Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images
Sometimes you have to spend money to save money — and a major new report finds that spending $1.8 trillion on climate adaptation projects would result in $7.1 trillion in total net benefits. The report predicts that the most impressive returns will come from investments that strengthen early warning systems for disasters like storms and floods.
“If we delay adaptation, we will pay such a high price that we would never be able to look at ourselves in the mirror,” Christiana Figueres, who previously headed the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change during the adoption of the Paris climate agreement, said in a press call ahead of the report launch. “Either we delay and pay, or we plan and prosper.”