Extreme events

President Trump announced mid-August an executive order to eliminate and streamline permitting regulations and to speed-up construction of infrastructure. The order specifically rolls back standards through which the Obama administration intended to require the federal government to account for climate change when building infrastructure.

The new executive order is unfortunate: Hurricane Harvey is a tragic reminder of the wisdom of accounting for climate change—as it demonstrates once more that our country is insufficiently prepared for extreme events.

It is essential to note that the occurrence of any specific extreme weather event is beyond our control, and climate change cannot in many cases be unambiguously identified as the source. This is because extreme events have multiple causes and may occur even in the absence of a changing climate. Hence, Harvey and climate change are not one and the same thing. But Harvey is an extreme event.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) unambiguously points to changes in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather and climate events. For instance, the IPCC predicts an increase in extreme rainfall, and there is already evidence that extreme rainfall has in some regions increased over recent decades, leading to an increase in flooding.

On the basis of its effects on extreme weather, alone, we should pursue climate change mitigation aggressively and with a sense of great urgency. But even an aggressive reduction of its causes will no longer fully prevent climate change. We should thus also create a national plan to mitigate the impacts of extreme events on infrastructure intended to serve and protect our people and communities.

Instead, the Trump administration declared its intention to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, and is now rolling back climate change-aware standards for building federal infrastructure. Both actions are counterintuitive in the face of prevailing scientific evidence. And both actions will likely put American lives and property at risk.

— Antonio Baptista