“I think we should embrace it as a legitimate aspiration,” said Secretary of State John Kerry in a live interview from the Paris summit.<\/p>\n
A rough climate deal was first sketched in Kyoto, Japan back in 1997 in Kyoto but it failed.<\/p>\n
\nAddressing climate change takes all of us, especially the private sector going all-in on clean energy worldwide. https:\/\/t.co\/qQ6wCZUR1Z<\/a><\/p>\n\u2014 President Obama (@POTUS) November 30, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nBut sentiments seem to be changing.\u00a0With 1 degree Celsius in global temperature rise (that’s nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit) already linked to extreme weather, increasing drought and flooding, the stakes are much higher less than 20 years later.<\/p>\n
The climate negotiations in Paris may prove that world leaders are capable of fast political movement. But response may not reverse course soon enough. A growing chorus of academics and city-level planners are saying that major cities on the coastal U.S.\u2014where nearly 125 million people or 39 percent of Americans live<\/a>\u2014are not preparing for the inevitable rise in sea levels.<\/p>\nLegal experts are also looking at cases that could set a precedent to hold policymakers accountable for inaction if disaster were to strike in future generations.<\/p>\n
“There is so much that we are doing as a society in the United States that does not meet good standards of engineering excellence, architectural excellence, or community development.”
\n– Edward Thomas, Natural Hazard Mitigation Association<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The law encourages action based on a \u201cstandard of care\u201d that should be exercised by a government agency or business. Individuals with specific training and expertise\u2014architects, engineers, scientists\u2014are held by law, in theory, to an even higher standard of care (although, the definition is debatable and often ends up being defined by a jury for a specific situation).<\/p>\n
Edward Thomas, now an attorney and the president of the Natural Hazard Mitigation Association, but he worked for the federal government for 35 years coordinating\u00a0federal response to over 200 disasters and emergencies.\u00a0 A former peanut-company executive who was sentenced to 28 years in prison for knowingly shipping contaminated peanut butter to stores across the country, Thomas wrote this fall in\u00a0\u00a0Governing,<\/span><\/u><\/a> a national magazine that focuses on civic government. Nine people died and hundreds got sick.<\/p>\nA south Georgia jury convicted Steve Parnell, the executive of the Peanut Corporation of America (now defunct), on counts of fraud, conspiracy and other charges.<\/p>\n
Thomas argues that this obscure, and unprecedented, peanut punishment signals an important shift in legal precedent in which more courts are holding powerful people to account for failure to prevent harm. It remains unclear if this precedent could be applied to coastal development in the face of rising ocean levels. But Thomas writes that corporate and civic leaders are being held accountable in civil\u2014and in the most serious cases, criminal\u2014court when they put the public at risk.<\/p>\n
Decision-makers \u201cmay be held accountable for development that puts people in harm\u2019s way,\u201d he said. And that could mean development in coastal areas likely to flood.<\/p>\n![\"Chicago](\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/12\/climateprotest1-1024x682.jpg\")
Chicago environmental activists rally in Federal Plaza in December, calling for action on climate\u00a0 change. The action took place days before world leaders would gather in Paris, France to negotiate an agreement to reduce global carbon emissions. (Kevin Stark\/Medill)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cThere is so much that we are doing as a society in the United States that does not meet good standards of engineering excellence, architectural excellence, or community development,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n
While many coastal cities like New York and San Francisco are studying the threat of climate change induced sea level rise, regulation that would protect private development from future rising seas is still being drafted. And no regulations\u00a0prevent private development in areas at risk of flooding with rising oceans. San Francisco produced guidance documents<\/a> to help local planners protect public projects from climate threats\u2014New York State has adopted a similar framework<\/a>.<\/p>\nAdaptation experts agree that guidance documents are a good start and that any regulation must be able to adapt to the science as it evolves, but legal experts say that when a public official has knowledge of an impending threat\u2014even as long term, slow-rolling threat like the one posed by sea level rise\u2014failure to do something can be construed as an act in itself.<\/p>\n
“If you know that the whole system is going under and that there is a high likelihood that deaths or property damage can result from failing to alter your building codes or your zoning, once the knowledge is out there it becomes difficult.”
\n-Victor Flatt, University of North Carolina School of Law<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Nancy Girard is the former commissioner of the environment department for the City of Boston. In this capacity, she oversaw all of the preservation work for the city of Boston as the commissioner.<\/p>\n
Girard said that Boston and other coastal cities need to adequately assess their neighborhoods for the threat of sea level rise and redefine zoning laws to clarify where developers should be building new homes and businesses. She said that sea level rise regulation \u201cneeds to have teeth.\u201d And right now, she said regulation is still \u201cin its infancy\u201d and \u201cyou have developers out there saying, great, there is disarray right now, I can get what I want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inaction can be a policy statement in itself, and one for which leaders could potentially be held responsible. \u201cYou are enforcing by not enforcing,\u201d said Victor Flatt, a law professor and the director of the Center for Law, Environment, Adaptation, and Resources at the University of North Carolina School of Law.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you know that the whole system is going under and that there is high likelihood that deaths or property damage can result from failing to alter your building codes or your zoning, once the knowledge is out there it becomes difficult,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Increasingly, officials in municipalities like San Francisco, New York, Boston and other locals have access to a wide range of detailed inundation tools, from government agencies like NOAA<\/a> and research groups like Climate Central<\/a>. Some officials say government should prepare cautiously for sea level rise because projections fall in ranges and there is still some scientific uncertainty. But the science is increasingly clear.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/12\/NOAA-1024x584.jpg\")
The federal government developed an interactive tool for visualizing complicated projections for sea level rise. Much of the low-lying areas of Boston, Massachusetts could flood if the Atlantic Ocean rises by a few feet. (NOAA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the National Climate Assessment, several independent research groups found that average high tides will be about 3 feet higher by the year 2100. These models all have an upper range, which is often conversationally defined as “worst-case scenarios” in which the world continues its business as usual growth in greenhouse gas emissions. With\u00a0“worst case scenario,” several predictions chart this rise at 4.6 feet by 2100.<\/p>\n
Sea level rise so far has tracked the upper range of past projections, according to observations in recent years. While several feet of sea level rise would be a troubling concern for coastal communities, cities need to also plan for severe weather\u2014storm surges, hurricanes, spring and king tides.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of places where you could buy a house now that maybe has never flooded, but by the end of the mortgage cycle, it could be flooding every other year.\u201d
\nAmir AghaKouchak, University of California at Irvine<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
While city planners developing new neighborhoods need to be thinking about what a city will look like at the end of the century, 2100 may seem like a long time away to the average person. That’s one\u00a0reason why activating the public around the slow-rolling problems associated with sea level rise is so difficult.<\/p>\n
Instead of thinking about extreme events like hurricanes, some researchers are instead focused on the already occurring increases in roadway floods during heavy rains, extreme high tides, and other similar short-term events.<\/p>\n
To some it is just an inconvenience, but researcher Amir AghaKouchak, a professor of civil engineering at the University of California at Irvine, said,\u00a0“nuisance flooding” is going to happen with increasing frequency \u201calmost everywhere\u201d along the coastal United States by the year 2050.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot of places where you could buy a house now that maybe has never flooded, but by the end of the mortgage cycle, it could be flooding every other year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Environmental](\"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/12\/Climateprotest2-1024x682.jpg\")