The context for addressing climate impacts and adaptation in MEPA, NEPA and beyond (with special mention of water management issues) Seth Kaplan Vice President for Policy and Climate Advocacy May 6, 2012 Conservation Law Foundation Boston Bar Association Environmental Law Section Air Quality and Climate Change Committee Land Use & Development Committee 1
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Climate Adaptation presentation - Boston Bar Assn. 5/6/13
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The context for addressing climate impacts and adaptation in MEPA, NEPA and beyond (with special
mention of water management issues)
Seth Kaplan
Vice President for Policy and Climate Advocacy
May 6, 2012
Conservation Law Foundation
Boston Bar AssociationEnvironmental Law Section
Air Quality and Climate Change Committee
Land Use & Development Committee1
The Big Context: Why was this weekend important in history of the planet?
Current climate, no place on earth has over 31C/88F “wet bulb” temp.
Business as usual, played out over 300 yrs: ½ of currently inhabited earth not habitable
Long Run: Hard to contemplate sober.Unless we GREATLY reduce emissions, eventually adaptation will no longer be an option.
The Medium Term: Multiple Models say 90% Probability of more precipitation in the Northeast
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Source: Mahlstein, I., R.W. Portmann, J.L. Daniel, S. Solomon and R. Knutti, 2012, Perceptible changes in regional precipitation in a future climate, Geophysical Research Letters, 39, L05701, doi:10.1029/2011GL050738, PDF (0.7 MB)
Direct Impacts will be significant but ponder the indirect:• Population shifts as people flee the heating & drying south?• Disruptions to food and energy systems?
Climate Impact Poster Child:Flooding from Sea Level Rise
The real lesson of Sandy: We got lucky. For Boston: near miss.
Modeling just starting to grapple with interaction of river, rain and ocean flooding – this is going to get scary as we look at it harder
Increasingly water management and related law will wobble between issues of too much water (stormwater) and too little (interbasin transfer, minimum flows during summer time), sometimes in the same places
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A Few Guidepost Principles
• Much adaptation will be about “riding it out” – like zoning for “living with water” – good first step
• We will systemically underestimate the risks:– Natural tendency to do what has been done before– New risks and trends always discounted
• Huge financial and legal exposures (liability for failure to plan?) lurking just below the surface– Insurance markets are starting to show this
• Don’t lose sight of legal & practical connections between emissions reduction and adaptation