Climate Change
Climate Information and Resources from IEDC and RYE
As the frequency of natural disast
ers has picked up significantly in recent years, they have been increasingly linked to the effects of climate change. The United Nations reported in 2021 that between 1970 and 2019, the number of climate- and weather-related natural disasters increased five-fold across the globe, with economic losses increasing seven-fold. Recent scientific research has revealed various ways climate change worsens the impact of natural disasters. Most notably, recent devastating hurricanes and wildfires have been linked to a warmer climate. Warmer seas cause hurricanes to pick up more water vapor, intensifying their destructive impacts, according to Dr. Angela Colbert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. More intense hurricanes mean more flooding and more damage to critical community infrastructure, with deleterious economic and human impacts. A warmer and drier climate also creates more suitable conditions for severe wildfires to take hold. Wildfire rates have trended steadily upwards in the U.S. in recent decades alongside a rise in temperatures. To effectively prepare for and respond to natural disasters, communities need to incorporate climate change into their response strategy.
Climate change is also responsible for extreme weather events that can have graver human and economic impacts than hurricanes and wildfires. As average temperatures have risen in recent decades, heat waves have become more frequent and longer on average. The average length of the annual heat wave season has also increased substantially, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
September 6, 2022
IEDC's Equitable Economic Development Playbook: Disaster Preparedness, Recovery, and Climate Resilience
IEDC is held a free webinar on equitable, community-led disaster and climate resilience and recovery as part of its Equitable Economic Development Playbook initiative. To view the full recording on RYE's events page, click here.
Climate Resources from IEDC
In January 2022, IEDC released an Economic Development Research Partners (EDRP) report titled "Economic Development in a Changing Climate: Minimizing Risks and Maximizing Opportunities." The report details the risks that climate change poses to communities served by economic developers and what steps practitioners can take to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The report also discusses the opportunity that communities have with the economic and energy transitions that the economy will undergo in the coming decades. The report gives economic developers all the information they need to know about the science of climate change and likely future trends in the climate. The report concludes that economic developers can take concrete action to mitigate the impacts of climate change and that everyone stand to benefit from the job creation that will come in a carbon-neutral world. You can download an executive summary of the report for free by clicking here, or purchase the full report on IEDC's website.
Economic Development in a Changing Climate
IEDC held a free webinar on its climate EDRP report in February 2022. The archived webinar recording can be accessed on IEDC's website by clicking here.
Federal Resources for Climate-related Disaster Resilience and Recovery
The National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) offers valuable resources for EDOs to assess their vulnerability to hurricanes and other oceanic climate-related disasters. This includes OneStop, a data search tool that can be used to access any NOAA data with a metadata record. NOAA's National Center for Environmental Information also publishes a map showing the location of all hurricane strikes in the continental U.S. between 1950 and the present day. The most recent such map, seen at the top of the page, can be downloaded by clicking here. You can download monthly State of the Climate reports, Extreme Weather Information Sheets for twenty-two U.S. regions, and more by visiting NOAA's website at ncei.noaa.gov.
The U.S. Forest Service also offers resources for communities to learn more about adapting to a changing climate in an era when wildfire season is getting longer and fires are getting bigger each year. These include resources on conducting vulnerability assessments and carbon assessments. The Forest Service's website also contains helpful information regarding climate adaptation for land managers of forested areas, including the Forest Service's Adaptation Guidebook.
The EPA offers resources for communities to better adapt to extreme heat events. EPA recommends that local officials monitor National Weather Service (NWS) forecasts and communicate to the public the anticipated arrival, duration and intensity of extreme heat events. EPA also recommends that communities engage in public outreach efforts to inform residents on potential risk factors and recommended responses to heat, targeted especially toward vulnerable populations. Finally, communities can improve their infrastructure by using materials such as cool pavements that absorb high amounts of heat and by improving the reliability of their electrical systems, which are critical during heat waves.
On its climate.gov website, NOAA offers a general toolkit for building climate resilience. This includes case studies from communities across the U.S. and digital tools that enable community leaders to more effectively assemble information about their communities, built around the five steps of climate resilience as a framework. The five steps are:
- Understand Exposure
- Assess Vulnerability & Risk
- Investigate Options
- Prioritize & Plan
- Take Action
The website also offers more specialized resources for water managers, building rural resilience, and the Ready-to-Fund Resilience Toolkit from the American Society of Adaptation Professionals.