From hurricane- and flood-prone coasts to Tornado Alley spanning the central U.S., the map of American data centers increasingly resembles a target board for extreme weather.
When extreme weather disrupts communities, small businesses often wind up being the first responders and first casualties. Investing in small business resilience can translate into fewer closures, less unemployment, faster recovery, and stronger local spending after disasters strike.
Two trends are colliding in state finance offices: Emergency, or “rainy day,” funds are shrinking at the exact moment climate-related revenue losses are mounting.
From hurricane- and flood-prone coasts to Tornado Alley spanning the central U.S., the map of American data centers increasingly resembles a target board for extreme weather.
States are seeing their emergency reserves shrink for the first time since the Great Recession. The path forward is a new, two-pronged pro-growth, pro-resilience model that expands the state’s economic base while simultaneously modernizing the financial tools used to protect it.
Last week, New York City experienced another round of flash flooding thanks to a violent downpour, highlighting a thorny question: When do you harden infrastructure against stormwater, and when do you work with it?
The Epicenter editors recently interviewed Daniel Zarrilli, former Chief Resilience Officer for New York City and current Chief Climate & Sustainability Officer at Columbia University, about his work during the post-Hurricane Sandy recovery effort.
Each time the federal government closes, it reinforces a simple truth: the center can no longer hold. The work of building resilient infrastructure and communities must now happen locally.
The majority of U.S. infrastructure is funded, built, and maintained by city councils, county boards, and state legislatures. But aging infrastructure, escalating climate risk, and other factors are converging to leave local communities less prepared to absorb their growing risk.
Historically, strong federal environmental regulations drove government action to manage water resources -- that’s changing as more communities experience flooding and see the benefits of nature-based solutions to mitigate those impacts.
Municipal leaders have an opportunity to lead their communities to a resilient future and mitigate flood risk. A case study from Algonquin, IL highlights resiliency investments that have fundamentally transformed how flooding affects the community and have yielded significant cost savings.
A smart transition of FEMA toward state and local disaster responsibility would encompass 1) reform to the Stafford Act to rebalance federal and state contributions, 2) a restructuring of state disaster relief funds, and 3) a shift toward regionalization of disaster response.
The muni bond market presents an opportunity to finance resiliency in a way that aligns policy-makers, community stakeholders, business interests, and investors. By strengthening local infrastructure to render assets less vulnerable to climate shocks, it can reduce disaster costs for communities.
