Climate change mitigation is one of the stressing challenges of the 21st century. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory hosted the America Resilient virtual climate conference on April 14th, 2021, to discuss the issue.
Image Credit: Argonne National Laboratory.
The conference report is available for public view on the America Resilient website.
People across the United States are experiencing the growing effects of climate change. The situations include the record-breaking 2020 wildfire and the Southern freeze of February 2021 that led to the collapse of the electric grid in Texas.
Members at Argonne’s conference concentrated on methods to overcome the loss of biodiversity, human suffering and interruption to crucial societal systems and functions. Three important aspects were discussed in the conference: meeting the need for high-accuracy, high-resolution climate models; prioritizing environmental justice; and equipping decision-makers to plan for resilience and adaptation.
At present, certain communities tend to face a high risk from climate change, considering their location, demographic and access to healthcare and resources.
There are inequities that are baked into the energy system, and when you are trying to make your energy system more resilient, you need to make sure you’re not doing it in a way that’s going to further entrench these inequalities.
Shalanda Baker, Deputy Director for Energy Justice, U.S. DOE
Shalanda Baker is also the Secretary of Energy’s Advisor on Equity. For resilient communities to be built, community members and leaders require science-based data regarding the possible effects of climate change.
While it’s critical that we decarbonize our economy as quickly as possible, the emissions we’ve produced have already baked in weather patterns that will unfold over years to come. These once-in-a-century storms are going to keep coming, but not all of them need to be crises.
Jennifer Granholm, U.S. Secretary of Energy
High-resolution and high-precision models can assist people in overcoming the crises by projecting climate impacts down to regional and local levels and adopting measures accordingly to reduce the effects.
The localized models will enable communities to effectively evaluate the immediate and future climate-oriented risks. The conference evidenced experts seeking to raise climate-related education and coaching to democratize access to climate data to help make informed decision-making.
The America Resilient Climate Conference report outlines important discussions from the panels and keynote speakers. The report is available to organize research, government, industry and community efforts to improve climate resilience in the United States and probably worldwide.
NEW Report! America Resilient: Projecting and Preparing for the Effects of Climate Change
Video Credit: Argonne National Laboratory.