It’s very clear that we won’t hit Net Zero by 2050 and mitigations won’t be in place, meaning that each of us will face serious disruptions caused by climate change.
We had previously assumed that we would get advanced warning from the Maldives flooding and failing crops in Africa, but it now looks like climate change will impact areas at the same time.
The US has revised the climate change hardiness with half of all states moving to a warmer zone, some places like Seattle have moved to a whole new climate zone. This year the UK has already seen more wildfires than have ever been recorded for a whole year.
There has been an expectation that climate change is a problem for governments to solve. It’s certainly true that only government action can address the causes of climate change and put in place the major adaptations like flood defences. But it’s impractical for governments to have contingency plans that will cover everyone.
Personal adaptations are essential…
Each household must ensure that they have the resilience for short- and longer-term disruption caused by climate impacts. How will we cope if usual sources are cut off or we are forced to move – where will we get water, food, shelter, heating and cooling, transport, and connectivity.?
How long could we survive or keep working? My guess is that for most of us this is just a few days.
We have time to make and implement these plans. Homes can be redesigned, stocks of essentials can be built (including energy), resilient communications can be installed.
Perhaps we should all buy a bike?
