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‘Sponge city’ failures show holes in current climate change defence
Deadly floods, forest fires expose adaptation methods as inadequate and in need of urgent updating. Meanwhile, the root cause goes largely unaddressed.
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All countries need more and better efforts in adapting to an inevitably disaster-prone future.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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Liuyang He and Vinod Thomas
The pace of climate change is playing havoc with one of the key approaches to dealing with it – that of adaptation, where societies try to adjust to the impact of changing weather patterns and other harmful effects of a warming planet.
The intensity of the recent devastating rain in China, northern Italy and Pakistan, plus raging forest fires in Hawaii’s Maui and Canada, overwhelmed the capacity of authorities and emergency services – as well as businesses and households – to mount an adequate response.
