Preparing for Climate Shocks

Preparing for Climate Shocks

An extreme weather event that causes destruction, threatening the sustainability of a community is called a climate shock. Recent examples of climate shock include the 2022 flooding in Pakistan, unprecedented drought in the Horn of Africa and last year’s extreme and prolonged heat waves in the United States and Europe.

“Despite the fact that we know that these disasters will continue – despite the fact that we all expect them to get much worse – the world is still not investing in preparing our communities for these disasters at anywhere near the scale that we need,” said USAID Administrator Samantha Power.

“Already, climate shocks have thrown millions into hunger and reversed progress in combating diseases from malaria to dengue fever to cholera. In Africa, climate disasters are already slowing economic growth between five and 15 percent a year,” she said.

“The scope and severity and geographical breadth of the need to build that resilience can just overwhelm, it can feel paralyzing,” said Administrator Power.

The United States invested more than $2 billion last year to help vulnerable countries build their resilience to climate impacts. But as impacts mount, further innovation and investment is needed, “because they differ by place: adapting to increasing floods requires very different solutions than adapting to crippling heat waves, for example,” she said.

“Once we have identified priority needs, and spurred innovation and affordable solutions to meet those needs, we need to dramatically scale both public and private investment in the Global South so that people there are able to take advantage of these solutions.”

Indeed, “Once countries have drawn on data to identify their most important needs for themselves, policymakers have to work with the private sector to spur innovation on affordable solutions to meet those needs,” said Administrator Power. “International finance institutions must continue on their reform paths to become more responsive, more innovative, more accessible to the communities they were built to serve.”

“Governments in the Global South can build climate resilience considerations into their entire budget and policymaking processes – while donor governments can do much more to provide information, innovation, and financing that makes it possible for them to take decisive action,” she said. “And individual citizens, particularly young people … can be a part of the work to develop solutions.”

“Ultimately,” said USAID Administration Power, “for climate disasters to no longer shock our systems, we need people and organizations across our systems to prepare for them.”