Is climate change a science problem, an economics problem, a moral problem, or something else?: Adaptation realists

Odisha

October 29, 2024. Cyclone Dana made landfall in Odisha, India. In 1999, a supercyclone killed over 10,000 there. This time: under fifty dead. The storm was stronger. The difference was twenty-five years of infrastructure — cyclone shelters rated for 260-kilometer winds, mobile phone early warnings reaching fishing villages, mangrove restoration absorbing storm surge along 200 kilometers of coast.

Odisha did not solve climate change. Odisha survived it. We are interested in what Odisha did.

We are engineers, planners, agricultural scientists, and the officials in climate-vulnerable countries who attend international conferences, listen to Western debates, and come home to build the seawalls themselves because the communiques do not stop the water.

The scientific consensus tells us adaptation is not a substitute for mitigation. We agree. We also observe that mitigation has been the declared priority since 1992, and in thirty-two years, global emissions have risen 60 percent. We are not staking our communities’ survival on a process that has failed its own benchmarks for three decades.

The Netherlands is two-thirds below sea level and has been adapting for eight centuries. Bangladesh’s Cyclone Preparedness Programme has reduced cyclone mortality by 99 percent since 1970. Israel produces more food per liter of water than any country on Earth. These are deployed, operational, and saving lives today.

The moral emergency camp accuses us of normalizing damage. We live in the damage. The difference between justice and survival is that justice can wait for a conference. The water cannot.

Where we concede ground: We risk becoming alibis for inaction. Every time a policymaker cites adaptation to justify delaying cuts, our work is weaponized.

What would change our mind: A global emissions reduction achieving sustained 5 percent annual declines for a decade. Results, not pledges.

Read the full synthesis: Is climate change a science problem, an economics problem, a moral problem, or something else?