Addressing Megacity Risks: Climate Change and Disasters

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Addressing Megacity RisksClimate Change and
Disasters

• by
• Adam Rose
• School of Policy, Planning, and Development
• Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of
  Terrorism Events
• University of Southern California

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Climate Change Mitigation

• Analysis of Advantages of Emissions Trading
• - U.S. mega-regions (highly urbanized)
• - Pacific Rim (China, Hong Kong, Singapore)
• - China conservation regions (municipality
  cluster)
• Illustration of new concepts new geography

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Western Climate Initiative Mega-Region

• Initiated in 2006focus on emissions trading
• - originally 5 U.S. states 1 Canadian
  provinces
• - now 7 states 4 provinces (plus observers
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• U.S., 1 Canada, 6 Mexico)
• - also discussions with EU Pacific Rim
• Mega-Regions need not be contiguous because of
  stock pollutant character of GHGs

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WCI Membership Grows
Original Participants British Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, and New
Mexico.
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WCI Membership Grows
Original Participants British Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, and New
Mexico. In 2007 Manitoba, Montana, and Utah.
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WCI Membership Grows
Original Participants British Columbia,
Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona, and New
Mexico. In 2007 Manitoba, Montana, and Utah. In
2008 Ontario and Quebec also join.
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GHG Emissions Trading in the Pacific Rim

• Region contains many megacities, including city
  states of Hong Kong Singapore
• Major trading area with history of cooperation
• An agreement with an innovative approach to
  permit allocation may entice China to join
• No Harm rule give DCs enough permits
  such that they incur zero costs after trading
• Can reduce mitigation costs by 90

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Net Costs of GHG Trading
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China Conservation Quota System

• Chinas conservation goal 2.2 per year
• Examine system of interregional quota trading
  (analogous to emissions trading)
• China starting to decentralize implementation
  municipalities regions
• New delineation of region per socioeconomics
  gt a region consisting of 3 municipalities

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Chinese Conservation Regions
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Economic Resilience Key Questions

• Is resilience a meaningful concept?
• Can resilience be rigorously defined?
• Can resilience be empirically measured?
• How effective has resilience been to date?
• Can resilience be enhanced or depleted?
• Are megacities more resilient or less resilient?

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Economic Resilience Defined

• General Definition
• static ability of a system to maintain function
  if shocked
• dynamic speed of a system to recover from shock
• Types of Resilience
• inherent normal ability during crises to
  maintain function
• (input/import substitution, market
  reallocation)
• adaptive ingenuity during crises
• (increased substitution possibilities, market
  strengthening)

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Motivation for Resilience

• Individual and business survival
• Need/profitNew business continuity industry
• Acknowledgement of interdependence
• Companies have started to realize that they
  participate in a greater ecosystem, and that
  their IT systems are only as resilient as the
  firms they rely on to stay in business.IBM
  Executive

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Examples of Resilience

• Individual Business (and Household)
• - conservation of critical inputs
• - use of inventories
• - business relocation
• Market
• - efficient allocation of resources via
  price signals
• - non-interruptible service premia
• Regional Economy
• - importing scarce commodities
• - information clearinghouses

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Two-Week Power Outage in LA

• Losses with no resilience -- 20.5B
  (93.6)
• Losses with resilience -- 2.8B
  (13.0)
• (all types)
• Indirect Losses (net GE) -- 3.1B
  (23.8)
• (as percent of direct PE losses)

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Individual Resilience Options

•  
• Resilience Factor Water Electricity
• Conservation 1.0 6.1
• Adaptive Substitution 1.6 3.9
• Inventories/Storage 3.0
• Alternative Sources 28.1
• Importance 58.7 28.7
• Production Rescheduling 75.5 79.4
• Total 91.0 89.6 

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Conclusion

• Resilience is a worthy second line of defense
• - it is effective
• - it is low cost
• - it is self-motivated
• Resilience is yet another way we can all
  contribute to reducing risks from disasters

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References

• Kverndok, S. and A. Rose. 2008. Equity and
  Justice in Climate Change Policy, International
  Review of Environmental and Resource Economics
  2(3) 1-43
• Rose, A. 2007. "Economic Resilience to
  Disasters Multidisciplinary Origins and
  Contextual Dimensions," Environmental Hazards
  Human and Social Dimensions 7(4) 383-98.
• Rose, A. 2009. A Framework for Analyzing and
  Estimating the Total Economic Impacts of a
  Terrorist Attack, Journal of Homeland Security
  and Emergency Management 6(1) 1-27.
• Rose, A. and D. Wei. 2008. "Greenhouse Gas
  Emissions Trading Among Pacific Rim Countries
  An Analysis of Policies to Bring Developing
  Countries to the Bargaining Table," Energy Policy
  36(4) 1420-29.
• Rose, A. et al. 2009. "Climate Change Policy
  Formation in Michigan The Case for a Regional
  Approach," International Regional Science Review,
  forthcoming.
• Wei, D. and A. Rose. 2009. Interrregional
  Sharing of Energy Conservation Targets in China
  Efficiency and Equity , Energy Journal, under
  review.