Evidence of the increasing effects of climate change is building, as are the investing opportunities and changes in consumer habits linked to environmental concerns and resource use. Here are select dispatches about the companies responding to customer demands and climate risk, the ESG investors and their advisers, and the enterprising individuals and scientists preparing for tomorrow.
Taking the Heat: Cities must adapt to climate change. Goldman Sachs’s Global Markets Institute, led by Amanda Hindlian, has warned in a new report of “significant” potential risks to the world’s largest cities, which are especially vulnerable to more frequent storms, higher temperatures, rising sea levels and storm surges. Cities generate about 80% of global GDP and house more than half of the world’s population, a share that Goldman says, citing the United Nations, is projected to reach two-thirds by 2050.
About 40% of the global population lives within 100 kilometers of a coast, it says, and 1 in 10 live in areas less than 10 meters above sea level. Goldman highlighted three cities which would be subject to those storm surges and in the future could face harmful flooding — New York, Tokyo, and Lagos. Miami, Alexandria, Dhaka, and Shanghai face major flood risks due to being less than 11 meters above sea level, the report said.
Greater resilience will likely require extensive urban planning, with investments in coastal protections, climate-resilient construction, more robust infrastructure, upgraded water and waste-management systems, energy resilience and stronger communications and transportation systems, said Hindlian and her team. Despite the uncertainty around the timing and scale of the impact, it may be prudent for some cities to start investing in adaptation now and to do so in ways that allow for maximum flexibility in the future – without committing to any one specific climate projection.
Even the most economically prosperous cities will likely need to look beyond tax revenues to other sources of funding, including central-government funds, public-private partnerships, institutional investors, insurance and, in developing economies, international financial institutions. “Soft” infrastructure, such as laws, regulations and markets that support financing, will matter too, the report said.
Read: Banks worth $47 trillion adopt UN-backed climate pact — but only 3 of the top 10
Two sugars and a shot of microplastic? Even amid efforts to reduce plastic use, some tea manufacturers are moving in the opposite direction: replacing traditional paper tea bags with plastic ones. Now, researchers reporting in the journal ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology have discovered that a soothing cup of the brewed beverage may come with a dose of micro- and nano-sized plastics shed from the bags. More research is needed to determine if the plastics could have more subtle or chronic effects on humans, the researchers say.
Dior’s pop-up forest. With the fashion industry under more scrutiny for large carbon footprints, the kickoff of Paris Fashion Week featured a tree-lined runway for Dior’s show. The fashion house has vowed to re-plant each of the 164 trees in projects around Paris, allowing them to continue growing in a natural environment, the Independent reported. The trees, which came from nurseries in France, Germany and Italy, were tagged with stories of their origins and explanations as to where they would be repurposed following the show. The clothes also clearly referenced the natural world. Models walked down the foliage-filled runway in an array of earthy garments tied up with rope belts and covered in botanical prints.
Everglades restoration underway. In 1948 Congress authorized a central and southern Florida Flood Control Project that drained half of the original Everglades and turned South Florida into the globally important economic region it is today. But the unintended consequences of the drainage brought worsened water quality, destruction of natural habitats and loss of native species that once thrived there. A massive, joint restoration undertaken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service and the Florida Department of Transportation is the largest water restoration project ever in the United States. It was approved by Congress in 2000, and will eventually cost $10.5 billion over 35 years. At last, three incremental phases of the massive project have been funded for completion. The Miami Herald is answering reader questions about the restoration, here.
Source : MTV
