and are most susceptible to its worst consequences, are the millions of farming families in developing countries who are struggling with extreme poverty and hunger due to low crop yields.”

5. what’s next

the commission will prepare a report for the u.n. secretary-general’s 2019 climate summit, said netherlands minister of infrastructure and water management cora van nieuwenhuizen. the netherlands will host the commission’s first climate adaptation action summit in 2020. 

georgieva pointed to water management in the netherlands as a past example of human adaptation. now, she said, climate change demands a greater scope, scale, and speed of action.

“we are the last generation that can alter its course and we are the first generation that has to live with its consequences,” she said.

when asked in a press conference about the consequences of inaction, ban said the world has witnessed “a decrease in political will” since the paris accord. he asserted that the commission will work with leaders across the public and private sector, as well as civil society, to combat climate change.

“the next two years will be critical for humanity,” ban said. “but i believe greater climate resilience is achievable if we work together.”