Panel and will be learning about the Global Commission of a global call for leadership. The urgency of Climate Change may feel more acute but the issue of Climate Change has been with us for decades. Esi stated in 1988 addressing Climate Change is a moral imperative. Many scientists m Public Policy experts have been working on the issue proposing solutions i hope what were actually seeing his momentum to act there is some evidence this is the case last week i testified before the Senate Energy committee that probably would not have been the case a few years ago in Speaker Pelosi and the House Select Committee is another example. As we know now that inaction on Climate Change makes it harder and harder to achieve. We have to act now to contribute to that momentum constantly reinforce it. So we can inform policymakers of the best and latest data and best practices to share Lessons Learned to help them understand the urgency to make meaningful progress to address Climate Change. All we need to do is start. This Morning Panel is special we have many resources to think and the efi true champion to help moderate. Focusing research on the interface of science and policy principally on issues related to mitigation at the National International level at the school of Public Health in michigan in school Public Policy university of maryland ran a division of the White House Office of science and Technology Policy and lectured on every continent and more than 20 countries i wonder how many rooms in the Rayburn Office building. [laughter] most importantly a member of efi distinguish board of directors and we could not do the work we do without her guidance and leadership so i will turn it over to you. Thank you very much. Good morning i am happy to be on the efi board to advise the commission on adaptation. Let me set the stage. We call it Global Commission adaptation report because coping with the changes that are already apparent from Climate Change is urgent and i word argue we already have delayed so time is of the essence. With that adaptation with half of my life ago working for the Congress Office of Technology Assessment i led the first and only report congress ever asked for on adaptation which included water coast and agriculture. In the second on right was the wetland in the forest in the parks. That was requested by three committees Science Based Technology environment and public worse and one works in transportation so its interesting 27 years ago congress was is already thinking adaptation may be important. The Un Commission on Sustainable Development issued a report 2007 and the World Bank Commission the World Development report focusing for the first time on Climate Change and both concluded then we knew enough to say in 1992 that passed does not prologue and it alters the baselines that planning that we have done over the last 100 years will not work in most impacts will be negative and coastal ecosystems will be challenged in every region of the globe to develop in developed countries prickle that enhance preparedness Response Strategy should be a global priority. The mitigation and adaptation that becomes less effective the faster the pace and total change of Climate Change. So its fitting two of the three commissioners of the Global Commission on adaptation asked for these reports are now serving on the Global Commission and adaptation. From the world bank doing the World Development report and then also being at the un joining forces with bill gates this year so depending on how you count this it took 27 years to get a real call on adaptation adaptation. And as you know the Paris Agreement by 195 countries if fully implemented would put us on the blue line well past the level that is called for in the paris accord well above the industrial level at least three. Three. It will be hard to cope with that. So all the science and the Intergovernmental Panel on the Climate Change report putting that into one graph here it is. What you can see by the length of the orange bar that already nearterm risk is significant but if we move to degrees or 4 degrees c it gets much more risky. Now proactive adaptation can lop off some of that risk and thats the great part especially into degree case that adaptation at 4 degrees is less effective and much more costly as you head toward greater change essentially we cannot adapt our way out of a 4degree world. And at the temperatures we have already reached that is not insignificant we are seeing these test ranges shifting north like west nile virus and then moving up into canada and extreme events like the fires disrupting supply chain and causing great pain and then to reiterate the climate assessments that was mandated by the Global Change act of 1990 and we are all very pleased legislation on resilience is emerging on the congress. Natural catastrophes have been increasing. This shows the number of weatherrelated disasters the floods are blue the drought of heat and fire are red. You can see in the mid eighties the number of catastrophes was 200 globally now is 600 and as you know last year alone the fires in california cost 24 billion. In 2017 all of these events cost 312 billion. That is real money we are losing losing. Also more powerful tropical storms. These are just the record setters of the strongest irma and harvey didnt even make it for being the largest and strongest but rainfall was a record of rainfall at 8 inches but irma was the longest endurance. And all of these have happened since 2012. One of the most important changes of science base is this. We say we cant attribute any single event to Climate Change but science has advanced to the point this is no longer true as the blanket statement and that is from her own very distinguished National Academy of sciences. The ability to attribute Climate Change and extreme events is a big breakthrough in science. Just to give you one example the attribution of Climate Change the 2 feet of rain in 2016 in louisiana Climate Change increase the odds of getting 2 feet of rain by 40 percent. Thats a powerful statement. The temperature increase to 1 degree already we are seeing an increase of pain and suffering and cost in fact in the analysis of the extreme events of last year 21 out of 27 were seen to have a clearly increased probability from Climate Change they made those events more likely. Every sector is affected by these ongoing temperatures with the Sea Level Rise. So the Energy Sector is in our mind with lower levels wildfires affects electricity supply. And the power plants in the midwest or sometimes flooded water limits reduce productivity with reduced ability to send cold out rivers the storms are disrupting the Distribution Systems in the cooling water intake could be too hot depending on the weather. These all bring home that frequency and intensity of heat wave are flooding and hurricanes hurricanes. Houston had three, 500 year events in three years. Were going to have to change the definition of a 500 year event. Passed is not prologue. And the fire area has doubled since 1984 the area of fires in the us and the burn total and the combined fires in 2017 and 2018 were 40 billion and from her own military two thirds of installations threatened by Climate Change in the next 20 years. Not 2100. So we know there is a lot of infrastructure in the path of storm surge and rising sea level level. And this Risky Business brought it home after super storm sandy wake up call higher storm level storm surge increase the annual cost along the eastern seaboard by three and a half million in the next decade. By 2100, that number just in those regions could be as high as 507 billion. Investors are sounding the alarm calling for risk disclosure. This was amplified at the un Climate Summit last month. The World Economic forum at davos said Climate Change is the biggest risk to business and now pg e has the first s p 500 Climate Energy the time to act is now the Adaptation Commission they are desperately needed we can delay and pay or plan and prosper. Let me introduce the dr. Bierbaum let me introduce the first of our distinct thekers to tell us about Global Commission on adaptation and its finding. First we have manish bapna, the executive Vice President and managing director of World Resources institute. Before that director of the nonprofit and also served at as a world economist working on watershed and Rural Development projects in asia and latin america and the overall lead for the Global Commission on adaptation. Manish good morning everyone. Thank you rosina. I have been looking at this issue the past couple years very carefully and still have so much more to learn from rosina. Thank you for that lovely opening. First i suspect what is on the minds of the people the issue we are here for includes baseball with the Washington Nationals. Just to bring these together for a moment i dont know if you saw the Washington Post a couple days ago. An interesting article about Climate Change and baseball stadiums. And how we will need to reimagine how we build stadiums for sports in light of Climate Change. That is something i thought was particularly interesting in light of where we are today. Starting with a short video that says a word or two about adaptation. [inaudible conversations] maybe you can read along unprecedented Climate Change it is a huge threat. 2100 expected more than half are at risk from storms. By 2120 percent of the streets of Lower Manhattan to be subject two title inundation and subject to Sea Level Rise with extreme heat and presentation. Coastal defenses are being strengthened and rebuild the boardwalk. Rooftops being painted white to reflect extreme heat. Preparing the city to bounce back quickly from extreme events. So just a little bit. When people ask what is spent time we preparing these videos from around the world with voices of those on the front lines of what it means to adapt. What i will do today is take a few minutes to talk about the Global Commission on adaptation and those findings released a couple months ago and then my colleagues will go deeper into what this means for the United States on a couple of issues with Climate Disclosure so lets start with the commission. You saw the cochairs. Two main objectives for setting up this commission. To as rosanna alluded to, elevate the political visibility of adaptation. Adaptation is one of those things people have been talking about for some time but not nearly as much leadership attention a resources has been put on this even despite the fact that quite recently as she mentioned, this was the top risk and an annualceos survey that the World Economic forum conducts each year. The second form was not just ella mate elevate the political visibility, but also to mobilize action that we wanted this to be more than just report. We want this to lead to realworld change on the ground. So we set up this Commission People all over the world, sitting ministers, ceos, mayors, Civil Society leaders. We had the republican mayor of miami from the United States and a wide range of several hundred ngo and Research Partners that were part of this overall effort. The commission was launched a year ago in the netherlands. As i mentioned, the last year was largely around trying to set the intellectual or analytical agenda for what we felt needed to happen on adaptation. But this next year is about translating that report into a set of very specific recommendations. The point here was we have seen a lot of reports that talk about the costs of the impacts come the problems Climate Change may create, but theres not been a systematic approach to how does the world respond. And how does the world respond in terms of building resilience. That is what this report and to do. There were five messages this report put forward and i will go through each of them. The first is about the human imperative that adaptation is about. The second is to rethink how we look at the economics of investing in adaptation. The third is to say that even with good economics, we are not getting the attention we want to see, because a number of barriers get in the way. We need to see revolutions and understanding, and planning and tofinancing to scale up, create the level of action we need to see on adaptation. The fourth is then how we apply that to key economic systems, and what that means. Fifth, is how we stimulate that and promote that in the coming year and jumpstart the whole agenda. On resilience. The first point, adaptation is a human imperative. We know that the people, the communities and the countries that often did the least to generate this problem will suffer the most. We also know Climate Impacts will spare no one. Climate impacts are happening here and now. Just to give a couple of numbers we anticipate over 100 Million People around the world will fall back into poverty by 2030 if no action is taken. We anticipate that yields of anticipate that yields of major crops could fall up to 30 percent with massive implications for livelihoods. We anticipate that over 1 trillion per year of damages citiesace in coastal around the world by 2050. But the real tragedy here sows that have the least, those who are poor, women, future generations, will suffer the most. This is an issue we know exacerbates inequality in a much more devastating way. That said, the second message is a fresh message. We argue that adaptation, investing in building resilience makes good economic sense. We looked at a wide range of types of actions. We looked at how the returns on developing Early Warning systems, and making new and for structure resilient, and improving dryland agricultural Crop Production and protecting mangroves or other Nature Based Solutions, making Water Resources more efficient. For everys that dollar we invest in these types of adaptation intervention could generate 45 and net economic benefits in return. So this is a really significant finding. It suggests that actually countries, committees and Companies Make good economic sense to invest in building resilience. By ais been substantiated number of us studies that had similar conclusions. Why is that . Using another baseball example with a picture you may recall the Washington Nationals park which is the only major sports stadium in the country that is leed certified. They actually put nature to work in the stadium. You have green roofs and trees in the stadium. When you have a lot of rain absorbs stormwater runoff. Deal with extreme heat hot days in the summer watching baseball helps to cool the temperature down. Thats why this helps with the avoided loss part which makes good sense. But in addition there are two other major benefits to these investments. A white roof, grass and shrubs on the roof their electricity bills are less they dont have to cool the building nearly as much. There is good economic benefits. On top of that the aesthetics, it looks nice and recreational benefits that people commoditize losses, theed economic benefits and the social benefits are in part what generates the cigna can economic returns. The third finding is despite these returns we dont see the uptake of action we wou