WEBVTT - Resilience Meets the Implementation Gap 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:04.479 Financial markets can no longer ignore the impacts of climate change, 0:00:04.620 --> 0:00:10.610 shifting consumer expectations and increasing regulatory scrutiny. These forces are 0:00:10.690 --> 0:00:16.730 reshaping industries, redefining risk and creating new opportunities for long-term 0:00:16.810 --> 0:00:22.810 value creation. Through conversations with industry leaders, investors and subject 0:00:22.850 --> 0:00:28.430 matter experts, we explore where sustainability is translating into measurable 0:00:28.690 --> 0:00:34.280 financial outcomes. Welcome to Sustainability Currents, brought to you by 0:00:34.659 --> 0:00:36.339 Bloomberg Intelligence. 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.700 Climate risks are becoming easier to identify, measure, and model. 0:00:44.240 --> 0:00:46.700 But the harder question is what to do with these 0:00:46.780 --> 0:00:49.200 risks and how to pay for it. Cities are under 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.510 growing pressure to invest in infrastructure and systems that can 0:00:52.530 --> 0:00:57.190 withstand climate shocks and recover more quickly. Yet resilience is 0:00:57.250 --> 0:01:01.340 difficult to define and measure, difficult to implement, and often 0:01:01.420 --> 0:01:04.400 even harder to finance when the economic benefit comes in 0:01:04.420 --> 0:01:07.840 the form of losses that never happen. I'm Chris Ratty, 0:01:07.860 --> 0:01:11.090 Senior Sustainability Analyst, and joining me today to discuss these 0:01:11.130 --> 0:01:15.470 topics is Michael Berkowitz, Executive Director of the University of 0:01:15.490 --> 0:01:20.770 Miami's Climate Resilience Institute. Michael previously led 100 resilient cities, 0:01:21.190 --> 0:01:24.280 working with cities around the world to move resilience from 0:01:24.310 --> 0:01:29.360 planning toward implementation. His work now includes the Institute's Resilience 0:01:29.420 --> 0:01:33.320 Finance Lab, which is examining how capital can be mobilized 0:01:33.360 --> 0:01:37.759 for resilience investment. Michael, welcome to Sustainability Currents. 0:01:38.440 --> 0:01:39.660 Thanks, Chris. Great to be here. 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:41.560 I have a feeling I'm going to stumble a few 0:01:41.580 --> 0:01:47.350 times on resilience in this conversation, but obviously we believe 0:01:47.390 --> 0:01:49.170 it's a key topic and we're glad to have you 0:01:49.210 --> 0:01:52.130 here to discuss it. The term climate resilience can mean 0:01:52.490 --> 0:01:55.970 very different things depending on whether you're an engineer, a 0:01:56.030 --> 0:01:59.640 public health expert, a government official, or an investor. So 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:03.840 From your perspective, how do you define resilience? And especially, 0:02:03.860 --> 0:02:06.600 you know, from your work at the Climate Resilience Institute? 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:10.700 Yeah, thanks. Well, I have a little confession to make, actually. 0:02:10.880 --> 0:02:12.919 And one of the reasons why I almost didn't take 0:02:12.940 --> 0:02:15.500 the job at the University of Miami is I don't specifically, 0:02:15.520 --> 0:02:21.220 I don't particularly believe in climate resilience. I believe that 0:02:21.310 --> 0:02:24.010 climate and climate change and the effects of climate change 0:02:24.130 --> 0:02:27.530 are an interesting entry point for a resilience conversation. But 0:02:27.610 --> 0:02:31.940 resilience at its core is is about the capacity that 0:02:31.980 --> 0:02:36.220 communities have to survive, adapt, and thrive, and have better 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:40.740 outcomes after their next disaster. Whether those disasters are climate shocks, 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:47.170 like flooding, hurricanes, heat waves, or whether they're terrorism, or pandemic, 0:02:47.850 --> 0:02:52.610 or the coming economic upheaval driven by robotics and AI, 0:02:54.330 --> 0:02:59.160 communities have certain capacities to survive And have better outcomes 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:01.549 during all of those. And that's really what resilience is. 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:07.590 So those capacities look like, you know, growing equitable economy, 0:03:09.260 --> 0:03:13.929 good community cohesion where neighbors check on neighbors, solid infrastructure, 0:03:14.030 --> 0:03:18.590 multi-use infrastructure, you know, valuing of green infrastructure in particular, 0:03:19.270 --> 0:03:22.290 and good governance with strong stakeholders at the table. All 0:03:22.310 --> 0:03:24.669 of those things help a community survive, whether it's a 0:03:24.690 --> 0:03:26.049 hurricane or a pandemic. 0:03:26.330 --> 0:03:26.450 Mm-hmm. 0:03:27.220 --> 0:03:29.019 I mean, that's a very good point. We had a 0:03:29.060 --> 0:03:31.720 few weeks ago, we had a New York City comptroller 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:33.940 on to discuss, you know, a lot of these topics 0:03:34.020 --> 0:03:35.820 as well. And, you know, I think you hit it 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:38.200 on the head that there's a lot more that goes 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:42.320 into it than just the climate. And AI obviously is 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:46.360 one of those things that is causing a lot of 0:03:46.420 --> 0:03:50.820 cities to rethink their infrastructure and their power grids and 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.650 whether they have the capacity to handle some of the 0:03:54.690 --> 0:03:57.140 needs that are coming down the pipe. not just from 0:03:57.180 --> 0:03:59.140 the climate, but also in other risks. 0:03:59.260 --> 0:04:02.140 But yeah. And just to give you the example here 0:04:02.160 --> 0:04:04.370 in New York is, you know, I was deputy commissioner 0:04:04.380 --> 0:04:07.250 of emergency management in the late 90s and early 2000s. 0:04:07.310 --> 0:04:10.350 In the late 90s, we were freaked out about hurricanes 0:04:10.710 --> 0:04:13.190 because of the way in which New York sits in 0:04:13.230 --> 0:04:16.570 this right angle between New Jersey and Long Island. And 0:04:16.630 --> 0:04:19.310 our storm surge values are huge. And, you know, we 0:04:19.330 --> 0:04:21.860 have lots of flat land, you know, in Brooklyn and 0:04:21.890 --> 0:04:25.700 Queens and in lower Manhattan. And so a big hurricane 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:34.560 would be a Sandy was a relatively low-intensity hurricane, although 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.860 it happened over a long period of time. But then, 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:41.520 of course, 25 years ago, 9-11 happened, and then we 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.159 had the anthrax letters and the crash of American 587 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:47.520 and the Northeast blockout of 2003 and the financial crisis 0:04:47.540 --> 0:04:50.240 of 2008. And then in 2012, do we have Hurricane Sandy? 0:04:55.890 --> 0:04:58.349 And so that's really what resilience is, is like, how 0:04:58.390 --> 0:05:01.420 do we build a city filled of communities and people 0:05:01.480 --> 0:05:04.660 and institutions in those communities that can survive any of 0:05:04.740 --> 0:05:09.040 those disasters? And really, that's what we're talking about. 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.100 Oh, for sure. I mean, but you've gone from here 0:05:13.160 --> 0:05:16.900 and now down to Miami, where you're seeing kind of 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:21.600 firsthand more climate-related issues. So maybe we'll just touch on 0:05:21.620 --> 0:05:26.380 those briefly. How does being in in South Florida shape 0:05:26.980 --> 0:05:29.560 kind of the research agenda when it comes to resilience and, 0:05:29.740 --> 0:05:33.000 and which lessons, you know, especially from Miami, do you 0:05:33.050 --> 0:05:34.710 think could be transferable to other cities? 0:05:34.990 --> 0:05:38.230 Yeah. I mean, and, and, and, and right, just going 0:05:38.270 --> 0:05:41.510 back to my original little statement is like the reason 0:05:41.550 --> 0:05:44.210 I got comfortable taking a job running something called the 0:05:44.250 --> 0:05:48.130 climate resilience Institute was exactly what you're saying is that 0:05:48.210 --> 0:05:52.790 climate is incredibly climate, climate change, climate shocks are an 0:05:52.830 --> 0:05:57.330 incredibly important entry point. for the people of South Florida, 0:05:57.470 --> 0:06:00.270 as they are for people, lots of people around the world. So, 0:06:00.410 --> 0:06:07.020 I mean, I think in South Florida, certainly coastal protection 0:06:07.260 --> 0:06:09.900 is one of the key entry points. And we see 0:06:09.940 --> 0:06:14.190 a lot of innovation around coastal protection. So new kinds 0:06:14.230 --> 0:06:22.250 of materials like ultra high performance concrete, low carbon emission concrete, 0:06:22.370 --> 0:06:26.690 new kinds of designs, biophilic designs, like things like what's 0:06:26.710 --> 0:06:30.310 called a living seawall that is better for nature-based solutions 0:06:30.430 --> 0:06:34.330 or cool breakwaters that look like beehives that are called 0:06:34.410 --> 0:06:41.360 sea hives. And then lots of innovation around nature-based solutions, 0:06:41.510 --> 0:06:46.160 like we have several coral biologists at University of Miami 0:06:46.180 --> 0:06:51.040 breeding heat-tolerant coral. that can both protect the coastline, but 0:06:51.100 --> 0:06:57.120 also promote a rich marine ecosystem. So, you know, that's 0:06:57.230 --> 0:07:01.090 one of the big agendas, certainly. I think, you know, 0:07:01.110 --> 0:07:07.010 in Miami, there's also a rapidly growing economy, as your 0:07:07.050 --> 0:07:12.290 listeners certainly will be aware, and lots of construction, but 0:07:12.470 --> 0:07:17.130 also we have growing inequity. And so things like affordable housing, 0:07:18.360 --> 0:07:22.560 you know, good governance and transportation policy, all of those 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.240 things are also part of a resilience agenda because, you know, 0:07:26.260 --> 0:07:28.900 we're not going to just be able to survive protecting 0:07:28.980 --> 0:07:33.320 the bright, shiny condos on Miami Beach, but rather the 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:38.730 whole ecosystem, you know, both the natural ecosystem, but also 0:07:38.850 --> 0:07:44.050 the people and the economic ecosystem from the Everglades to 0:07:44.090 --> 0:07:47.160 the coastline. And so that's really what the That's why 0:07:47.220 --> 0:07:51.920 it's such an exciting place to work on resilience issues 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:54.340 is because you have all these mixed up in a 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:55.980 relatively small strip of land. 0:07:56.820 --> 0:07:59.680 Yeah, I think that's kind of a great segue into 0:07:59.700 --> 0:08:01.810 kind of the next thing that I wanted to talk 0:08:01.850 --> 0:08:05.510 about is, you know, you're having all these issues down 0:08:05.550 --> 0:08:07.890 there and a lot of people are trying to find 0:08:08.110 --> 0:08:11.890 solutions to the problem. You have universities, NGOs, a lot 0:08:11.930 --> 0:08:14.960 of people doing huge amounts of research on this. to 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:17.610 try to help communities, but how does it translate into 0:08:17.620 --> 0:08:20.110 an actionable solution, right? 0:08:20.670 --> 0:08:22.450 Where do you sit between, you. 0:08:22.370 --> 0:08:24.050 Know, just kind of putting the data out there that 0:08:24.070 --> 0:08:27.670 you found, sea levels rising, temperatures are going up, coral 0:08:27.730 --> 0:08:32.060 is dying, to how do we find out which ideas 0:08:32.540 --> 0:08:34.700 need to be solved and what gets the money? 0:08:34.940 --> 0:08:38.979 Yeah, I think, well, a couple of thoughts on that. 0:08:39.140 --> 0:08:43.590 One is the Climate Resilience Institute is meant to do 0:08:43.670 --> 0:08:46.730 two things at the University of Miami. One is connect 0:08:46.770 --> 0:08:49.630 the work that happens inside the walls of the university 0:08:49.730 --> 0:08:52.630 in interdisciplinary ways. So in that example that I just gave, 0:08:53.740 --> 0:08:56.559 you have engineering thinking about materials and architecture thinking about 0:08:56.600 --> 0:09:00.699 designs and marine science thinking about heat tolerant corals. How 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.679 do we put those things together? And in academia, like 0:09:03.740 --> 0:09:07.790 in lots of big organizations, but particularly in academia, those 0:09:07.870 --> 0:09:13.250 interdisciplinary conversations don't happen organically. So we're trying to make 0:09:13.290 --> 0:09:16.690 that much more essential focus of the research that happens. 0:09:17.210 --> 0:09:18.910 The second thing that we're trying to do, and this 0:09:19.030 --> 0:09:22.310 goes to your question, is to bridge what happens at 0:09:22.330 --> 0:09:27.300 the university with what the communities need. What do innovators, 0:09:27.340 --> 0:09:29.939 whether those are, and I'm using community very broadly here, 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:33.939 it could be business, NGOs, government, or like, you know, 0:09:33.960 --> 0:09:38.540 community-based organizations, what do they need and how can they 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:43.420 access the innovation that we have? And I think this 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:48.170 continues to be, you know, this continues to be the 0:09:48.270 --> 0:09:52.469 work in some ways. There is no silver bullet. I 0:09:52.510 --> 0:09:57.190 think one way we try to promote the connectivity between 0:09:57.710 --> 0:10:01.080 the outside world and the universe. is we do things 0:10:01.179 --> 0:10:07.520 like hold convenings, both virtual convenings and in-person convenings. You 0:10:07.540 --> 0:10:11.920 were at our conference last March, Resilience 365. There's a 0:10:11.950 --> 0:10:15.809 good example of that where you have innovators and community 0:10:16.700 --> 0:10:20.240 folks and government folks and, you know, both mayors, both 0:10:20.460 --> 0:10:26.160 mayors from large municipalities and in Miami were there. And 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:28.010 that's how we try to mix it up so that 0:10:28.490 --> 0:10:31.030 the academics are just are not just talking to academics. 0:10:31.610 --> 0:10:35.170 But I think for a variety of reasons, this stuff 0:10:35.230 --> 0:10:38.650 is hard. And I'll give you one example. The regulatory 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:44.150 environment in the marine world in particular. Regulatory environment broadly, 0:10:44.210 --> 0:10:46.790 but certainly in the marine world where you have different 0:10:46.809 --> 0:10:53.080 layers of Army Corps of Engineers, EPA, state environmental protection regulators, county, 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.920 and so on, makes having innovative infrastructure like new kinds 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:02.240 of nature-based solutions and hybrid solutions hard. And so we 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:06.800 often wonder, is that the next frontier of innovation? Not 0:11:06.860 --> 0:11:14.209 just innovating around materials and and nature, but rather innovating 0:11:14.230 --> 0:11:17.210 in the policy space so that we can get this 0:11:17.250 --> 0:11:19.650 stuff out in the water at the speed that it needs. 0:11:20.130 --> 0:11:22.929 And when you're talking about something like, say, corals, they're 0:11:23.470 --> 0:11:26.710 on the endangered species list. And so, you know, everything 0:11:26.750 --> 0:11:31.979 you put out will come with extra regulatory protection, rightly so. 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:36.340 But it also makes for getting that kind of infrastructure 0:11:36.480 --> 0:11:40.719 out a little bit harder and a And so that 0:11:40.740 --> 0:11:41.500 can be problematic. 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.240 Yeah, I think that's a very good point because even 0:11:45.380 --> 0:11:51.679 now the tools in terms of planning, resilience planning, using 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:56.459 AI for forecasting and to help create new construction materials 0:11:56.540 --> 0:12:00.260 or risk models or the like, I mean, you're just 0:12:00.300 --> 0:12:03.819 seeing things evolve so quickly and yet there still seems 0:12:03.860 --> 0:12:07.880 to be that bottleneck with government. But Maybe I could 0:12:07.940 --> 0:12:11.260 ask which technologies or which things you've seen kind of 0:12:11.340 --> 0:12:15.230 evolve rapidly that you think have the most materiality or 0:12:15.450 --> 0:12:18.390 could be the greatest impact for cities or climate? 0:12:19.030 --> 0:12:21.550 Yeah, I think a couple of things come to mind. 0:12:22.050 --> 0:12:27.350 One is I think we are starting to but don't 0:12:27.610 --> 0:12:34.420 totally understand the intersection of chronic heat and health. And 0:12:34.460 --> 0:12:37.920 so that is evolving, driven by advanced computing and better 0:12:37.940 --> 0:12:41.900 data collection. So chronic heat, unlike episodic heat that we 0:12:41.940 --> 0:12:44.040 have in the north, episodic heat comes in, we get 0:12:44.110 --> 0:12:47.310 a heat wave, and it goes out. In the south, 0:12:47.330 --> 0:12:49.410 a lot of part of the south part of the 0:12:49.450 --> 0:12:55.530 country and around the world, you have heat seasons that, 0:12:55.590 --> 0:12:59.580 let's say in Florida, roll in in April and don't 0:12:59.620 --> 0:13:06.210 roll out until October. Mm-hmm. And so disaggregating the impacts 0:13:06.550 --> 0:13:09.829 of this heat on people's lives with all the other 0:13:09.870 --> 0:13:14.180 things that are going on is tricky. And so that's 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:16.500 one place where I think we are going to see 0:13:16.540 --> 0:13:19.440 a rapid. There's been a big focus on heat at, 0:13:20.059 --> 0:13:24.640 you know, global health levels, at the national level. This 0:13:24.700 --> 0:13:28.010 week we're, you know, in town for Climate Week and 0:13:28.050 --> 0:13:32.400 there's a National Academies focus event. on heat and health. 0:13:33.540 --> 0:13:37.320 So I think, and the data is still pretty messy. 0:13:37.380 --> 0:13:41.730 So if you die on the sidewalk in the extreme heat, 0:13:42.490 --> 0:13:45.270 and when the paramedics come, they measure your temperature and 0:13:45.290 --> 0:13:49.470 your core body temperature is significantly elevated, they may understand 0:13:49.490 --> 0:13:53.130 that to be a heat-related death. But heat-related illness and death, 0:13:53.610 --> 0:13:56.829 mortality and morbidity show up in lots of different ways 0:13:56.910 --> 0:14:00.830 that are sometimes indistinguishable from all the other conditions that 0:14:00.870 --> 0:14:05.390 we have. So hypertension and heart disease and mental illness, 0:14:05.530 --> 0:14:08.230 there's a whole class of drugs associated with treating mental 0:14:08.250 --> 0:14:11.850 illness that don't perform as well in hot weather. Cognition, 0:14:12.340 --> 0:14:16.800 kids who are exposed to chronic heat don't learn as well. 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:23.000 And there's a lot of emerging evidence around neonatal and 0:14:23.060 --> 0:14:28.350 prenatal impacts on infants and the pre-borns and on the unborn. 0:14:28.710 --> 0:14:32.250 So I think all of those ways, I think we 0:14:32.270 --> 0:14:38.430 will see an explosion of data analysis that's coming, and 0:14:38.490 --> 0:14:43.730 that will allow us to then design interventions that are 0:14:43.790 --> 0:14:46.869 fit for purpose. And so just to give you one example, um, 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.080 you know, one thing we need to have a better 0:14:51.340 --> 0:14:54.940 idea of is, is it the sidewalks and streets and 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.780 the commutes that we should be protecting? Do we start 0:14:58.820 --> 0:15:01.540 work earlier or, you know, keep it out of the 0:15:01.580 --> 0:15:04.210 middle and very hard parts of the day for people 0:15:04.250 --> 0:15:08.550 who work outside? We had some scientists both at the 0:15:08.610 --> 0:15:10.890 City of Miami, or the City of Miami did a 0:15:10.910 --> 0:15:15.270 study and at the University of Miami. And they measured 0:15:15.330 --> 0:15:20.100 the indoor heat and humidity in people's homes over the summer. 0:15:20.740 --> 0:15:26.370 And for the most vulnerable, it was pretty shocking that 0:15:26.410 --> 0:15:30.670 the heat index averaged over a three-month period, not below 0:15:30.670 --> 0:15:34.530 100 degrees. That's heat index, not temperature, but again, it's 0:15:34.570 --> 0:15:37.770 a real significant. So I think that's one thing you 0:15:37.810 --> 0:15:39.990 will see a lot of is this idea of heat. 0:15:40.270 --> 0:15:43.670 And then I mentioned it before just quickly, we're seeing 0:15:43.790 --> 0:15:47.770 lots of hybrid infrastructure and using nature in different ways, 0:15:47.830 --> 0:15:50.810 whether that's corals, like we've talked a little bit about, 0:15:50.890 --> 0:15:55.940 like oysters. You're seeing that here off Staten Island, you know, 0:15:55.980 --> 0:16:01.300 the Billion Oyster Project and Living Breakwaters. And the nice 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:04.840 thing about hybrid, so by hybrid I mean partly built 0:16:04.900 --> 0:16:10.180 and partly natural, with nature-based solutions in their purest form, 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:12.960 you basically plant the nature and then you gotta let 0:16:13.020 --> 0:16:16.570 it grow to get the benefits. With the hybrid structure, 0:16:17.110 --> 0:16:22.440 you actually get the benefits right away of the wave 0:16:23.140 --> 0:16:28.300 dissipating power of a concrete structure. And then over time, 0:16:28.340 --> 0:16:33.020 you get the nature-based solution growing and providing ecosystem services. 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:34.590 And so you kind of get the best of both worlds. 0:16:34.810 --> 0:16:37.570 So I do think that there is going to be 0:16:37.630 --> 0:16:39.930 lots more. There is a bunch of that going on now, 0:16:39.950 --> 0:16:42.230 and there will be lots more of that going forward. Yeah. 0:16:42.710 --> 0:16:44.690 That's definitely, I'm glad that you brought up the Staten 0:16:44.730 --> 0:16:47.250 Island project because I found that pretty interesting when I 0:16:47.270 --> 0:16:49.510 first heard about it, just how they could just like 0:16:49.690 --> 0:16:52.990 start building these fake reefs that could, you know, sustain 0:16:53.470 --> 0:16:57.090 oysters and thus make a break for, you know, incoming 0:16:57.130 --> 0:17:00.680 tides and make kind of the shoreline a little bit safer. 0:17:00.740 --> 0:17:03.000 So it's definitely interesting topics along. 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:05.439 And can I just, just to bring it back to 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.700 you asked about the definition of resilience. This, you know, 0:17:08.780 --> 0:17:12.439 like something like the Billion Oyster Project and the Living Breakwaters, 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:18.140 You know, you get shoreline protection, important, and you get, 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:21.710 you know, the oysters clean the harbor, so that's good. 0:17:22.070 --> 0:17:24.570 But then there's all this education. You know, oysters were 0:17:24.590 --> 0:17:29.070 a historical crop in the New York Harbor and, you know, 0:17:29.430 --> 0:17:33.709 across Long Island and Sound and so on. And so 0:17:33.730 --> 0:17:38.650 you get history and culture and aquaculture and food. You know, 0:17:39.090 --> 0:17:40.740 no one's eating any of those oysters now, but. 0:17:42.670 --> 0:17:45.250 It does point to like all this and the Billion 0:17:45.310 --> 0:17:48.340 Oyster Project has been very intentional about like all that 0:17:48.410 --> 0:17:52.760 education and community building. And that community building is, you know, 0:17:52.780 --> 0:17:56.100 what we call the resilience dividend. It's that community that's 0:17:56.140 --> 0:17:59.020 going to help us survive the next thing, whether that 0:17:59.100 --> 0:18:01.600 next thing is a hurricane or a pandemic or a 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.760 terrorist attack or an economic upheaval. And so that's what 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:06.140 we mean when we say resilience. 0:18:07.369 --> 0:18:10.070 And so maybe looking back a little on your your 0:18:10.330 --> 0:18:13.450 your work with the hundred billionaires. resilient cities in terms 0:18:13.490 --> 0:18:17.990 of looking at maybe separate places that have done some 0:18:18.359 --> 0:18:22.540 successful kind of resilience planning? And are there actual projects 0:18:22.780 --> 0:18:26.300 you want to touch on or you felt like were 0:18:26.619 --> 0:18:27.820 more beneficial than others? 0:18:28.440 --> 0:18:31.970 I think, well, a couple of things. One is what 0:18:32.330 --> 0:18:35.330 the 100 Resilient Cities was trying to do was to 0:18:35.430 --> 0:18:39.500 spark this resilience revolution where You know, cities would change 0:18:39.540 --> 0:18:41.840 the way they plan and acted. So they would act 0:18:41.900 --> 0:18:46.110 in more interdisciplinary ways. They would act in more foresighted 0:18:46.140 --> 0:18:50.010 and risk-aware ways. And they would approach their problems differently. 0:18:50.030 --> 0:18:55.189 Because in the past, Transportation Commissioner would approach transportation as 0:18:55.250 --> 0:18:58.470 a single problem. And housing would approach housing kind of 0:18:58.530 --> 0:19:00.880 as a single problem and so on. And so we 0:19:00.910 --> 0:19:06.409 got these fragmented solutions. That didn't make sense. And the 0:19:06.450 --> 0:19:10.310 reason why that's important with disaster resilience is that disasters 0:19:10.410 --> 0:19:17.740 challenge cities and communities across these systemic silos. So you see, 0:19:17.780 --> 0:19:19.440 you know, when one thing fails, that leads to a 0:19:19.460 --> 0:19:22.320 bunch of other failures, and that's where you get the impact. 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.070 So the thing I'm most, I would say, most proud 0:19:25.109 --> 0:19:28.410 about about 100 Resilient Cities is, you know, that we 0:19:29.550 --> 0:19:33.750 define this term the chief resilience officer, a position in government, 0:19:33.790 --> 0:19:36.060 and now you see it spreading in some places. In 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:38.760 other places, it didn't work that well. But in some places, 0:19:38.859 --> 0:19:42.439 like in Florida, we have chief resilience officers. We, at 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:46.530 100 Resilient Cities, paid for three chief resilience officers in 0:19:46.690 --> 0:19:49.430 the Miami area, Miami Beach, the county, and the city 0:19:49.450 --> 0:19:52.380 of Miami. And now there must be, I don't know, 0:19:52.380 --> 0:19:56.479 30 in the state of Florida or more. There's one 0:19:56.500 --> 0:20:01.320 at the state level. There is an amazing chief resilience officer. 0:20:01.600 --> 0:20:03.720 There's a great one at the county. There's a great 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:05.780 one in Broward County that we had nothing to do 0:20:05.820 --> 0:20:09.280 with who just was inspired by this. There is one 0:20:09.340 --> 0:20:12.659 in lots of different of the small municipalities across the region. 0:20:13.720 --> 0:20:18.880 And this approach is really there. I think the ones, 0:20:19.380 --> 0:20:23.400 the projects that we're most proud of are the ones 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:27.730 that have this dividend. And so even though something like 0:20:27.770 --> 0:20:32.390 Hoboken wasn't a formal part of 100 Resilient Cities, they've 0:20:32.430 --> 0:20:36.629 designed and built these three resiliency parks that both store 0:20:36.690 --> 0:20:40.560 water and And, you know, our great parks and have 0:20:40.600 --> 0:20:44.200 all kinds of like, you know, recreational and nature aspects 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:47.940 and pollinators and all kinds of things. And so that's 0:20:47.960 --> 0:20:53.580 an example. And Rotterdam, you know, this is like sort 0:20:53.600 --> 0:20:57.800 of second Dutch city, which was a big success and 0:20:57.820 --> 0:20:59.659 part of the program. And that work is still going. 0:21:00.300 --> 0:21:05.000 Changed how it started to approach its most vulnerable communities. 0:21:06.060 --> 0:21:09.960 So they have a community called Bo2 as part of 0:21:09.980 --> 0:21:16.080 the Port of Rotterdam. And they started to see this 0:21:16.540 --> 0:21:21.659 vulnerable community of immigrants living in Bo2 as a core 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.640 resilience challenge, not just the technical aspects of water, which 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.590 the Dutch are great at, but rather integrating this kind 0:21:27.630 --> 0:21:31.010 of work into that and built a bunch of really 0:21:31.109 --> 0:21:37.580 interesting social infrastructure, parks, on the top of levees and 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.800 dikes and cool little skate parks and all these that 0:21:41.820 --> 0:21:45.660 held water and just did a bunch of like cool 0:21:45.700 --> 0:21:49.130 multi-use infrastructure. And so that kind of stuff, I would say, 0:21:49.150 --> 0:21:52.179 is now kind of mainstream. But when we're doing it, 0:21:52.490 --> 0:21:54.890 I'll give you one last example. Sorry, just to just 0:21:54.910 --> 0:21:58.879 to round it off. The mayor of Paris. was thinking 0:21:58.940 --> 0:22:03.419 about trying to break the urban heat island. The Paris team, 0:22:03.619 --> 0:22:05.879 the mayor was doing that, but the CRO there and 0:22:05.900 --> 0:22:09.980 the deputy mayors. And they own all of these interior 0:22:10.050 --> 0:22:17.130 courtyards in their school system. And these interior courtyards were 0:22:17.369 --> 0:22:21.470 paved in concrete. And so they realized that these courtyards 0:22:21.510 --> 0:22:26.530 were small, but in aggregate, they were pretty big. And 0:22:26.570 --> 0:22:30.290 they had like, they owned like 550 courtyards or something 0:22:30.369 --> 0:22:32.869 across the city. And in aggregate, they were big. And 0:22:32.890 --> 0:22:35.830 so they started on a project to reconvert those courtyards. 0:22:36.410 --> 0:22:40.100 And it was incredibly successful and popular program. When I was, 0:22:40.900 --> 0:22:43.639 100RC was actively involved with Paris doing this. We did 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:47.500 the first four with them. And now it's gone. And 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:50.199 all of the, I don't know how familiar your listeners 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:54.210 will be with the changes in the streetscape in Paris. But, 0:22:54.950 --> 0:22:57.889 you know, they've, done tons of nature on the street. 0:22:57.930 --> 0:23:01.640 They've done tons of walking and pedestrianization on the street. 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:05.520 It's been somewhat controversial in Paris, as it always is. 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:07.900 You take cars away from people and they get pissed off. 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:11.359 But I would say the mayor who just stepped down, 0:23:11.440 --> 0:23:14.820 Anne Hildago, after I think 12 years, but you could 0:23:15.600 --> 0:23:19.619 maybe fact check me on that, sees this as her signature, 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:24.909 this whole integrated body of work changing the schoolyards and 0:23:24.950 --> 0:23:27.830 the streets and you know the modes of transportation that's 0:23:27.869 --> 0:23:30.600 her signature body of work and that in part was 0:23:30.650 --> 0:23:34.020 inspired by getting her to think about you know getting 0:23:34.060 --> 0:23:36.540 the team to think about their problems in more integrated 0:23:36.580 --> 0:23:38.459 ways through the cro. 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:42.119 Yeah no and that definitely sounds um like an awesome 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:45.200 way to kind of revamp um the courtyards and turn 0:23:45.240 --> 0:23:47.800 back into kind of living spaces but um right you 0:23:47.820 --> 0:23:49.429 know part of the Part of the problem is I 0:23:49.470 --> 0:23:51.690 like to pivot a little towards the money, right? So 0:23:51.710 --> 0:23:54.090 part of the problem is where does the money come 0:23:54.150 --> 0:23:57.120 from for a lot of this? Do you think there's 0:23:57.130 --> 0:24:00.560 a large gap today between the projects that need to 0:24:00.600 --> 0:24:03.560 happen and the capital that's actually available? I think there's 0:24:03.600 --> 0:24:05.580 no question that there is a big gap. 0:24:06.300 --> 0:24:09.480 And some of that is challenges that we've seen at 0:24:09.500 --> 0:24:14.239 the federal level with funding streams changing and priorities changing 0:24:14.380 --> 0:24:18.630 and Is FEMA going to exist at all? What will 0:24:18.690 --> 0:24:24.010 its scope be? Does it favor pre-disaster risk mitigation projects 0:24:24.090 --> 0:24:28.210 through the BRIC program, which was the big... And if 0:24:28.270 --> 0:24:31.550 it does, it looks like BRIC is going to survive 0:24:31.609 --> 0:24:35.850 in some form, I think. But if it does, will 0:24:35.869 --> 0:24:40.210 that just be simply the most basic hard infrastructure or 0:24:40.290 --> 0:24:44.290 something else? And even... And I'm not trying to blame 0:24:44.310 --> 0:24:46.629 this on the federal government or changes in policy, because 0:24:46.810 --> 0:24:50.780 even if we had a very supportive federal government, even 0:24:50.840 --> 0:24:56.440 in that situation, the needs that communities across the country 0:24:56.460 --> 0:24:59.740 and around the world have far outstrip the ability of, say, 0:25:00.020 --> 0:25:04.290 philanthropy and government to pay for it. And so on 0:25:04.369 --> 0:25:08.830 September 22nd, we launched the Resilience Finance Lab, whose mission 0:25:08.850 --> 0:25:12.210 is to change the way capital flows. which is really, 0:25:12.630 --> 0:25:15.850 this is not climate finance now because climate finance is 0:25:15.930 --> 0:25:19.910 often about energy transition and that's important, but it's pretty 0:25:19.930 --> 0:25:24.730 straightforward finance proposition, which is you're going to build some 0:25:25.250 --> 0:25:28.890 energy infrastructure and based on the expected revenues, you can 0:25:29.510 --> 0:25:34.929 finance and do it pretty well. Resilience finance is, to 0:25:34.970 --> 0:25:41.359 your point, about capturing the value of reduced physical risk 0:25:41.940 --> 0:25:46.640 and losses that don't happen. And so that, I think, 0:25:46.680 --> 0:25:50.669 will take some innovation. And I don't know if you 0:25:50.710 --> 0:25:53.490 want to talk about it now, but that's, I think, 0:25:53.550 --> 0:25:56.109