 This is the resilient audience that's going to hear about resilient cities. So everybody relax and brace yourselves It's also a tough act to follow the quintessential panels. So the pressure's on y'all And also the very good hair panel as we're discussing so So I'm gonna completely break the fourth wall here and and say that these people are all already collaborating so So it sounds like they're working together. They are and that is a very good thing Because they're all coming from different places and I'm also going to start with a false construct Not who I am though. I'm Sharon Burke. I'm a senior advisor at New America and I work for the international security program and Previously I was the assistant secretary of defense for energy in the Obama administration and Here's my false construct is that this is a climate change panel and they are all going to knock that down completely as we go along One of the reasons I wanted to introduce this as a climate change panel is that as a defense official I often got told that climate change was a security problem and That the United States armed forces need to deal with it. It is a security problem It hits security at the very basic sense But it is not a military problem because there's no military solution You can't send your special operations forces out to attack it and fix it and change it destroy it You can send them to respond when that when that need comes, but that's not going to be good enough So cities are really on the front lines and there are also the key actor in Dealing with climate change as a shock and a stress to systems all over the world Right now more than half of the world's population lives in cities. I think by 2050 It's expected to be about two-thirds of the world's population There are about 28 Mega cities that have 10 million people each and then of course a lot of people live in growing cities So this is where the action is and that's what we're going to talk about is as on the front lines of change Where all the shocks and stresses of the world are concentrated? How do cities deal with that and I can tell you now It's a lot more expensive in monetary and human terms to just react and respond and terribly unsatisfying So we're very fortunate to have this great panel here We have Nikhil da Victoria Lobo who is from Swiss free and he's going to tell you a little bit more about what that means We have Pamela Pochowsky and you say it the way that you say it who house key who house key who is an Urbanist a social entrepreneur a startup expert Who's worked with cities and entities all over the place as a non-resident fellow at Brookings Institution? And just a tremendously creative force in this field with with how to change cities And then we have with us max young who is the vice president for global communications Is that right yeah for the 100? Resilient cities initiative of the Rockfeller Foundation and he's gonna tell us a little bit more about that But I wanted to start if we're talking about the problem and the solution What is the problem we're solving for because if we talk about building resilient cities? Why what is the problem? Nikhil as a as a vice president for such a large reinsurance firm Tell us what the problem is what's the risk and why it is your firm invest in it And please you can start by explaining what reinsurance is sure we all know what insurance is well I know a lot of people stepped out for coffee. So I don't want to put everyone to sleep They're listening out there. Don't worry about insurance and reinsurance but Very simple put reinsurance, which is a very old industry is the insurance of insurance companies The unit I work in is one that was set up to exclusively work on the insurance for the public sector So it's a very new concept the idea that beyond the everyday risks a government may face for its You know buildings for its let's say employees It faces a risk from big shocks to our national economies that in the end get picked up by the public sector balance sheet And I think of all the risks we look at things like an aging population issues about You know shifts in where people are located urbanization our climate change is a massive risk and so why tell us and I think for a couple of reasons. I think one is Purely, let's say we look at the insurance and reinsurance industry, you know Switzerland is a hundred and fifty one years old and if you look at how losses have developed when we say insurance losses over the Lost 150 years Particularly in the last 20 30 years There's no doubt that we're seeing Increased loss burdens, which means higher insurance costs a much more Voluntile insurance industry and difficulty for us to respond as a private company to the needs for shareholders but I think even deeper than that as a Company that takes very much its role in keeping the global economy functioning what we see is that if we're not putting a price tag on these risks someone unknowingly is picking up the cost and That is absolutely certainly the public sector and so that's why for us cities of the front line because we need to provide them new tools to At least isolate the what that cost is ideally ensure some of that But also make cost-benefit decisions and how they want to mitigate against this climate risk Because I mean just last year in the United States alone I think there were eight major weather disasters that cost a billion dollars. Yes, so the insurance Industry takes that on the chin as well as the people in the affected areas is what you're saying Yeah, and I think it's not just um again It's definitely an issue about for the insurance industry about better managing our risks developing new markets But in the end it's also a question that and you know Our group was started after the tsunami in Asia and at the time our board reflected on the fact that you had this Material economic event to all these countries and yet for the insurance industry was a non-event It was basically a couple of hotels that led to insurance losses And what we concluded is that if your industry is going to be material in the future you have to respond to the events that really matter now and Clearly our industry believes that we step forward when bad things happen and therefore We need to expand and grow into this area to protect governments against these these shocks that are unpredictable So there's no so again This is this is a this is a matter of math of what of what you need to protect exactly and it's what you're already seeing All right, so Pamela In that context now if we have the problem defined and that there's risk and cost going on Talk to us about you know if resilience is a strategy Which is what I think you were using other words to talk about to mitigating the risk Define resilience for us because it's become something of a buzzword. So what does it really mean sure? Resilience is fundamentally a local issue And it's also a practice. So it's a practice of communities certainly of governments At the local scale in particular and of businesses and the the fundamental concept behind the practice is that you are Planning preparing Responding and recovering from risk risks that you know and risks that you don't know So the concept around the data of what is it that you're trying to buttress yourself against and and again at playing out at the community scale is Part of the complexity managing complexity that absolutely involves the emergency management knowing how to respond and within a climate change knowing not not knowing when the storm is going to hit but the Social justice and economic opportunity Aspects of resilience. So talk a little bit more about that The I mean governments are broke forgive me not just broke or broken I'm using I'm using broke in the sense of Don't have the money and the resources to actually bear the burden of the costs that are associated with this recovery So you want to again buttress at the at the local scale How are we going to prepare and communities pay the price? I mean looking at the insurance debate today just around flood insurance premium I mean people are evacuated from their homes and they don't know where to move because Should you rebuild and and there are legislative and policy of course is at the forefront of this issue because you know Do you allow residents to rebuild there or do you say no? we're going to take a protective measure and we're going to lead with a strong arm and Relocate you. Yeah, which you know, they're along. It's the long-term aspects of the practice of resilience of where where the issues are so Max you're in the solutions business, right? And you know you hear the problem and you hit and the frame of reference So what is a hundred resilient cities doing? What what's the goal? So a hundred resilient cities is the Rockefeller Foundation's hundred million dollar plus commitment to help cities build Resilience to the physical social and economic challenges that they face in the 21st century And so what we do is help cities understand all the challenges they face So it's not just the physical challenges. They face. It's not just the ones from climate change. It's Crime and violence. It's it's exactly it's and it is a super false the chronic food and water shortage is a bad Electric grid and look at all of those things together because we really believe that you you can't separate them out that if you really want to Make a city stronger and if you want to make a city able to last for the long term and Do right by its citizens in both good times and bad? You can't just think about the shocks You must think about the stresses and any disaster or any major shock We've had in this country has borne that out because it's the it's the poor and vulnerable who really You know once you get past recovery It's the poor and vulnerable who really take it on the chin And so we are dedicated to helping cities around the world think about their their planning and their challenges holistically and From those hundred cities build a global practice of resilience where all cities think about these things as connected Okay, so let's get a little more specific because that's that's a big bite to chew Yeah, we're gonna deal with crime and social equity and Whether related disasters so it so give us an example of How you're helping a city specifically tangibly be more sure so in one of our cities what so we're in various degrees of The process with many of our cities, but in one of our earlier cities We've gone through this process with them and realized that They have huge exposure to seismic threat Which they haven't really internalized because they've been focusing on crime and violence and they have no real building codes and so the two of those things together mean that they face serious exposure to a shock which is Obviously an earthquake and so it's helping them It was this process helped surface that and is now helping them address it They're doing not just soft story retrofits, but also earthquake education Building codes working with developers and working with the community to understand what needs to happen in the event of an earthquake Because you're building was not built to withstand something like that Designing for resilience is really we were talking about retrofitting for resilience Just I mean because we're not really gonna be building from nothing So it's a question of figuring out how to build in yeah, and I mean if you look at especially if you look at the the global south right now 45% of the city infrastructure that's going to be built in the next 20 years hasn't been built yet And so it's making sure that not just fixing what's been done wrong in the past or Done without the right knowledge in the past, but it's making sure that there's this practice so that as you're moving forward you're You're as you're growing you're doing you're doing it the right way So I'll give you another example Bangalore used to have thousands of lakes in in the city and they served as a water source in the summer and a place for runoff during the Rainy season they've essentially in the pursuit of economic development have paved over most of those lakes So now when it rains There's there's massive flooding and when it and then in the summer there's no water And so helping the cities of the future deal with that is one of our key One of our key missions deal with it in terms of a planning Perspective and how to actually do it how to so it's roll back. It's exactly It's both it's looking forward and and looking back. What is Bangalore do now Pam? Can you give us a couple of yes, and I know we've got at least two New Yorkers here Who are very passionate New Yorkers, so I got to talk about New York I'll give you two New York and one one. I know would love it if you would talk about we were talking about a New America project on mesh Communications sure would be great if you would throw that advertising out here for New America I mean it is it's easy to beat the New York drum when you're outside of the city, but it also because New York has Also its own challenges and failures, so the the community infrastructure mesh network Project of New America is a great example because it shows where communities have taken the charge with the help of of New America civic civic organization kind of doing its job as a facilitator and a partnership and a Broker to bring resources and knowledge and essentially Red Hook You know in the 1980s was on the cover of Time Magazine as the you know crime the crack capital of of the US and there's a largest concentration of NYCHA, you know housing there and Residents with New America's help were were partnership at the Red Hook initiative a youth organization to bring to install mesh networks, which is basically in and don't ask me about the technology and the specifics but to bring routers and internet access brought to Residents installed and trained by The youth themselves and they manage the network So when Sandy hit and the power generate, you know power generation went out these routers are battery powered So they endured FEMA didn't have access To Red Hook and I neglected to say that it's on the waterfront And it was again extremely hard hit so FEMA used this network to Contact residents deliver services and it's that Sustainability of a system in the threat of a storm that makes it resilient. It wasn't designed for a hurricane is coming. What if we don't have Internet access it was designed because the systems the in New York time Warner doesn't go there The residents can't afford their internet, which is another topic So the aspect of resilience is that you're solving for one social justice problem But you're able to address another need that may be climate change related Another example in that but just I mean the point is to get to a point where that's on purpose and not accidental Right correct where you're where you're looking at it from a systems point of view basically and an impact today Point of view like you're serving a need that is unmet today So you can weather a storm whether it's economic environmental Crime problems more in the social social domain tomorrow So so the second example to try to summarize quickly because they're they are complex problems is co-op city Which is the largest private development in the country. They're about 15,000 units in the Bronx and Was never financially solvent and part of there We're we're gonna start it's a co-op We're gonna start taking care of ourselves with state support They one of the aspects is that they installed a co-generation plant to produce their own Electricity because they said we can get some energy independence and if we do this right We're gonna save a lot of money and we're gonna sell back to the grid and this was done again pre-sandy When Sandy hid it was one of the only communities that kept the lights on so again wasn't it was done for more economic purposes and to protect and ensure this kind of community infrastructure And had the ancillary impacts So Nikhil is this the kind of thing that your company wants to see happening and you're a profit-making enterprise How do you encourage it? How do you actually engage? Well, and I often think about my business in a personal context I mean when I buy car insurance the first thing The car insurance company once knows am I taking measures to? Protect my assets become a better driver to basically eliminate the possibility of loss And then what they're doing is they're selling me a car insurance policy Which puts a price tag on my risk and obviously I'm not yet fortunate to have any teenagers driving So but when that rates are reasonable my rates are a discount. I'm sure but the day that does happen I'm sure I'll be penalized for the greater risk So similarly in our dialogue for example with cities We try to think through Okay, insurance is really only at the tail end of a process to hedge you for this unexpected risk So that when the bad things happen you can be back on your feet But our first focus is what are all the things you're doing before that so that not only is your insurance cheaper but more critically You're really focusing on Managing the risk which makes the insurance that much more sustainable You know I'm a recent New York transplant but a lot of my work has been in the emerging markets where you don't have access to the kind of financial and fiscal Resources that our public sector does and so a lot of governments have had to turn to these insurance instruments As the best way to hedge themselves against climate risk So Haiti is a good example Haiti buys for example hurricane and extreme rainfall insurance policy So that you know ten days or two weeks after they have a major storm the government has some liquidity to keep for example police in the streets Why I raised about the New York question is For many years when I used to have this discourse in the United States The public sector officials would say well we have plenty of resources, you know I have insurance for my buildings. I don't I don't need to talk about this fancy stuff You're telling me about that all changed after Sandy and New York City through the MTA bought one of the first what's called a cat bond But it's basically an insurance policy that looks at storm surge risk for the city and Besides the fact it better protects New York City's assets and therefore reduces the burden on taxpayers For me the remarkable point of the story is for the first time the average New Yorker Can basically go on a Bloomberg terminal to you know the media to a website and see the cost of New York City's exposure to storm surge it brings Transparency that allows you as an individual to actually make decision making what I would like to see of course is that in the case of Haiti That public good of the insurance policy was turned into a product that everyday Haitians could buy So that they could actually in that same basis be protected against the same perils And I'd like to see that same thing happen for us in the US because the public sector may move first But that transparency around pricing around risk should also be to benefit to us as individuals and so this idea of solving many problems with one intervention is Axiomatic to the practice of resilience and so one of the things I think we all work with our cities to do is by trying to give them a uniform or a complete understanding of their risk and Encouraging encouraging them to work across silos of government They can then use their limited resources Governments are broke to accomplish many more goals And so if you you can take even a small example the government of Boulder, Colorado faced massive floods Parks that were too focused outside of the city and a population that had some health risks and instead of just building a flood wall a lot or an elevated bank along their river Along the stream that runs through town. They turned it into a park and a bike lane and with minimal extra cost and began addressing Oh and a fourth was that there's massive traffic And so which you wouldn't think of in Boulder, Colorado But there there is and so began addressing four different problems with one intervention And so what we I think everyone in this community seeks to do is by giving cities a more holistic look At the problems that they face Helping them better address them with single interventions I mean, this is kind of in spite of governance is what it sounds like certainly of the federal government. I think Federal governments not going to address these problems that part of the reason you're focused on cities Yeah, the conflict plays out at the local scale, right? I mean, I think that's why it's a it's a design and practice area around resilience because the conflict is there The response needs to be there the community residents are there the people impacted are there Does the federal government really know who's in that neighborhood or that elderly woman who can't make it down the flight of stairs? Okay, so it's definitely Neighbors know I I do I mean and I know Maybe you'll be happy to as a former, you know employee of the federal government. I don't I believe and I also say this as a Recent immigrant to the US I believe Fundamentally also in the role the federal government has to play and I think again when I look at my other clients Where it's really federal governments who are taking the lead because off a dearth of Institutional capacity at the sub-national level we have a tremendous opportunity in this country because we not only have a phenomenally competent sub-national structure But candidly put we have a federal government that I think Despite what others people may think actually does care the question is given the complexity around these issues Can we provide a couple of bold ideas that are game-changers? Around this issue of resilience Risk mapping and risk pricing and that's a struggle, but I think you have a lot of natural energy I do think the federal government can do both things that set benchmarks for others I mean, but it does just from my point of view it does sound a little bit like you're all working around the fact that Government constructs aren't working to fully address this. Yeah, it's a I think it works both ways I mean, whatever anyone who works with the government at any scale you hear about silos So it's breaking down silos at whatever level you're called them silos of excellence. Okay I've heard I've heard other stories, so it's it's fostering it, you know And though we the great stories always come when there's cross-sector collaboration and that happens vertically as well So getting whether it's whatever role the fed federal whether it's in this country or another country are gonna play even if it's You know flood insurance premiums or data access and provision Creating that integration between the levels of federal state municipal or regional if you know if it's Germany that you're that you can create a Framework of cooperation and execution. So I mean you're creating these chief resilience officers, right? But this is something cities didn't do for themselves It's something that you're advising them to do and how receptive are they to being told from an external group that? This is the way to go It sort of depends what you mean by this so working across silos of government I think cities do recognize the Importance of doing that and have been able to do it in varying degrees of with varying degrees of success I think that are the cities that we're working with have been very responsive To our suggestion, you know to our program and our insistence that they hire a chief resilience officer But they applied so it's not like where we're going and telling them they have to do it They've sort of recognized the benefit of this model. What is a chief resilience officer do so a chief resilience officer? speaking to panelists comment works Works across silos of government and sectors of society to make sure that to improve planning to make sure that you know The Department of Transportation is working well with the you know Department of Public Safety is working well with You know the biggest business community business group in the in the city a B the chief resilience officer in the short term is working Is leading our strategy process in the city is is leading the process of uncovering the risks uncovering the opportunities and Doing the gap analysis to determine what it is that the city needs to focus on and then is there a problem They're solving for or is it all the problems you laid out? I mean is it is it still using climate change as a vanguard or no, it's everything We see I mean climate change It's climate change globalization and urbanization are the three reasons we think that our work is important But it's not just solving for Solving for climate change. I mean frankly there are many cities in the world where climate change is Not the first four second third fourth or fifth biggest problem that they have no the military calls it an accelerator Yeah instability. Yeah, it's sort of it makes everything else worse. That's exactly right I mean and then in a place in like Norfolk, Virginia Which is on the water has seen 14 feet of sea level rise in the last 50 years because it's actually sinking And because they have a major military base that is also the and the driver of their economy climate change may very well Be their single biggest issue, but many cities. That's not the case Let me ask you a controversial question and then you can say what you wanted to say which is I mean But is your industry both insurance and reinsurance de facto shaping how people respond to this? I mean because you are people won't be able to get insurance in certain places, right? It's it's an excellent question. I don't I Don't think we are Unfortunately for a very simple reason that insurance penetration is so low If you look in the emerging markets, we're obviously a lot of this Debate is going on for every dollar of economic loss a less than seven cents is covered by insurance. I mean that's Unimaginable that 93 cents of every dollar of economic loss is falling on someone else's shoulders and In the industrialized markets. It's not much better. I mean look at Sandy. You're talking about a Massive bill that was picked up by the federal government And I think something probably 30 or 40 percent of the loss was insured and that's in the most developed insurance market The short answer is no we're not but one of things we're trying very hard to do is what we call closing the gap Which is close that gap between economic and insurance losses particularly in issues related to climate because We do believe we have a role to make people think better about the risk That said and I'll make my comment very brief One of things and we touched on earlier in the room about the role of the private sector You know I can't speak for all private sector companies, but a Swiss would be fundamentally believe in this debate it's both the private private and public sector of a role and I know some people say the private sector must have all the solutions. It's quite the contrary I think that when I look at the interaction with my clients, you know, one of the things we do is Provide insurance instruments for for example the combined risk of drought and high energy prices So we have clients who are oil and gas companies who buy that kind of coverage where they or energy companies Have to run hydroelectric plants and that's a problem for them But we also have governments who are those kinds of clients and what I find is Public sector clients may take longer to come to the solution But when they do so much thought has been put into it. It's a solution they adopt for a long time And I think on this debate around how do we address climate change? We need solutions that aren't just the flavor of the month the ones that were thought through and are adopted for a long-term practice So are you in it for the long haul? Me yeah, yeah, we're in it for the long haul. We've worked with cities and for as long as we can I think turn the page back from yesterday and the conversation around Detroit and Passions very thoughtful point that Detroit is everybody's city. I mean, it's not a climate change issue about what happened there, right? So it's this economic resilience aspect that happens at the front stoop You know the front porch street fronts and waterfronts of you know, how we can have a coordinated response and and just Take care of it and Detroit's a great example of why we can't just think about shocks When we're talking about resilience, I mean, yeah So shock would be like extreme weather events. Yeah, the stress would be a monolithic economy where an over reliance on one industry And that resilience should hit all things So I mean in other words, there's nothing not to like about this if you're an individual who doesn't believe in climate change This is all to the good, right? This is about building public works infrastructure. That's better for your economic development It's about building human opportunity It's about education. It's about yeah, and I mean people laugh, but it's absolutely true I mean there are places where they don't think that climate change is is real and whether we agree with them or disagree with them That is the reality on the ground and help, you know, those places still deserve You know still need help building resilience and and you can take Very simple steps towards savings. So that's that's where yes It is climate change fundamentally across the board, but you don't you almost it's like the term resilience You can it doesn't matter it's saying in my opinion saying the word so much It's the practice and the action that matters and they can there can be very small steps I just we've just a little bit of time left But one last question I have For you, Nikhil and then if you want to make closing comments is do people really understand risk? Do they do they do they not understand the risks or do they decide to take them? And is that because you said 30 40% with Sandy was insured was that people not understanding the kind of risks They were taking or did they decide it was worth taking the risk? I think risk is By all nature risk is a very difficult question to wrap your arms around and again I mean we can talk in the esoteric about what it's climate risk or but even on a personal level Again, I like to speak on anecdotes of what I've gone through I mean, I remember the first life insurance policy. I had I got a rate and it didn't feel right But only after getting a second quote that I realized my god what's going on here and I really had to make some changes in my own lifestyle and That's one of the things that you look very healthy As my colleague says it's all black and tar on the inside, but no, but I think that You know the the underlying point is is that risk is really hard to get a hold of and there are certain natural things you do But a lot of it is also trying to figure out How do we benchmark what risk looks like and that's what an insurance partly does But it's all these other things to try and put a cost-benefit and how we improve our lifestyles And I think that's what the resilience efforts are trying to get around to do I think we're out of time, but I just want to thank all the panelists and also I You know, I hope everybody got the point that this is a very uplifting topic and an uplifting panel Because these are people that are actually solving the problem So it's thank you for what you're doing and for joining us today