Katharine Mach, professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, for years has focused her research on assessing climate change risks and response options to address increased flooding, extreme heat, wildfire, and other hazards.
The devastating fires that continue to burn in the Los Angeles area have prompted Mach, a California native with relatives who have been sorely impacted by the disaster, to contemplate a more effective risk-response framework for confronting the cascading and complex challenges posed by climate change.
What does ‘adapting to climate change’ entail, and why is it crucial?
Adapting to climate change is about preparing for the climate we live in now and its hazards and risks—and being ready for changes into the future. The global goal for temperature increase is to limit warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius increase above preindustrial times. In 2024, though, the global temperature increase exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius for the first time. Those are abstract numbers, but the reality has been intense. Increasingly, climate extremes are catching us by surprise, exceeding current levels of preparedness, and communities around the world are also facing new climate “normals” that didn’t exist before. Adaptation is crucial in ensuring people and communities are safe and vibrant under these increasing climate challenges.
What adaptation strategies for climate change specifically relate to fire? What's been happening in California?
There are a large number of adaptation strategies for reducing the risks of wildfire. Historically, wildfire has been thought of as a challenge for the homes and people living in what is called the "wildland urban interface," where houses are intermingled with forests or grasslands. Increasingly, though, wildfires have been encroaching into suburban and urban areas, as has been the case in the devastating Los Angeles fires these past few weeks.
Reducing risks from wildfire involves many complementary activities. There have been substantial increases in efforts to harden homes—such that roofs and walls don't catch on fire and sparks don't get sucked inside— and ensure that homes are surrounded by open "defensible" space. Community initiatives, like Firewise, or state recommendations for Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones have also helped bolster household and neighborhood preparedness. As insurance challenges have intensified, state reforms have aimed to ensure continued access to insurance, a critical mechanism for buffering the shocks of wildfire disasters at the household scale. Early warning and evacuation have also been top priorities, as fires have been moving rapidly into areas and requiring prompt action. Firefighting, from above and on the ground, has required increasing resources over much of each year. The damages from fires are not just from the flames, but also from the toxic and poor air quality that results, which can spread far from the fire itself. Protecting people indoors and outdoors from this poor quality has been yet another priority in wildfire adaptation. The list goes on.
Why are the risks from these fires so high right now, even after the adaptation initiatives underway?
As is the case for most climate extremes, the risks emerge from multiple intersecting factors. In Southern California, the last several winters have been very wet, with biomass piling up in the grasslands that are able to burn annually. Then, the atmospheric rivers and heavy rain dried up and were followed by recent months that were extremely dry. Coupled with extreme winds and very low humidity, and the result is ignition that can happen from small sources like sparks, much less bigger ones, and spread of fire that can occur rapidly. The weather conditions have challenged firefighting, initially making it difficult for planes to spread water and fire retardant over the flames. As is often the case, responses have become politicized, with misinformation rampant in some contexts. Evacuation orders weren't always followed, putting some families and homeowners at high risk. These complex interactions across drivers of risks and responses across different time frames are central to the challenge of adapting effectively.
When considering the cascading and complex challenges posed by climate change, what interactions are essential to grasp?
After most climate extremes and disasters like the fires in Los Angeles, the impacts extend far into the future. Some of the damages in the Los Angeles area affected very high-income neighborhoods, whereas in other cases neighborhoods destroyed include relatively affordable housing and majority minority communities. Following fires and other disasters, housing is usually under very high demand and rents increase. Low-income households can struggle to find new places to live, and others might be displaced from rent increases post-disaster, even if they did okay during the fire itself. Some jobs, such as in service sectors, can be highly impacted. Front-line households are more likely to be displaced permanently, not just temporarily, and face impacts to well-being that can go on long after the fires extinguish.
Please suggest the key components of a risk-response framework for confronting climate-change complexity. What are some of the major obstacles to implementing such a framework?
As part of the last National Climate Assessment, we put together a risk-response framework to confront climate change complexity. We emphasized three main themes.
First, it's crucial to tease out the multiple factors that combine in different ways to drive up risks for some households and communities. Sometimes the same factors also result in adaptive solutions working less well for the same people.
Second, a lot of different forms of knowledge are crucial to effective climate change responses. Some of this relevant knowledge is scientific evidence on how the climate is changing, what the impacts are, and what types of responses are effective. Other key knowledge is local knowledge of on-the-ground conditions and factors specific to different locations. It's also essential to understand the policy toolkit and the portfolio of actions possible across the public and private sectors and civil society.
Third, governance of complex climate risks needs to improve and become more ambitious in order to reign in the intensifying impacts. In some cases, straightforward solutions, such as preparing homes and neighborhoods for fires, are well-known, and they just need to be implemented at greater scale. In other cases, such as preparing for extremes or new normals never experienced before, innovations need to be explored and vetted. The barriers can be diverse. Sometimes securing financial flows to support adaptive responses is the major obstacle; whereas in others, it is the challenge of figuring out the adaptive mind and how to think about the constellation of opportunities in new ways.