Report Focuses on Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change

Global warming will have worsening impacts on California including more destructive wildfires, a hotter and drier climate, reduced water supply, and soaring electricity demand, plus billions of dollars in costs, according to a new state report .

“California is one of the most ‘climate-challenged’ regions of North America and must actively plan and implement strategies to prepare for and adapt to extreme events and shifts in previously ‘normal’ averages,” urges the Fourth Climate Change Assessment Statewide Summary Report released Aug. 27.

The assessment points out that temperatures and heat waves are rising with more variable precipitation, causing earlier runoff and more dry spells, ill health and increasing the stress on the grid.

For example, it warns of the impacts of surging peak hourly power demand during the hot summer months on the grid. “This is a critical finding for California’s electric system, because generating capacity must match peak electricity demand,” it notes.

But the report is not all bad news.

“The overall takeaway is that, even if the globe goes on a huge emissions reduction path–which we are not even close to at this point–we are still going have to adapt, because things are going to get hotter no matter what, and oceans are going to rise,” said Bruce Riordan, program director of U.C. Berkeley’s Climate Readiness Institute, and one of the report authors. “People want to hear that there are things we can do and, yes, there is a lot we can do,” Riordan added.

It calls for slashing greenhouse gases in California 80 percent below 1990 levels. That would significantly improve “health outcomes, and costs avoided would be comparable to the cost of achieving 80 percent greenhouse gas reductions by 2050,” according to the report.

Otherwise, harm of a business-as-usual scenario on different regions of the state is spelled out in the 132-page assessment. Threats include harm from rising seas levels on coastal cities, increases in wildfires in forested areas, the impacts of hotter inland temperatures, including rising mortality and economic harm to tourism and agriculture.

“The changes vary between regions in California, but every region is seeing and will continue to see effects from climate change,” the report warns. It also points out the projected tens of billions of dollars in costs by 2050 from a warmer and drier climate can be partly avoided with substantial reductions in greenhouse gases.

The assessment projects that if greenhouse gases continue to increase there would be nearly a 50 percent increase in extreme wildfires by 2100. “In the areas that have the highest fire risk, wildfire insurance is estimated to see costs rise by 18 percent by 2055 and the fraction of property insured would decrease.”

With increasing wildfires, population shifts are expected, with possible reduction in high fire risk regions.

Other impacts without taking strong mitigation measures include: Sea level rise, causing up to “$17.9 billion from inundation of residential and commercial buildings under 50 cm (~20 in) of sea-level rise, which is close to the 95th percentile of potential sea-level rise by the middle of this century.” In addition, a 100-year coastal flood “would almost double the costs.” Hotter drier climates, harming harm health and reducing life expectancy. Erosion of California beaches by 2100 without massive human intervention. This assessment comes just in advance of the Sept. 12-14 Global Climate Action Summit, co-chaired by Gov. Jerry Brown. The summit aims to launch greater worldwide commitments to emission cuts to help attain the carbon reduction goals enumerated in the Paris Agreement. — Elizabeth McCarthy

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Report Focuses on Mitigating and Adapting to Climate Change

William J. Kelly

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