Extreme Heat Shows the Need for Another Kind of Climate Investment
Extreme Heat Shows the Need for Another Kind of Climate Investment
Excerpt from this New York Times story:
The good news: Investors are spending big on climate projects. Global warming helps make periods of extreme heat more frequent, longer and more intense, and it will continue getting worse unless humans essentially stop adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, scientists say. Venture investing in climate tech has boomed since the post-Covid recovery began (though it fell, along with venture funding overall, in the first half of the year). And global public and private investment in climate finance, on projects ranging from decarbonizing architecture and transport to developing renewable energy initiatives, more than doubled from 2011 to 2021, to an estimated $850 billion, according to the Climate Policy Initiative, a nonprofit climate advocacy group. (It will top $1 trillion with the passage of the Biden administration’s sweeping climate bills, the European Union’s Green Deal and China’s low-carbon development initiatives announced in its latest five-year plan.)
The less good news: Addressing a source of the problem is no longer enough. The effects have arrived, and extreme heat has become the leading weather-related killer in much of the world. Some cities, homeowners and businesses are investing in low-cost hacks that can help make cities, which tend to absorb and re-emit heat more than natural landscapes, more bearable in the summer. Painting roofs white or another reflective color can cool structures down, making air conditioning units as much as 15 percent more energy-efficient, said Jane Gilbert, the chief heat officer of Miami-Dade County, Fla. Homes and businesses have to be retrofitted to stay cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, and Miami-Dade has secured millions in federal funding for that plan. Planting trees also adds vital shade to reduce temperatures on city streets.
Only about 7 percent of climate finance is focused on adaptation efforts, according to the Climate Policy Initiative. But more investors are becoming interested, Ms. Tonkonogy said. Last year, the organization partnered with LightSmith Group, a private equity firm, on a $186 million climate fund designed to finance climate resilience projects that could help communities adapt to and withstand the kinds of the extreme weather events that have become so frequent this summer.