Extreme Temperature Diary- Monday November 13th, 2023/Main Topic: New Toolbox Helps Cities Justify Climate Investments

guyonclimate_mi5tor

The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary extreme, or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials).😉

Main Topic: New Toolbox Helps Cities Justify Climate Investments

Dear Diary. Something that is most welcome are more computer programs and information showing how bad infrastructure and in particular that along coastlines will be impacted from the climate crisis. Nearly a quarter of the 21st century is behind us, so as predicted, sea level rise will be increasing substantially from here on out. Cities that are just about always trapped for cash need to know where and how tax dollars can be spent in the best manner for adaption efforts.

Here are details on a new program that should help cities deal better with our changing climate Also, I highly recommend that you subscribe to the Energy Mix since it’s a great source to find the latest new on Renewable energy:

‘Cost of Doing Nothing’ Toolbox Helps Cities Justify Climate Investments (theenergymix.com)

‘Cost of Doing Nothing’ Toolbox Helps Cities Justify Climate Investments

November 9, 2023

Image Credit: Halifax Fire News Twitter

A new resource helps cash-strapped municipalities build a business case for climate adaptation spending by appraising the greater cost of “doing nothing,” providing a practical budgeting tool for Canadian communities that increasingly face losses from climate-driven disasters.

“While the mounting costs of climate change present a serious fiscal and logistical challenge for municipalities, justifying the investment in adaptation measures can be difficult for municipalities whose budgets and capacities are already stretched,” writes ICLEI Canada, explaining the reasoning behind the development of its Cost of Doing Nothing (CODN) toolbox. The package of templates, spreadsheets, and case studies is meant to provide a “jumping off point for municipalities to assess the costs of doing nothing within their own local context, and support their own climate adaptation planning process.”

Without immediate action, the cost of inaction will only increase with time, threatening to consume the scarce funds and resources that municipalities have to maintain and operate critical services, ICLEI adds.

While many cost estimates account only for direct impacts, like flood damage to buildings and infrastructure, the toolbox sets out to redefine the true costs to communities by assessing indirect, cascading costs like disrupted services, rising insurance premiums, and job losses when local businesses are damaged or destroyed.

Moving beyond financial costs, it also covers “non-market costs” to social systems, human health and well-being, and the natural environment, must also be accounted for. For example, “the cost of heat-related hospital visits is expected to increase 21% by mid-century and 102% by end of century even under a low-emissions scenario,” ICLEI writes.

Another consideration is that “much of the available literature (peer-reviewed and grey) on assessing the impacts and costs of climate change leans heavily on Western knowledge systems,” the organization adds. So the CODN toolbox urges trust-based engagement with Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) for a more “holistic” understanding of the impacts and costs of climate change.

An IKS resource list in the toolbox includes the Indigenous Climate Hub, the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER), the findings of the 2021 Onjisay Aki International Climate Summit, and the National Inuit Climate Change Strategy produced by Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.

The toolkit also includes a tracking tool, presented as an editable Excel spreadsheet, with detailed guidance on data types and sources and columns for tracking the collection process. Toolbox users are supplied with eight national impact statements, from which they can select the ones that are most relevant to their community. An appendix aids the collection of local data.

ICLEI urges city staff to “gather as much local data as is feasible to include in your report and build a compelling business case.” The final numbers are plugged into an editable template that composes a customized report.

The City of Hamilton has already completed a cost of doing nothing assessment [pdf] focused on the multiple hazards it faces due to extreme precipitation and high temperatures. The 2022 document is appended to the CODN toolbox as a case study, alongside a technical analysis of 19 potential climate impacts published [pdf] by the City of Windsor in 2019. ICLEI has also produced a webinar to help users get the most out of the toolbox.

Here are more “ET’s” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:

Here is some more new October 2023 climatology:

Here is More Climate and Weather News from Monday:

(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)

Today’s News on Sustainable Energy, Traditional Polluting Energy from Fossil Fuel, and the Green Revolution:

More from the Weather Department:

More on the Environment and Nature:

More on Other Science and the Beauty of Earth and this Universe:

If you like these posts and my work on record temperature ratios, please contribute via my PayPal widget on this site. Thanks in advance for any support. 

Guy Walton… “The Climate Guy”

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