 Good afternoon everyone. My name is Carol Werner and I'm the executive director of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute I'm very glad to see you all here this afternoon for this last briefing in this particular series in which we have been looking at climate impacts on a regional basis Coming out of the National Climate Assessment which looked at different regions across the country Drawing together people from many many perspectives scientists across The country looking at what are the impacts? What does this mean in terms of thinking about adaptation and resilience and drawing upon the perspectives and advice of People from academia throughout as well as all sorts of practitioners across the country So we have looked in previous briefings at impacts in the Southwest Southeast last week at the Midwest today at the Northeast I think that we are all very very much aware of having seen in very recent years the terrific impact that extreme weather events has had in this very populous area of the Northeast and And we are Very honored today to bring together some of the important Voices and some of the leadership that has been looking at this whole area of the Northeast What this means in terms of thinking about how do we do a better job? How do we do? More comprehensive and holistic approach to managing these risks in the Northeast when we're dealing with a huge built infrastructure very very large population and Lots and lots of issues when you think about the enormous Economic interests and all of the people and property that are involved So we will hear first in terms of kind of laying out the findings from the National Climate Assessment and from the Convening lead author of the Northeast Chapter of the National Climate Assessment and then we will hear from other people who are Engaged in really looking at what does this mean in terms of planning in the Northeast with regard to Managing these risks. What is underway because these the states of the Northeast are very aggressively Looking at these issues assessing what needs to be done in how best to move forward So our first speaker is Dr. Radley Horton who is the associate an associate research scientist at Columbia University and He is here also in the hit the context of his being the convening lead author for the chapter on the Northeast for the National Climate Assessment and He also teaches at Columbia's sustainable development department as well And he brings an interesting combination He's involved as a co-leader with regard to a number of other efforts underway dealing with climate and adaptation resiliency Issues in terms of efforts underway that NASA is Working on that are looking at stewardship and what does this mean in terms of adaptation and stewardship also in terms of NOAA and Also working with the United Nations Environment Program. So he is working with many different entities And has also been involved working with and was the climate science lead for the New York City panel on climate change So I am pleased to turn to our first presenter dr. Horton Thank you, and thanks for the chance to speak with all of you today So yes, I'll be talking about the Northeast region as we heard one of the eight regions Covered in the latest national climate assessment before getting started. I wanted to pay thanks to to some of the groups That are so critical in getting this this assessment together first I wanted to acknowledge NOAA's RISA program for supporting the consortium for climate risk in the urban northeast Also wanted to thank NASA's earth science division for all of their work Supporting the national climate assessment USG CRP and then of course all of the agent all of the city government Federal government for all the support in the assessment as well So quickly an overview again at the highest level on the national climate assessment This was the most comprehensive assessment to date the third national climate assessment was it had approximately 300 authors Representing private sector NGOs Universities a really broad set of voices and looking at a much broader set of topics than prior assessments had as well In terms of the findings the key messages being that climate change is already happening This isn't just an issue about the future as we'll see when we talk about the Northeast Climate change is already happening and it's having impacts already on all the populations of the Northeast And another message though is that especially I think in the Northeast there are actually a lot of solutions already in play mitigation and adaptation solutions some of them are in sort of early days early phases But we've reached a point where there's a lot happening And I think that gives us the potential to sort of invert the discussion in some ways Start from talking about visioning the futures that we want to have and some of the solutions that can get us there Let's see if I can make this point or work. Oh and also just to quickly acknowledge within the Northeast now Some of the team that that put this report together. These are the authors for the chapter We also have a technical input report that we're developing that had 50 or 60 Additional authors who contributed to the work Okay, so as we delve into now the Northeast the broader context We know that carbon dioxide has increased in the atmosphere about 40 percent since the start of the industrial revolution Methane has gone up about one and a half fold This is a product of burning of fossil fuels land use changes. And as I said earlier, it's already having impacts In the Northeast so here are some of the things that we've already Observed globally in the global average about eight inches of sea level since 1900 here in the Northeast It's more like a foot We'll talk a little bit about some of the reasons partly it has to do with Impacts of higher greenhouse gases changing ocean circulation in a way that brings up sea level in the Northeast But partly it's simply just due to the fact that much of the Northeast is sinking Talking there about why we're getting more than eight inches in the Northeast Another key finding heavy rain events that sort of extreme tail the downpours are becoming much more frequent There's been more than a 70% increase since the middle of the century in those heavy rain events Temperatures have gone up about two degrees Fahrenheit since 1900 in the Northeast. That's more than the global average It's more than the US average. We'll talk about how that's already changing the frequency of the extreme temperature events that impact people infrastructure and ecosystems So those are sort of some of the key three observations About what we're already seeing. Okay, so let's delve in a little more now to each of those three variables talk about what we expect for This future for the future of this century and what we think the impacts are going to be Okay, so I said in the Northeast we've had on average about a foot of sea level rise since 1900 if you can see here How that breaks down Less than a foot for a lot of New England not much less than a foot a little less But then as you get into some of these regions down here more than a foot And if we were to go down to Norfolk, which has been in the news a lot in Virginia a little outside the Northeast But not much actually about a foot and a half of sea level rise since 1900 These are at the levels where we're already seeing a lot of impacts today coastal flooding is happening much more frequently And even those sort of root routine high tides are really starting to have a big impact on on people and Infrastructure and then you just to pull out one example here. This is the tide gauge at Philadelphia going back to 1900 so that's the past and just to quickly highlight again that level of sea level rise already matters It's estimated that about 70 square kilometers of additional area flooded due to sand during sandy Simply because sea levels were a foot higher than they were before Something on the order of perhaps as many as 80,000 additional people Experienced flooding in their homes because of that higher sea level sea level rise had raised the baseline when sandy came Now let's talk about what we expect for sea level rise in the future The national climate assessment we had a technical input report that was released It documented a range of possible outcomes if we take a projection of something like two and a half feet of sea level rise Which we might think of as sort of a high-end scenario for the 2050s That same two and a half feet by the way though if we go out to say the 2080s or 2100 is a very middle-of-the-road projection for how much sea level rise we might get Just that level of sea level rise alone for most of the Northeast will mean coastal flooding will happen about four times as Often as it's happened in the past so we're not talking about hurricanes getting any stronger We're not talking about nor Easter's getting any stronger. We're not talking about extreme sea level rise We're talking about just gradual routine sea level rise Leading to a situation where coastal flooding is happening much more frequently something that used to happen Maybe once every hundred years become something you expect to happen during the lifetime of a mortgage for example Simply due to sea level rise. So what are the impacts in the Northeast right? We have enormous populations Living in the current FEMA flood zones before you think about sea level rise something like a million and a half people Vulnerable we have trillions of dollars in infrastructure right our iconic rail networks everything from Amtrak a lot of the commuter railroads electrical substations wastewater treatment plants Naval facilities you name it in our coastal zones fuel storage depots refineries Just a huge amount of assets vulnerable in those coastal zones And it's not just the coast that's affected right we have to think about supply chain disruptions We have to think about impacts on commerce As these coastal areas increasingly get flooded in the future and it's not just service disruptions right we saw some of these Multiple system failures for example during sandy where one part of the system that's underwater goes down Knocks out a much broader system. We expect much more of that That leads to service disruptions Key utilities can't provide the services that they're need required to to to supply but additionally of course There's huge economic cost right salt water corrosion to electrical systems salt water getting its way into groundwater systems These are the kind of things that that we worry about But it's more than just sea level rise right we have a whole bunch of other concerns We have to think about in the Northeast as well. I mentioned coastal I mentioned the heavy rain events you can see here since the middle of the 20th century Most of the country has seen an increase in these very heavy rain events, but in the Northeast It's been a more than a 70% increase in those heavy rain events So what does that mean? It has impacts in those same urban areas that we talked about more frequent combined sewer overflow events situations where rainwater is falling Faster than our land surfaces can take it up a lot of times that water ends up Integrate getting integrated with sewage We have these overflow events that fowl a lot of our coastal waterways But I want to really highlight Some of the non-urban issues here as well because we're talking about the entire Northeast here a 12-state region If we look at so many parts of the Northeast, you know really characterized by a lot of topography and very narrow valleys This is everything from West Virginia Western Pennsylvania Western New York Western Maryland All the way into mountainous regions of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine So these are areas where you know if you sort of did a did a fly by our satellite overview You see a lot of the critical infrastructure the roads, but also things like the farms Are located in a lot of those valleys and if we see more of these heavy rain events that washes out a lot of that critical Infrastructure to generalize a lot of these places are areas that don't have a lot of economic resources a lot of resiliency to recover Heavy rain events a very devastating issue for those regions Hurricane Irene would be one example of a storm That's that that's knocked a lot of those that there's a lot of those areas are still trying to recover from Okay, now let's talk a little bit about heat events So I mentioned earlier we've had about two degrees of warming on the average in the Northeast if we look at projections for the future We might see something on the order of about four degrees Fahrenheit warming by the 2050s There's uncertainty, but that's sort of a central a central range not an extreme estimate at all Just increasing average temperatures by that much will mean much more frequent extreme heat days So you can see here in this figure. This is for the 2050s Changes in how often we get days over 90 degrees in the current climate Anywhere you see those orange colors those are places that have in the typical year more than 20 days Over and where maximum temperatures go over 90 degrees Then we go out to the 2050s under two different possible futures of greenhouse gas concentrations B1 where we sort of reduce our emissions fairly quickly a to where we continue to emit at a high trajectory In both of those scenarios either one you can see a dramatic increase by the 2050s and how for in these days over 90 To generalize Doubling or tripling of the frequency of days over 90 degrees It also means that the highest highs are that much higher It means longer durations to heat waves warmer nights So the impacts on human populations are something that I wanted to highlight here We know that so many of our community heat is the leading weather-related killer in the US We have so many vulnerable populations the young the elderly those with pre-existing Health conditions those who don't have access to air conditioning just to name a few groups. This is a major issue going forward To some extent we can link it to things like urban heat island in our cities We know that where we have a lot of pavement where we've removed a lot of forest temperatures can be in some cases as much as 5-10 degrees warmer During the hottest periods you can just see here quickly That's Central Park with its for it with its forest showing up about 10 degrees cooler in terms of the actual surface temperatures there So that's the urban story, right? So a lot of the urban populations suffering from more heat Air quality can deteriorate when those temperatures get really high and if you push the highest temperatures up Just a little more in the hottest days much greater risk of power failure failures as well Precisely when people need need that the most not just an urban issue though Right as those temperatures go up some of those rural areas for example a lot of northern New England where you don't see much air conditioning today There's going to be a you know greater and greater vulnerability Going forward Okay, so now I want to shift gears just quickly speak a little bit about some broader impacts on the health side It's not just temperatures. We need to also be thinking about things like what is going to happen to insect pests What's going to happen to air quality as I mentioned earlier? Allergens as we see more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as temperatures go up Are we going to see more and more people suffering from allergies and then more generally in terms of our agriculture and ecosystems? This is a complicated story in some ways. We might see some benefits some Agriculture may benefit in the next couple decades from higher carbon dioxide from shorter winters on the other hand We're also going to see more weed pet more weeds and other pests benefiting A lot of potential trade-offs there On the fishery side we expect the cod and lobster To suffer in the southern part of the domain but potentially do better in the north due to changes in ocean temperatures Okay, my remaining time I want to switch gears and again emphasize that a lot is happening in the in the region in the way of adaptation Mitigation I think the other speakers are going to go into this in much more detail But all but one state in the region now has an adaptation has a climate change plan These processes are being developed. It's a long-term process But there's all sorts of examples we can point to as well of things that are underway on the sea level rise sort of coastal resilience side of things We've seen no up pioneer a coastal sea level rise viewer that includes sea level rise projection so people can see their vulnerabilities We've seen communities Helping people who are in repeated flood zones move out of those areas retreat away from the most vulnerable parts of the population In terms of preparing for heavier rain events We've seen investments in green infrastructure by cities to capture some of that rainwater. We've seen Maine Develop really a statewide plan Every time a culvert one of those sort of run-of-the-mill drainage systems under a road needs to be replaced Building in an extra factor making that pipe a little bit wider to account for these heavier rainfall events in the future These are things are already happening on the heat wave side of things Cities like Philadelphia and New York real leaders in terms of getting more cooling centers even helping people get air conditioners Who need them the most to some extent? heat advisory plans Planning more trees for shade And encouraging community members to look out for the most vulnerable members of their communities during heat waves And other types of natural disasters Okay, so clearly a lot is happening in the way of mitigation and adaptation in the region But we are in the early stages and to highlight that not only are we not there in terms of addressing our vulnerabilities now But again, these vulnerabilities are going to go up dramatically Even if we get on the best mitigation trajectory, which we need to do so we even are able to adapt So that the challenges aren't so big that they're more than we could possibly adapt to so to sort of close to to turn to Some of these adaptation strategies that are underway, so New York City has been a real leader For several years going back way before Sandy in thinking about Vulnerability developing a mitigation plan as part of plan yc around 2006 or so and then an adaptation plan around 2008 that helped very much when Sandy struck it helped it There was a plan in place to evacuate a lot of people There was a plan in place to protect some of the rolling stock that the train cars that Metro North had Some of those strategies reduced the vulnerability during Sandy a lot, but but clearly given the extent of Sandy's damage It wasn't enough the city reconvened the New York City panel on climate change to look at some of those vulnerabilities and here you can Just see some highlighting some of the impacts of Sandy very much an impetus to to push even further forward in the city In the region as well as we'll hear more about today That's the the South Ferry subway station Which I think suffered something on the order of half a billion dollars in damage during during Sandy alone flooded bottom to top So the New York City Pallin climate change are reconvened And looked at for example sea level rise projections We found an innovative approach that looked at components things that influence sea level rise that hadn't been assessed by a city before And I just quickly wanted to highlight that New York City has taken this risk-based approach Comfortable with the idea that there is uncertainty And depending and this is a risk issue depending on what The city is trying to protect if it's a critical asset that might last a hundred years or so The city is considered for example a 90th percentile case of more rapid sea level rise And I think embracing the science is something that that really New York City really stands out for it's encouraged these resilience sort of long-term approaches That put New York City front and center But we need to emphasize that we need continued federal leadership Some of these problems are too too big for any city to take on alone. We need to have take on alone We need to have coordination across different entities A private sector engagement and we need to keep in mind that there are a lot of cities and communities aren't going to have the resources to Take some of the steps that place like New York City can Okay, thank you Thanks very much. Bradley. Well, we're now going to turn to Scott Davis Who is a senior advisor for the office in the office of the secretary at HUD at the US Department of Housing and Urban Development? Since Scott joined HUD about five years ago in 2009 He has been involved with disasters With it and I don't think he's not been the cause of them, but he's been responding to them And he has been the director of the disaster recovery division He was also a senior advisor with regard to the president's hurricane Sandy rebuilding task force And he currently and we are anxious to hear more about this today, but anyway, he is currently administering the HUDs Rebuild by design a planning and design competition to increase resiliency in the whole region affected by Sandy Prior to coming to HUD and he and therefore he brings a very rich background in terms of having to think about all of these kinds of Disasters and what does it mean to become more resilient? Because before coming to HUD he was at the Department of Homeland Security Where he had been involved with Gulf Coast with Gulf Coast rebuilding after after looking at the 2005 hurricanes and He had worked in Louisiana with with FEMA and so he has been part of dealing with long-term community recovery for a long time and He also brings a perspective of having worked at the state and local government level too And that he'd worked on community and economic development issues in Ohio and also Arizona prior to his joining federal service Thank You Carol and and thanks to ESI for for putting on this briefing I think it's a real great opportunity to to highlight and frame some of the real the critical issues that we're dealing with today And thanks dr. Horton so for so expertly framing Framing the issue and and really Setting forward what we have in front of us what I'm going to talk a little bit about today is Is what we do with all this information? So we have great science now we have great data and How do we make that meaningful and informing how we move forward and what that looks like? So I'm going to do that through the lens of a recent competition that had just sponsored called rebuild by design the city of New York and a couple teams working in in New York City and I've been working with Dan for last year on this as well but Rebuild by design was essentially a two-phase competition understanding that in order to arrive at the best and most appropriate solution you really need to Understand the nature of the problem So the first phase of the competition was spending three months just doing regional research and analysis understanding risks vulnerabilities interdependencies at a regional scale and level and then Moving forward with now. What do we do about that and where do we go about doing it? So I'm going to kind of move through through this This is the past This is the future and so we can clearly see that how we go about building in the future Needs to be different than how we've gone about building historically This is all centered around the notion of risk and so when we think about risk What does that mean risk is not the same? In every square mile within the FEMA 100 year floodplain Risk is really the factor of probability that an event might occur Relative to the consequence of that So the amount of people the amount of assets the amount of land damaged as a result of the the event so Essentially, you're looking at risk as a factor of you can have some events that maybe have a more frequent or high Probability such as a hurricane coming into the Gulf Coast Where the consequence may be it hitting a city of you know, little less than a half a million or a lower probability event Coming into you know up the northern seaboard To hit New York City where there are millions and millions of people And and assets at risk Just in the New York, New Jersey metropolitan area Two and a half million people live within the 100 year floodplain right now And this is based on again flood maps that do not incorporate or factor in sea level rise so If you were to you know redraw this map ten years from now when we have better data and are looking forward with information There'll be even more people within the floodplain In understanding risk also, it's how we go about doing it and communicating it at an individual level How we make personal decisions and so when we go about that talking about 100 year floods and defining floodplains in terms of being 100 years just Because you had a flood last year doesn't mean that you shouldn't expect one for 99 more years It's really what that means is there's a 1% annual chance in any given year that This flood may occur and when you multiply that out or put those in more simple terms for folks You know, it's it's five times more likely than getting a flush and poker very everyday terms It's a one in four chance that you'll be flooded in the end You know before you pay off your mortgage if you're a homeowner with a 30-year mortgage So it's a very different thing thinking about living in the 25 percent chance floodplain versus the 100 year floodplain It's the same floodplain. It's the same risk, but it's how you understand it and then it informs how you make decisions so Back to kind of sea level rise and extreme events or hazards There are kind of two ways that they affect the landscape One, you know through hurricanes and storms you you see storm surge Which has a more dramatic effect on people buildings and in the land and erosion But gradual change with sea level rise ultimately has Has the same consequences FEMA again goes about defining their flood maps In terms of the most dangerous or high-risk areas being they called in in the a zone where there is wave height or storm surge possibility And so well, you probably can't see it that well from here a good portion of the New York and New Jersey Coastline is really subject to that. This is an example. This is one small slice in Long Island in Nassau County If we were to look at a category two surge That's what would be inundated inundated It's a little over a hundred thousand structures So when you see sea level rises and and you get And you get these storm surge events coming on top of sea level rise The the water doesn't only come from the ocean the water comes from the sky and to dr. Horton's point about extreme rain It's the community is in their ability to handle the the rain falling from the sky in addition to perhaps the coast and And the rainfall needs to you know going to run off and so you have these river in conditions, but When the outflow pipes when the waters rise above the outflow pipes and and The surge comes in the water doesn't have anywhere to drain out into and so you get conditions like this where Where even though you're in a neighborhood that's not right along the coast you're experiencing some pretty devastating flooding Because of an inability to adequately drain The you know the basin that you're living in so it's really important to go about planning it in a way that understands that Floods and water flows from different directions and it flows in different directions. It drains in different directions At the base of Informing how we go about doing things is to understand resilience and risk at a regional level because it's really about Larger systems and their interdependencies That's why are we also always so focused on you know the New York, New Jersey metropolitan area It's really because that's where all the people live. That's where the greatest number of lives of you know physical assets of buildings and In the environment or at risk And it's also a point where there is a unique kind of Kind of concentration or nexus or convergence of Multiple key systems infrastructure systems coming together and there are large interdependencies Serving a very large population there with those systems So you have a Unique thing happening there so in terms of going about a regional analysis In what the design teams did through the competition is looked at you know, they go about looking at Different system relative to one another layering that on top of one another then you look at how people interface with that How the economy interfaces with that? What does the natural environment look like and and to do this kind of layering effect? They what they ended up once they started looking at the region what they found is that When you look at it 75% of the power generation lies within the 1% annual chance floodplain A good portion of the electrical grid is underground and therefore It's underwater when it floods and you get scenarios like this Also looking at potential for pollution 80% of the regional fuel storage lies within the hundred the hundred-year floodplain when you go about and start mapping other facilities that Store hazard hazardous materials electric power facilities communication facilities oil gas Water wastewater you can see that where the vulnerability of these critical infrastructure facilities are Then you go about looking at where people live relative To this risk and primarily and where the most vulnerable folks live this is This is Manhattan One of the projects that will be funding is a result of the competition is in the lower east side of Manhattan And it's not because Manhattan is sexy, but it's because That's where the the highest concentration of public housing units in the nation resides more than 29,000 units Are there within the 1% annual chance floodplain? so It's about looking at Looking at your physical vulnerability and then overlaying that with your social vulnerability and to look at social vulnerability You can look at factors like Like, you know the very poor the very young the very old the disabled And then overlay that with your economic vulnerabilities. Where are your commercial districts? Where are your ports? You know where your jobs located your economic engines And then that will gives you a sense of to where to focus in on where are those opportunities? in places to to engage So it's what do we do with a scenario like this historically in the United States? We have to kind of two primary methods of dealing with flood protection one is to to Essentially to reinforce to to to to build a wall and And we do this in a lot of places some places. It's not appropriate or not possible. So The other opportunity is to retreat or relocate And sometimes that's not a possible solution either So you need to explore alternative solutions other than simply building a wall or moving entirely And how do we how do we look at the future of our of our cities? Recognizing that those two things aren't always the hundred percent answer Although they are often a part of the answer So we are looking at the design teams look through a series of design approaches that they're all different kinds of things that you can do to go about managing flood risk and reducing vulnerability through structural solutions and drainage basins or constructed ecologies and natural solutions Parks can serve as is a flood wall of design properly So when you start to take these different design approaches and mix and match them with different unique types of geography You can get a different approach for you know for different places that works But also provides co-benefits and other cultural amenities that that that serves as more than just a flood wall or an open space and Even if the solution is just a wall a wall doesn't just have to be a wall It can be a variety of things. It can be you know a bench. It can be a You know a skate park It can be a number of things and a and a berm doesn't need to be just a berm a Berm can be you know a title flat or a breakwater or or an oyster reef So the the point is that resilience You know, it's not about what it looks like it can look like a lot of different things resilience is about how it performs and so What you're looking for in resilience and what we're hoping to see as a result of the rebuild by design competition is is resilience that you know is Something where you see physical resilience But you're also seeing ecological resilience. You're seeing social resilience and you're seeing economic resilience And and when you're looking through all four of those lenses in your approach, that's when You know to the title of our our meeting today is that's when resilience really begins to evolve I think That's really it and I guess we take questions afterward Well next turn to Dan cerrilli who was appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio as the director of the mayor's office of recovery and resiliency for the city of New York I and there he is leading the implementation of New York City's initiative called a stronger more resilient New York and We're going to hear a lot more about all of that directly from from Dan He is also serving as the acting director of the office of long-term planning and sustainability Prior to this he had worked on the city's efforts to develop a comprehensive coastal protection plan for New York City's five boroughs and was named the city's first director of resiliency in 2013 he brings an engineering background having worked for Bechtel infrastructure and had also in Prior to this role for the mayor's office He had also been involved in working for Maritime assets for the for the city's Economic development corporation So he's very very familiar and has had to deal with a lot of looking at what is involved Whether it's cruise terminals all sorts of coastal infrastructure issues. So Dan, we're happy to have you here today. Thank you Thank you, Carol and thank you Paul for helping organize this event. This is a great forum Thrilled to be here on behalf of Mayor de Blasio and to talk through a little bit about what the city's efforts are Given all these scary things that we keep hearing from Radley on all these events. So The city's efforts for climate change really started in 2007 the city released a plan called plan yc that was It initially kicked off as an infrastructure plan thinking about how the city was going to Prepare itself for a million new residents that were going to be coming into the city by 2030 What comes with that as a range of infrastructure needs housing needs But importantly it was the first time the city had really taken a hard look at climate change and developed a range of sustainability options and plan I see really was a World-leading sustainability plan for a municipality But two really important things came out of that plan that didn't necessarily get the same amount of attention and this is on the resiliency side The New York City panel on climate change was set up This is incredibly important because the work that was done since Sandy could not have been done if we had not taken the steps In plan yc and with the New York City panel on climate change Since 2007 so that the New York City panel on climate change, you know esteemed academics that advised the mayor and set up specifically to advise the administration on Climate change that body had been working had released a report in 2009. You've seen some of the numbers from Radley's work As well, there was a climate change adaptation task force We brought together not only city agencies, but state agencies federal agencies Everybody that was in the region that needed this information that was coming out of the New York City panel on climate change and needed to come together to think about how to use this information think about their vulnerabilities and what sort of adaptation they needed to make and All of this thinking was incredibly important, but on the other hand it was Didn't have the funding necessarily behind it to make a lot of the investments that needed to be made And of course Sandy comes along and highlights all of these vulnerabilities in a way that a task force really just Couldn't have done nearly as physically But the thinking of course was incredibly important to be able to to begin thinking about these issues Sandy comes along highlights these vulnerabilities and really causes us to redouble our efforts We knew that we were on the right path, but we needed to do a lot more And so in the aftermath of the storm in you while all the recovery was going on the immediate response the the You know the short-term rebuilding we knew that there was going to be a long-term rebuilding process And we also had a hint and we saw it coming that there was going to be a massive Federal response with dollars coming into the region We wanted to make sure that we were best set up to direct those dollars towards cost-effective Investments that we could make sure that we don't just rebuild what was but we rebuild better and we build smarter So that we're better prepared for the next types of events that are coming so we set up a task for us to identify these Investments that we can make to rebuild our hardest hit neighborhoods as well as Strengthening these key critical infrastructure systems that were damaged during the storm. We did this by asking ourselves really three You know foundational questions, you know, what actually happened during the sandy and why there was a lot of anecdote Of course around what happened everyone had their own stories But what we wanted to do is actually wrap that up in a in a rigorous analytical analysis Understand what was the storm? How did it impact our infrastructure systems where the failures propagated through the system when the power went out? What that meant for our hospitals what that meant for our liquid fuel networks a whole range of impacts? And sandy itself was a very idiosyncratic event it was it was a unique set of wet meteorological conditions that came together that caused flooding 40% higher than the previous records in New York going back through the recorded flood history in the city and It was also though. It was an incredibly high surge event very little wind very little rain It was a unique event in a lot of ways and doesn't necessarily represent the worst of what could happen to the city We also know that the timing of it how it came into the harbor of Hitting the harbor at high tide at the battery in lower Manhattan It peaked at the same time as high tide peaked and that caused some of the higher water levels We also know that it peaked at exact low tide in the northern part of the city up in Near the Bronx and then long through Long Island sound so we started to recognize that It could have been different. We did some modeling actually that showed that had sandy come in nine hours earlier We could have knocked out the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center where we get 60% of our produce 50% of our meat and fish that come into the city Everyone knows about the gas lines that happened. Maybe we would have had food lines It could have been a totally different storm and then to take that even one step further What would have happened had sandy come in during an August heatwave which is good still You know could still be peak hurricane season So we've wrapped up a lot of what sandy was and it was and it's you know It's interesting and it's important to recognize what it was and tragically of course 44 lives were lost 19 billion dollars in damages and lost economic activity, but other storms could have been worse and Then beyond that we need to also be thinking about things beyond just coastal storms sea level rise for sure Is something that is going to be a long of long-term consequence to the city, but heatwaves Precipitation other wind other other weather events. We need to be prepared for And then if we can answer really those two questions, what happened what could happen in the future? Well, what do we do about it? so One more point on climate change and this is numbers that when we did call the New York City panel on climate change back into service They issued a new report based on the best available science in 2013 Which our projections are and our recommendations are based upon we see a number of interesting things on the chronic climate hazards We see average temperatures increasing into the 2050s. We see Average annual precipitation increasing Sea level rise the mid range of our projections into the 2050s is one to two feet the high end of that projection is two and a half feet And we know that looking out it's not going to stop We know that looking out to 2100 and beyond we could see any way the middle range projection into 2100 is two to four feet It's a high-end projection of six feet There's a lot to consider here on what that's going to mean for our city And that is based that's on top of a foot of sea level rise that we've already seen in the city But we also know it's about extreme weather events and we heard about Number of days above 90 degrees We have about 18 of those in New York City now that at the high end of the projections into the 2050s could triple and New York City Starts to feel more like Birmingham, Alabama In the number of days over 90 degrees and it's really important to think about what that means for our infrastructure for sure with Whether it's our power grid whether it's our telecommunications equipment, but the impact on people is even more fundamental and Vulnerable populations adult care centers all sorts of vulnerable populations could be at risk with those sort of temperatures And we know even today that with the floodplains expanding There's a lot more people at risk with the maps that we're in effect showing our significant flood hazard area At the time that Sandy came into the harbor. We had 218,000 people just in the city alone in the hundred-year floodplain Those maps are being updated that process kicked off in 2009. It'll be finished We hope in 2015 might be longer But already we know that that expanded floodplain is going to now include 400,000 people just in the city alone That's more people that I think live in Atlanta It's the most more people that in any other major city that's the biggest floodplain of any other major American city and Looking beyond because those maps don't include sea level rise We've done those projections to show that if you add two and a half feet of sea level rise on top of those FEMA flood maps That we're expecting to come into effect The number of people that live in the flood plan is gonna be 800,000 people. It's gonna double again This is gonna continue to grow into our in our coastal our coastal flood hazard areas are gonna continue to grow That includes so in numbers of people even now we have 68,000 structures in the hundred-year floodplain in New York City and that is across a range of building types from the small bungalows in our beach communities all the way to The towers in Larva, Manhattan and this the strategies there for are different for all of them so Clearly Sandy is just one type of risk that we face as a city and we need to be cognizant of that I think in everything we do and thinking about resiliency planning so in March Mayor de Basel made a major commitment to coastal and climate resiliency for the city and Release this report one city rebuilding together really to to lay out a policy framework for how we're going to continue Pursuing these plans accelerating our housing recovery efforts But as well as expanding our resiliency efforts enhancing our policy and planning Continuing to secure additional federal and state funds to be spent in the in the in these five boroughs on resiliency planning And making sure that we're seeing that as we're making these major investments We're also seeing we're also checked tackling some of the economic Inequality crisis that we have in the city and making sure that we're expanding workforce development and local job hiring We're getting some of the the co-benefits from these investments that we're making and he set up a New is a brand new commitment of a mayor's office of recovery and resiliency to lead these efforts and it's continuing to base the The primary efforts on this plan a stronger more resilient in New York that was released in June 2013 That is a multiple layers of defense strategy based on the best available science with a planning horizon into the 2050s Acknowledging that there's an adaptive nature to this We're going to continue to monitor seal of our eyes and other climate hazards and can and every four years We'll be making upgrades to this plan. In fact, we're going to be upgrading this plan next April The multiple layers of defense is about strengthening our coastal defenses first But we're not going to stop all the risks on the coast. We need to know that we're going to upgrade our buildings We've passed a number of Building codes to this effect We also need to protect our core critical infrastructure services supply chains and making generally our neighborhood safer and more vibrant Which is fundamentally resiliency is about neighborhoods and making sure that the places we all live work and play are safer into the future This plan is 257 initiatives that we're going to continue to pursue and it really it buckets itself well into some physical things We're going to be building new things in the city. It's coastal protection. We've got a three point seven billion dollar plan Half of it's funded at this point. We're continuing the source additional funds The rebuild by design program is a key element of our coastal protection plan as well as a number of other infrastructure elements That we know need investment But it's also the social and economic resiliency efforts and this is a city-wide not just a sandy not just a coastal storm focus Looking at things like land use planning looking at economic development strengthening nonprofits and better emergency planning it's a range of it's a range of measures in this plan that we're going to continue to pursue and then No One last point on that Really looking and thinking bold about bigger opportunities to transform our city and make sure that we're not just thinking about Flood protection. We're not just building big walls around the edge of Manhattan or around the rest of the city But we're finding ways to Transform our neighborhoods increase our resilience, but also expand economic development expand open space clean up our wetlands It's a it's a range of bigger types of bold thinking that we think isn't going to be needed over ultimately in the long term So it's great to have a plan. It's more important to put that plan into action We've already released our first, you know report card on our own on our actions as of April We've launched that three point seven billion dollar coastal protection plan. It is half funded We've got more than nearly three million cubic sea yards of sand on our beaches that wasn't there beforehand We've passed 16 building code upgrades and this is adopting those latest flood hazard standards into the code So people are building to the best and best available Science also we've added free board into our building code So there's an allowance for sea level rise already big baked into our building code for new construction We've secured a billion dollars of investments with with connet our local electrical utility to make targeted storm hardening investments and critical infrastructure And then a range of things on our on our social and economic reforms Probably most important of which is art is the work we've done with cities across the country In fact to secure a flood insurance affordability reforms Which are having a massive impact in our coastal communities So of those 257 initiatives about over 200 of them are on underway already 29 have been completed It's good early progress. We have a lot more to do So just to wrap all this up these risks clearly demand leadership and the city sees itself in this position as As a major American city that can that can project leadership into this We've always been at risk of these sort of coastal flood events we know that these risks are growing and it's not just about coastal floods into the future and We have a very unique opportunity right now to make the right investments to buy down that future risk and by doing that We're going to make all of our neighborhoods and and residents safer into the future. So thank you very much Thanks, Dan and that allows us to segue to our final speaker Deborah Knoppen who is working with Dan As because of her expertise With regard to hydrology Environmental and natural resources policy Deborah is a vice president of the ran corporation where she is the director of ran justice Infrastructure and environment and she brings a whole background in terms of looking at as I said a hydrology long-term water management And she also had to a lot of work in terms of looking at governance and funding for us Gulf Coast recovery Again following the the All of the the issues that we've seen in the Gulf Coast with regard to The enormous storms and the recovery that has been needed there She also has worked for the US Department of Interior in terms of Being a deputy assistant secretary for water and science has also been a senior official with us GS as As well as having spent some time here on the hill having worked for senator Moynihan and the senate environment public works committee Deborah Thank You Carol well one of the great advantages of batting cleanup here as I get to take advantage of the wisdom of my fellow panelists and draw on on what they've already told you my focus is really on How one you how to how regions? In both state and local governments as well as the federal government draw on the base of scientific information Draw on the kind of work that HUD has been pioneering With rebuilt by design draw on the on the the many activities going on in New York City and bring it together Into some kind of decision-making Context that can actually help regions move forward What I'd like to do is talk a little bit about an approach that that rant has pioneered in Taking on these difficult kinds of large-scale highly uncertain problems Moving toward consensus and decision-making Using our exam an example from Louisiana where we've been working for the last six years or so and Now moving those methods into the New York region and we're working with Dan and other officials from public agencies in the The New York City region focusing specifically on Jamaica Bay, so I'll get to that at the the end of my talk so part of the the the challenge here with adaptation is that that there are deep uncertainties so probabilities if we can put assigned probabilities to events and to To different scenarios in the future. That's great, but we don't have all of the information we need to do that We know we know we're learning more and more about some of the climate change Trends, but there there's still uncertainties there as Radley's presentation showed The actual impacts of these different scenarios on infrastructure has has uncertainty associated with it Other other factors are changing climate change isn't the only thing happening. We have economic development and economic shifts demographic shifts that also are going to impact the the consequence side of the the risk equation Lots of data people are talking about big data all the time What do you do with all that information in some useful format and Of all these different approaches that you've been hearing about adaptation, which ones are actually going to be going to work Work over the long haul and that's what our focus has been really on decision analysis Just by way of background real quickly the usual way Engineers planners go about their business as they make predictions you develop mathematical models of your system and you you Hypothesize what your future conditions will be you then optimize that That system and choose your near-term decision And then you look and see how sensitive it might be to two different conditions and that's sort of that works well in many many Context that's fine if you know things aren't changing too much You you don't have a problem. You're confident about your ability to predict and there's not too much disagreement But these kinds of approaches can backfire when you have deeply uncertain conditions There's a tendency to underestimate the uncertainties You can sometimes have dueling models and that can contribute to some gridlock and you can Give a false sense the analysts can sometimes inadvertently give a false sense of certainty to decision makers When that's in fact not the case and that sub subjects them to surprise we have Developed over the years that ran really coming out of much of our work on the national security side Of a different approach that rather than doing this predict than act type of analysis for these complex Problems with deep uncertainty. We talk about a robust decision-making process that really builds on what you've heard the other speakers talk about of Looking at vulnerabilities to the system as it is now future without action if you will Identify those vulnerabilities develop strategies to reduce those vulnerabilities Initerate on that and that's that's an adaptive approach and what we're trying to develop our ways in which we can look at a wide range of futures of futures many scenarios not just a handful but thousands or even more than that and Really understand the vulnerabilities of the system and where the effective responses may be so just a quick summary of just the contrast between traditional approach to decision-making and and those problems with deep uncertainty where we think Robust decision-making is really more more effective We've applied this to water management in the the Colorado River Basin. I have got references at the end of my presentation on that flood risk management I'll talk a little bit about the Louisiana example and then motivate that into use that to motivate Our approach to Jamaica Bay And we've applied it also to energy resource management so I think you all know the story about Louisiana and the Hurricanes that devastated the region In it's not only The the coastal flood risk, but the land loss and of course the land loss contributes to to the the coastal flood risk But also has major impacts on coastal ecosystems The state is experiencing Very high rates of land loss about a football field every 45 minutes. I think is the standard Way of expressing that rate a rate of change everything you see in red on that map is What is land that's a spec expected to turn into open water by? 2061 very little green on there of where there's going to be land gain And what we saw in Louisiana really is transferable to the Northeast it really Encap encapsulates all of the challenges that you've heard the other speakers talk about there are many different projects that have been proposed In the Northeast and this was the case in Louisiana Conflicting goals you want economic development There's tremendous pressure to build back up the way things were before at the same time you're trying to reduce risk You've got water quality issues you have Ecological concerns that you're trying to protect how do you balance those different competing objectives? We don't agree on what the future will hold. There's a wide range of there's still you know a range of uncertainty in our In our projections of climate change that we know generally what the direction is And and we there's still a science base that's that's developing So Louisiana managed I won't go through all the details here, but Louisiana managed after Many decades of struggling to put together really I think the state-of-the-art approach toward regional planning They developed a 2012 master plan adopted unanimously by the state legislature and incorporated fairly sophisticated systems models so all these different physical models of Coastal processes of habitat changes in habitat of flood risk We're all brought together into an objective planning framework. That was where Rand assisted in developing a planning tool to take all that scientific information as well as engineering information about the many different options available to respond to these risks and And put it in a form where decision-makers could make make some choices So this planning tool was able to compare hundreds of projects of a restoration and risk reduction type There were many proposed river diversion projects to build up the the sediment And build up the the disappearing coastline many marsh creation projects Almost a hundred other restoration projects the Corps of Engineers and local sponsors had 34 Projects proposed for lead new levees and walls and things like that And there were what the Corps of Engineers calls non structural risk reduction projects where you? In raised houses change zoning and do things like that if you had built all the ones all these Projects that had been proposed one you wouldn't necessarily end up with a great outcome, but even if you were it was going to cost probably 200 billion dollars and the State estimated that over the next few decades it would have access to about 50 billion So the idea was to figure out which among those hundreds of projects would be effective Over that time and we used an iterative and very very much a transparent interactive public process to Work with stakeholders and decision-makers used a lot of visualizations To figure out what the trade-offs were among many different combinations and permutations of these projects and We're able to go through that in multiple cycles almost in real time still looking at a wide range of possible futures and Ultimately leading to a to a plan and just a quick summary That emphasizes this approach of making sure the public understands what a future without action looks like What you see in the blue bar there is current conditions and using everything and everything is expressed in 2010 dollars We looked at this just captures of moderate and a less optimistic scenario This is if you didn't do anything more in Louisiana than what's been done now With the master plan the projection is that you're going to see a substantial reduction in the in the cost of Expected annual damages on account of the implementation of the plan if it is in fact implemented So there were many advantages of this approach. I'll just can look at the paper copy of slides but these this is a Proved to be a very useful method to really draw out the key assumptions the project benefits the cost the trade-offs and A an approach toward developing adaptive plans that are going to evolve as as information improves over time As I said, we're applying this approach now to Jamaica Bay the Rockefeller Foundation Supporting that and by the way I was the substitute for Sam Carter from the Rockefeller Foundation who was going to be talking about the role of Phil the philanthropic sector and all of this but one Example of what Rockefeller is doing is supporting Rand's involvement in working with a group of state local and federal agencies in trying to take an integrated approach to Building resilience and building a more robust Jamaica Bay We are this is a multi objective problem as well It's not only the coastal risk reduction as Dan mentioned But there's a serious ecosystem restoration to be done that plays in of course to the risk reduction benefits And there are substantial issues regarding water quality This is going to be this just unfolding now. We hope you know over the next year. So we're going to start to see some some useful out outcomes from it just in closing the the principles of Integrated coastal planning that We've kind of crystallized from the Louisiana experience and other other places where we've used these methods Is the the essential involvement of the public from the get-go? This is not something that should be done in behind closed doors or with analysts making some of these very difficult Choices of values. That's what good technical analysis brings those value choices to light and Enables the decision-makers to make those those choices with with good information So all of our work is on the Rand website, I've got some links there explaining the robust decision-making method in more detail We did work on the Colorado River Basin for the Bureau of Reclamation Using these methods and we have a summary document. I didn't have bring enough copies, but that too is available for For downloading. Thank you Well as has been made clear I think in terms of how important it is to really learn from From the work that other people are doing how it can help us be better informed make better decisions Recognize the all of the different Elements that need to be taken into account and I must say it really is incredible in terms of thinking about the holistic Approaches that you all are seeking to bring in all of the Complex elements that need to be woven together to really take account of how best to really Create to adapt and to make communities regions ecosystems The infrastructure and and people more resilient It is an enormous task and and it's incredible what what you all are doing So let's open it up for your questions and comments and if you could just identify yourself, please And if any of our speakers have points you want to add please feel free. Okay. Any questions comments? Okay? We'll go back here first. Oh I really have no affiliation I'm just curious with regard to Louisiana now and to make a bay you stress public participation As being important How have you gone about securing public participation in any real sets either? Louisiana or now in New York? Louisiana had a very sophisticated public outreach campaign that was run by the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and was initiated more than a year and a half or two before The final development of the of the master plan it involved Not only officials from the parishes from many of nonprofit groups Community leaders, but they went into all those communities There were a hundred literally hundreds of public meetings all documented on the website for the master plan that that Tried to keep the public Informed all along the way each step of the process It was it was quite interactive in Jamaica Bay. We're just really starting this project up We're using the good offices of the Science and Resilience Institute, which is a consortium of universities Supported by Rockefeller Dan may want to say a little bit more about that That has a stakeholder Group associated with it and there will be you know plans that are will be developed as we move forward in Making sure the affected communities are part of the the process Yeah, let me weigh in a little bit with New York's planning so We have a very strong commitment to public engagement in all of the planning work We're doing when we were developing our our climate resiliency plan last year. We held an extensive amount of We brought an extensive amount of elected officials community-based organizations directly to the public through public workshops We did a broad array of public engagement and ultimately that you know the proof is in the pudding on this There was a poll released after after the after our plan was really showing that 74% of New Yorkers actually supported The plan we had released which I'm not sure you can get 74% of New Yorkers to agree on much of anything so I think we did a good job at least in getting out and Building that coalition around what we were accomplishing, but there's a lot more to do and we're absolutely committed to bringing the public Into projects like Jamaica Bay through the there's a stakeholder task force on Jamaica Bay and on all of our projects in fact It's it's just incredibly important Great. There's a question here Hi future. Sorry future Hoover from the American Geophysical Union and I was just wondering if any of you could speak a bit more about What steps you're taking to address some of the combined sewer system problems that are also impacting the city and how that's Either influencing or contributing to your climate change action plan I guess I'll take that one. So a key part of our our Climate resiliency plan recognizes that precipitation risk is going to continue growing in the city We have a several billion dollar commitment baked into our plan With city dollars to to address a lot of those risks and reduce the amount of CSO Events in the city and it's things like you know, it's it's a it's a full green infrastructure plan that our Department of Environmental Protection is advancing green roofs bioswales, you know nontraditional drainage that helps Retain and store groundwater so it's not getting right into the system and right to the treatment plants and therefore causing those overflow events So we're making major capital commitments to reducing those events Hi, my name is Brian. We from the US National Ecological Observatory Network or NEON and so this question is actually targeted and Dan something that you said about in New York City having invested You guys are planning to invest billions of dollars into new infrastructure and also building on what Scott had said about These infrastructure new infrastructure Possibly being you know things like cash basins and flood walls that the question here really is centered around unintended consequences observations and data so with that much of an infrastructure investment going in What thoughts have been given to? the unintended consequences of that much new infrastructure over the course of decades and Is there any thoughts about how you would observe the impacts of these adaptation measures which might cause you to Re-adapt to your adaptation measures and and and and actually Deborah had mentioned that big data was also a part of this whole conversation So that slew of unintended consequences observations and data do you guys have any thoughts about The way forwards with regards to that yeah absolutely in fact I use that phrase a lot about unintended consequences after 9 11, you know the lesson was let's get Fuel tanks off of the second floor because they could cause buildings to burn and collapse and so they went on the basement Well, then they all flooded So I think we want to be aware of what we're doing. So we're not causing you know, we're thinking ahead towards the nest next Risk whatever that may be and trying to be Targeted in those investments and as we're thinking about a range of coastal protection initiatives Well, you could put a bunch of dunes and flood walls and wetlands and a whole coastal protection plan in place But it can actually in some parts of the city exacerbate precipitation risk, which is more likely anyway as a source of flooding in many low-lying neighborhoods, and so we're trying to balance that to make sure that we are without having to make major investments in pump systems behind flood walls that we've taken a really a Comprehensive approach to mixing and a hybrid approach to that mixing the green and gray infrastructure that is Thinking about a wide range of risks and not just the last risk that came I think that's important to us, but really to your point on how we're going to monitor this going forward I think this is in one we've through the legislation that we've set up already in the city that Requires us to update our plan. That's a that's a key piece of this. We're going to be making investments We're going to be learning things as we go and we have to update our resiliency plan every four years and deliver that to our city council So there's a there's a baked-in process for thinking anew about what we're learning as we're going and this is not a This is not something where we're going to throw a lot of money at a you know And spend 60 billion dollars in three years and be done It's just something that as the risks develop over time. We're going to continue Assessing those risks over time and making investments and adapting as we go and you know along those lines. We've already We're already putting in place a process to monitor sea level rise and if sea level rise is happening Faster than we anticipate in our current plans Well, we already know that we're going to be updating the free board in our building codes So there's things like that and in fact working with the New York City panel on climate change on indicators and monitoring We're trying to figure out what are the right indicators and how do we best monitor that over time? And maybe rather you might want to weigh in on on that piece But it's it's top of mind for us that we need to be thinking it's not just make a decision once and be done It's it's going to be an adaptive nature You know Louisiana is adapting it's doing a revision of its 520 12 plan It will come out in 2017 good planning of this kind needs to it's not a one-shot deal and The essence of adaptation is to take a new information If you see those early trends or warning signs or signposts of Unintended consequences you need to adjust and change But it's important that you've got the analytical framework to take in that information Be continually improving your ability to represent processes And the impact of new infrastructures or interventions on on You know the overall risk of the region so it's this is a massive commitment required by regions We're seeing the the early signs with New York City being you know Absolutely the leaders in in the Northeast Louisiana leading in the Gulf Coast And but it's it's they can't they're not going to be able to quit I Think also on the on the HUD side what what's really critical is that? Is that in monitoring or measuring performance over over time? those those those activities are costly and they need to be factored into the project budgets up front is considered part of the ongoing operations and maintenance and so you know too often I think Due to both the lack of funds and the lack of You know an established consistent set of standards as to how to measure Resilience what does it mean? How do you measure it? I know that's something else that again to invoke Rockefeller that they're Working on is looking at and we across the federal government are thinking as well about You know what are some consistent standards for for measuring resilience? So that everybody can be measuring and monitoring performance in a consistent way because at the end of the day these investments are are You know very largely publicly funded with with local state and federal funds And so that means they're viewed primarily through a benefit cost Analysis kind of approach and we really need to be able at some point to not just talk about the benefits But to demonstrate them quantitatively just a couple quick follow-on points. I think in a lot of ways we really need Science initiative around this issue of evaluating adaptations that are underway And just basic questions like at what scale should a city be monitoring sea level rise? What's most relevant local sea level rise or what's happening globally to the ice sheets? Those are the kind of questions and as you start to implement a new adaptation strategy At what point do you even have the scientific information to assess whether it's working or not? You get a string of a few years of weather that might be unusual to what extent does that? Potentially misinform your whole assessment of whether it's working or not So there's a whole series of questions on the on the climate science or weather side And that's just one piece of it, right? We also have to be tracking is the art of the possible or the technological innovations in the adaptation space changing What are other cities around the world doing? What are the exciting experiments that are underway? On the demographic Economic impact side of things how are our projections changing a lot of times some of those uncertainties are probably gonna be bigger than the Than the climate science uncertainties Okay, there and I've got a question about that too, but anyway we'll go we'll go over I think there was a question in the back first No, I'm front of you with their okay. Well, then let's go up here. Oh, okay. Go ahead. That's fine Terry Hill with the passive house Institute I've heard a lot about water reclamation and Issues of that issue of that type. Is any work in all this research you've done Looking at the possibility of redesigning the electrical grid in this whole Issue Absolutely We've worked with Con Ed our local electrical utility. They had a most data. It's a regulated utility they had a rate case in front of the Public Service Commission in the state and We ultimately worked with them and this This didn't make the necessary the headlines and at the end of the rate case the headline was that rates were staying flat for the next three years But what was important is that they adopted the New York City panel on climate change projections into their planning process and so they Initially and that was that took a little bit of work to get there But ultimately they saw the value in looking at using those forward projections to think about the vulnerabilities at each of their substations and transmission and Full range of their assets And at the same time agreed to make about a billion dollars in storm hardening investments into the grid But then so that's you know, that's investments into the current grid and how it operates There is currently a proceeding on going at the Public Service Commission that is really looking at you know what the utility of the future looks like and Things like distributed generation and micro grids and other sort of next-gen Technologies that are being pursued and there's a real commitment in the city in the state to pursue to pursue those and ultimately see a much better More robust and resilient electric grid at the end of the day Let's say there's also a commitment on behalf of the US Department of Energy as well You know investing in pilot projects Smart grid project in Hoboken and a number of places. So absolutely This is also the focus of the first report that will come out from the quadrennial energy review that Secretary Moniz is spearheading so roughly next January or so I think there's a report promised and it's specifically focused on on the Energy infrastructure transport transmission storage distribution with an eye toward its suitability its its resilience and Ability to adapt to changing conditions That's maybe a good bridge just to talk a little bit more about the greenhouse gas mitigation piece Which we haven't had a chance to emphasize that much in our limited time today But of course as we get further out in the century It's absolutely critical that we take the steps today to reduce emissions if we're going to avoid some of these worst case Scenarios of extreme sea level rise higher temperatures that could reach points that are sort of beyond our ability to adapt adapt to And of course there are all sorts of other co-benefits in terms of reducing our emissions as well to consider as well as some costs Obviously, it's a you know, it's a cost-benefit analysis that we that we have to do Reducing emissions Dramatically also is a kind of insurance because you know what we're presenting here is sort of most likely scenarios based on a range of Climate models, but we do need to keep in mind that there is the potential for surprises on the extreme end the further We push the climate system The greater the risk that something could come along that sort of outside of this central range We're projecting if we get our emissions reduced more quickly The odds of those kind of tipping points are lower and we almost by definition. We can't know exactly where those tipping points sit Question here, and then we'll go over there. Thank you Hi, I'm Karen Murphy. I'm with the global cool cities Alliance and I like the way Dan you kept talking about baked into a plan and that helps me turn back to city heat Extreme heat is now taken over as the most deadly form of climate-related weather events and I was just wondering maybe dr. Horton could talk about this Whether you've looked at the low hanging fruit of energy efficiency and Installing reflective pavements and white roofs in cities as maybe is during the rebuild or just in general in the mitigation plans I know that New York and Philadelphia have strong programs for white roofs Yeah, so Certainly at the local scale. There's a lot that can be done in terms of providing more shade increasing ventilation As I mentioned a lot of cities are leading I think New York's actually done a lot and others on the panel could probably speak speak more of those details than me Um HUD has made Through the large disaster recovery appropriations that it sees from Congress For the the sandy appropriation is in particular It requires a green rebuilding standards to be used for any substantial rehab or repair so It literally you know requires that all all of the new building or Activity is thinking about those things Right and it sounds like you mean you're you're aware of our cool roofs program But for those that aren't that we have a program where we are essentially working with building owners to paint their roofs white and we've what we've seen is that we know that has an energy reduction benefit and You know, you don't have to run your air conditioners as long What I think we're still working to prove is the case on the benefit of those for the urban heat island effect Which is a really interesting You know next step on on those sort of efforts and so we continue to pursue those efforts We also have we have a really interesting program called clean heat The mayor de Bozio has renewed and and committed funds towards where we're converting You know the boilers in buildings that burn number four number six heating oil and put it emissions out in particulate matter And there's a clear link between those emissions in particulate matter and fatalities and hospital visits and right now we've made major investments in in converting those over to natural gas and Cleaning the air up. We actually have the cleanest air in New York City in 50 years largely as a result of as programs like that, so One more instance of having multiple benefits as a result of starting something, right? Okay over here This has been a great panel My name is Sean. I've already I'm with a weathering climate risk program with the Center for clean air policy and I was Interested in hearing your thoughts on The fact that we're spending billions and billions of dollars after disaster And I think you you all have brought some examples of how we can do better to incentivize mitigation before a disaster But I wanted to hear some of your thoughts on barriers and opportunities at the federal level Administratively and then also legislatively and through some opportunities that you see in Incentivizing mitigation before a disaster Well, you should all answer I'll go first Absolutely, I think I think we were continually trying more and more to Incent those type of types of things. I know it at at FEMA they're leaning farther and farther forward on on Incorporating mitigation measures into their their standard infrastructure projects through the public assistance program to make sure that you know All infrastructure and that's in cooperation with all of their grantees like the cities and the states But really maximizing their statutory authority that they have under the disaster relief fund to to maximize the mitigation that can can happen and then it's one of the the challenges You know honestly From in Dan can speak to this is is As a local city or a state as you're rebuilding you're really oftentimes using multiple pots of Money and it's like drinking from a fire hose after a major disaster. So it's being able to combine It's a matter of timing and coordination to put One pot of FEMA dollars on top of another pot of FEMA dollars and then take HUD dollars and put that on top to make a very resilient, you know robust mitigation project and it's In large part the the dollars are there, but it's it's just and and acknowledging It's also a matter of priorities because there's just no way to mitigate the entire built landscape after After a disaster We know there's a lot of it that needs to happen But it's it's that decision-making at the local level. That's you know, that's that's critical where they prioritize where their investments go And then they leverage maximize the leveraging of all the investments that that are being made and you know There's there's there's more and more that we can all do and especially at the federal level to help help everyone Maximize that leveraging Probably a couple of quick ideas To throw out there one is that you know insurance is a key component of Mitigation and risk reduction, but some of the changes that have been happening in the in the federal program Are causing insurance to become unaffordable and one key thing that we in within that that we've been advocating for is partial partial credit for partial mitigation and and the idea is that with certain building stocks or even with Really with all building stocks in New York City There's only one way to get premium credits and that's by elevating your house And that doesn't work for a lot of building types and it but there are other things that can be done to reduce risk and But you don't get any credit for some of those things unless you do everything So there's no partial credit for partial mitigation and I think that's it's a disincentive to making the right investments that can reduce Vulnerabilities there's a couple other things as well that you know in talking about FEMA You know public assistance dollars that come through it's all tied to damage And so you know storms are unique and you know one one storm may cause damage here But not over here, but that doesn't indicate your vulnerability necessarily and we have you know There's there's hospitals that I can think of that are right along the coast in New York City They're not eligible for sandy funds because they weren't damaged during sandy, but they could easily be damaged during the next event and You know so there's you know there are certain pots of money But there's there's not the full pot of the federal response That's really discretionary towards those sort of vulnerabilities that we have And then the last point is Around the Army Corps and their coastal protection projects Finding ways for all of us and this is not a knock at the core This is sort of a knock at everybody in this process getting those projects built faster We had this is just one example. There was a project that was authorized in 1993 following a storm that Never got out of the feasibility study process and had it had it had it been built could have saved lives Could have saved property only after Sandy the second time around and now that study get fully funded And we're actually moving forward to making the investment, but it was literally a 20-year study process that never got finished Those were the things we can't let happen Yeah, just when I was on the staff of Senate environment and public works It was had responsibility for the Water Resources Development Act and we there were proposed New York's New York projects Moreaches Inlet and others that were wait awaiting authorization and still haven't been built So this is and it was a while ago, but just to add to Dan's point. This is there's a very important federal Issue here as to how we provide how disaster assistance is provided and what the conditions are private insurance or national the national flood insurance program was intended to try to Send a signal a market signal to to homeowners and communities about the their level of risk There's the program is obviously undergoing has undergone some reform But you know what this transition looks like and then what the expectations are for communities when a big storm hits for disaster assistance How does that discourage maybe take up rates for for for the flood insurance itself? So it's a complicated Seen and really we're dealing. There's a tremendous amount of inertia in the federal Statutory structure not in the agency's been the statutory structure to to deal with kind of the reality That we have now in the core had to where the Congress put in special language for the the sandy Supplemental bill to take into account not just It to take to start to think about resilience. I don't not sure that word had appeared in very many other Core authorizations So there's a there's updating. I think that needs to be done and some coordination Did you want to add anything really? I? Guess maybe taking a little further a field. I think it'll it'll be interesting to see in the future if Move towards sort of shareholders demanding more corporate risk disclosure also could be could be a growing piece of this equation as well And also just thinking about things like media characterization of coastal flood risk for example Yeah, it strikes me as the kind of thing that you know with the passage of time is probably going to going to pick up a lot and and May have bigger impacts on Perception of vulnerability than then we think if we just looked at it sort of recent trends and in media coverage of for example Coastal coastal vulnerability. I can also add one another challenge that I wanted to note is is Engaging the private sector in a more meaningful level in these investments. It's difficult with a lot of this infrastructure a lot of flood protection Infrastructure it's non-revenue producing so it's not like you can you have an electric rate pair or a water household that you that you bill on a monthly basis for a levy and so It's it's very difficult to to figure out how to how to finance and monetize that but even though it's you know Largely publicly funded The benefits are still experienced financially by a lot of private, you know sector interests and we need to figure out a way to Effectively, you know borrow against future savings and flood insurance premiums as they you know as we all invest in lowering the risk and You can chart out the degree to the degree that you can that Flood insurance will decrease because of the resulting Decrease in risk then how to capture those savings to to invest up front, but that's a It's one of the challenges Okay back here But the reason I picked up on the rinse public participation stress with regard to Louisiana and New York and presumably anywhere that you'd be involved is that I'm more interested in the resilience of our democracy and when the suggestion is made that in Jamaica Bay community leaders in addition to The mayor's office and the council and presumably all the state folks are involved that that's not regular folks and we can't really Retain our democracy unless there's such study institutes as EES I having monthly meetings in Jamaica or in the bayou or throughout and around the country and the world and I really am in favor of public participation for 40 or 50 years now, I've been Wondering how and when the public is going to participate and I thought maybe you had some suggestion is successful efforts with regard to this subject In Louisiana and New York, and I guess maybe you don't but I wish you luck I mean I want to go out and grab them by the lapel and pull them in and make them answer a survey Make them tell you what to do My experience in New York is that I was never on a community board. I never would have been appointed There were good regular folks active in my local community board, but for the most part they were appointed by the borough president to essentially be a vehicle for that borough president's desire within the local neighborhood and I don't see community boards even if they're involved as being Regular folks. Anyway, good luck. Thank you Oh, I can say is having been involved with many local community committees and organizations You can inform people to encourage people, but you can't make people participate So that's also always a challenge, but obviously we all need to do as much as possible in terms of encouraging and trying to make people see I think all of us see as you all I think made very clear how Important it is for all of us and for the public to understand also the cost of not acting because we all end up with Enormous consequences as as a result in terms of our communities in our neighborhoods so I want to thank you you were a terrific panel and I want to say thank you for the very thoughtful Presentations and approaches that you are all taking in the work that you are doing and we look forward to having many more questions I've got a zillion that I would love to follow up with you on and and Moving forward and because as you also all make clear This isn't something that we do check the box and move on we have to continually be vigilant and continually Adapt our adaptation so that we can indeed become more resilient So thank you very very much really really appreciate that and really appreciate you're all being here. Thank you