Beyond Prevention: Why urgent adaptation is critical to averting climate catastrophe

(Adapted From GNY Magazine of IIT Bombay 2024)
by Karamjeet Paul

Founder & Managing Principal, Strategic Exposure Group

“Climate Change Catastrophe.” These 3 words represent what may be at stake in relation to life on our planet. So, a critical question is: are we doing everything we can to address this challenge?

Let’s begin by breaking down the phrase “Climate Change Catastrophe” into its two components. The first is “Climate Change.” So, are we doing everything possible to prevent it? I can't answer it, but will offer here the need to recognize significant limitations to fully address this challenge. The second part, “Catastrophe,” is an area where I have considerable expertise; I understand how catastrophes develop and how we can address them before they occur.

So, are we doing everything we can in relation to the catastrophe in question here? I will answer that upfront: No, we are not, and we could be doing much more! Before I tell you why I say so, let us internalize the context of how catastrophes materialize.

I am going to list a few events and ask you to think of what is common among them.

A little more than 210 years ago, a powerful European army with superior numbers and discipline marched east to Russia with no doubt to depose the czar. It ended in a fiasco! About 130 years later, another army with similar superior numbers and discipline had similar goals. It also had a disastrous ending!

About 20 years later, policy makers were certain that China’s mandate for farmers to plough deeper and plant seeds closer would increase food production. The policy seemed to make sense to everyone. It resulted in 45 million Chinese citizens starving to death over the next 5 years!

About 50 years later, in 2010, there was a consensus in Germany to replace fossil fuels with clean energy sources. Everyone agreed this was a worthy goal and policies were needed to mandate this transition. In 2022, the mandate resulted in an energy crisis and the potential for a national security catastrophe in Germany!

In 2021, the US Federal Reserve had no doubts, as indicated by repeated declarations, about their decision to stay with the easy-money policy. It created the highest price-level inflation in 40 years!

It feels strange to compare the policy decision of an event where millions died with another that caused an energy crisis or an economic problem, and that is not our objective here. But there are certain commonalities among these situations in relation to policy decision-making. We will get to that in a few minutes. Let’s first look at how catastrophes arise.

We make all decisions, including policy decisions, based upon what we know, and we address potential adversities by envisioning them and then preventing them. But experience shows that adversities can arise from what we do not know or what is unknown to decision makers. This means two things: one, what we do not know can give rise to adversities, and two, such adversities arising from the unknown cannot be prevented as we do not know what we need to prevent.

Also, decision making, by definition, is about future outcomes, and we cannot possibly know everything about the future. Therefore, every decision has some unknowns, which can give rise to adversities that cannot be prevented. Every decision!

If we fail to account for the possibility of unknowns—even though we may not initially understand how these could develop into adversities—we risk not having the flexibility to adjust course easily, if needed during implementation. Without such flexibility we can find ourselves unprepared when an adversity arises from the unknown, and lacking unpreparedness can turn an adversity into a full-blown catastrophe. This is the pathway through which catastrophes emerge.

So, what was common among all the situations I mentioned above?

Of course, each one of them turned into a catastrophe. But in the context of what I just described, in each situation, decision makers were so certain about the outcome that they did not allow for and prepare for adversities arising from the unknown, which are often called “flaws” when we look back at decisions. In real time, no significant “flaws” were pointed out. They became evident only in rear-view mirrors when catastrophic outcomes of their policy decisions were attributed to such “flaws.”

Not allowing for the unknown that could not be envisioned in real time when decisions were made and thus not providing flexibility to change course meant that:

• Napoleon’s grand army was unprepared for the diseases, starvation, wintery weather, and defeat that had not been envisioned and lost most of its 600,000 soldiers in the first 100 days.
  
• China’s rigid system did not permit deviations from its agricultural policy, even in the face of an unforeseen decline in crop yields resulting from the policy decision, and a severe famine followed.
  
• Germany was unprepared for the sudden shortfall in oil and gas supplies caused by interruptions that had not been envisioned until February 22, 2022, when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, and a significant energy crisis followed.
• The US Federal Reserve, envisioning and insisting that prices were increasing solely due to transitory factors, was caught unprepared and the price inflation soared.
  

The point here is not that decision makers should have been better at identifying flaws, but rather that, despite our best efforts, there will always be unknowns capable of evolving into adversities with the potential to become catastrophes.

So, whether it is about war planning, national security, energy, food, clean water, health care, environment, economic policies, or any other area, we must allow and be prepared for the possibility of unknown flaws in the underlying premise. Otherwise, we are vulnerable to catastrophes.

The logic about how catastrophes arise and how vulnerabilities to them can be addressed may seem dense, but decision makers need to always keep in mind: We must be disciplined and allow for the possibility of the unknown in any policy decision.

So, what does it mean for a potential climate change catastrophe? First, to be clear, this is not about questioning the reality of climate change. Rather, it is about fully addressing potential adversities arising from climate change. Given the high stakes, it is essential that our policy decisions account for unknowns because ignoring the possibility of them could transform manageable challenges into catastrophic outcomes.

Speaking of the unknowns, everything we know about climate change has some unknowns because nothing like this has happened in modern times. So, we must acknowledge that our understanding of climate change is incomplete. While we have formulated hypotheses regarding its causes, mechanisms, and potential prevention strategies—each supported by a substantial degree of confidence— they remain hypotheses nonetheless. There is no way to test and prove such hypotheses with 100% certainty. After all, we cannot create a second earth to simulate, test and observe its climate. There is no way to completely eliminate the unknown in climate change policy decisions regardless of how low is the likelihood that such an unknown can lead to an adversity. It is within the realm of possibility that the real cause of climate change could be something unknown to us today. It’s important to note that while this “something unknown” is only a possibility, it doesn’t mean it’s unlikely.

What this means is that there are two possible paths to catastrophe if climate change materializes:

• If we do nothing, the impact of climate change could be catastrophic. This is widely known to anyone concerned about climate change.
  
• However, if we do something but do not allow for the possibility of the unknown or a “flaw” in the current hypotheses, then the impact of climate change could also be catastrophic if a flaw becomes known and materializes later.

What this means is that neglecting the unknown could be as catastrophic as the very disaster we are seeking to prevent. With the fundamentals of life on Earth at stake, we must not focus only on prevention but also acknowledge potential unknown gaps in our approach. For this reason, we cannot put all our eggs in only one basket of prevention.

While we work to prevent climate change, we must also consider important questions: 

• What if the true cause of climate change is something else? 
  
• What if our current preventive actions fail to reduce greenhouse gases? 
  
• What if global temperatures continue to rise despite our efforts? 

The path that raises these questions implies and requires us to assume that there is no absolute certainty that any actions to prevent climate change will succeed, and we may have to live with the consequences of higher global temperatures. So, if we allow for the unknown then how do we minimize the adverse impact of living with it?  This would call for adaptation.

Addressing a climate change catastrophe is not about choosing prevention over adaptation, or vice-a-versa. It is about addressing both paths concurrently because prevention is about minimizing the high likelihood of a catastrophe, whereas adaptation is about surviving a catastrophe if prevention is not successful. We need to pursue both paths simultaneously.

To account for any unknown “flaws,” adaptation should be a core component of the strategy, pursued with the same intensity as efforts to prevent the adverse effects of climate change. By combining preventive and adaptive measures, we can close any gaps in decision-making and reduce the impact of adversities escalating into catastrophes.

Under some views, we should wait to pursue adaptation and do so only if, and when, our current approach proves flawed. However, waiting for "flaws" to become known is as unwise as delaying the purchase of life insurance until all other efforts to save one’s life have failed. Adaptation serves as our insurance policy against climate change, and we should establish it alongside prevention actions to avert catastrophe.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body dedicated to advancing scientific understanding of human-caused climate change, emphasized the importance of adaptation in its Sixth Assessment Report. However, the report noted that adaptation efforts are, at best, half hearted and far from sufficient. It is evident that, compared to prevention efforts, our commitment to proactive adaptation today is neither strong enough nor urgent enough. More can be and should be done.

We need to act with urgency also as adaptation is a lengthy process that could take decades. Some things about adaptation may be obvious and simple to internalize, such as if sea levels would rise then we should move human developments above or away from sea levels; if there would be more extreme storms then we should strengthen buildings and infrastructure. But then there are other problems that require years and decades of work to internalize and develop solutions, such as what do warmer temperatures mean for food production, air quality, clean-water access, infrastructure, new forms of molds, viruses, infections and bacteria and our vulnerabilities to them or the need for new medical treatments, etc. We need to understand, define, and internalize what adaptation would mean in the context of climate change and what kind of policies are needed. And this could take many years.

So, to fully address climate change catastrophe, we need to ask:

• How do we pursue adaptation in a disciplined manner as seriously and as urgently as we are trying to prevent climate change catastrophe?
  
• What should be our goals and timeline for adaptation?
• What should be our priorities for adaptation?

This is a critical challenge we must confront. Considering what is at stake for our world, failing to address this challenge would be as reckless as ignoring the threat of climate change catastrophe itself.