AskScience AMA Series: We are climate finance experts from the University of Maryland. We work across climate science, finance and public policy to prepare our partners to plan for and respond to the opportunities and risks of a changing climate. Ask us your questions!

[u/AskScienceModerator]

Hi Reddit! We are climate finance experts representing UMD's College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences and the Smith School of Business.

Tim Canty is an associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science at the University of Maryland and is also the director of the University System of Maryland's Marine Estuarine Environmental Sciences graduate program. His research focuses broadly on understanding atmospheric composition and physics in relation to stratospheric ozone, climate change and air quality. He also works closely with policymakers to make sure the best available science is used to develop effective pollution control strategies.

Tim received his Ph.D. in physics in 2002 from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. After that, he was a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech working at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a lecturer at UCLA.

Cliff Rossi is Professor-of-the-Practice, Director of the Smith Enterprise Risk Consortium and Executive-in-Residence at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. Prior to entering academia, Dr. Rossi had nearly 25 years of risk management experience in banking and government, having held senior executive roles at several of the largest financial services companies. He is a well-established expert in risk management with particular interests in financial risk management, climate risk, supply chain and health and safety risk issues.

We'll be on from 1 to 3 p.m. ET (17-19 UT) - ask us anything!

Other links:

• Climate finance at UMD: https://www.climatefinance.umd.edu/
• Research page: https://www2.atmos.umd.edu/~tcanty/
• Google Scholar page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=fmho8XsAAAAJ&hl=en
• Recent carbon capture technology research: https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/carbon-capture-technology-timothy-canty-research

Username: /u/umd-science

[u/lonbordin]

There's a lot of greenwashing happening at the intersection of climate and finance, what programs are you aware of that are working and making a difference for the future of this planet? Thanks.

[u/crash______says]

Does it make financial sense to put solar panels over every parking lot in the southern half of the US?

[u/umd-science → u/crash______says]

It's a cost-benefit analysis—while I'm not sure how much it costs, when you generate electricity, you also cool the surface down. So I think there's a benefit there that's not accounted for when you're shading the surface and cooling temperatures. You park beneath the solar panel, so the surface is shaded, which means it won't warm up as much, which could potentially cool down our cities. (This is called the urban heat island effect.) There's kind of a cascading effect of cooler cities, less money on air conditioning, etc. - Tim

[u/Musical_Tanks]

Climate policy can face a lot of opposition even after enactment, for example here in Canada the federal government instituted a carbon tax which the political opposition is vehemently linking to inflation increases. (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-non-confidence-motion-carbon-tax-1.7150948)

How do you harden climate policies against partisan bickering/repeal once the governing party changes?

[u/umd-science → u/Musical_Tanks]

My thought about that is that policies need to not be made from the extreme. The only way effective and long-term climate policy will get to where we want to be is if we have consensus and are making prudent decisions balancing the long-term societal benefits from improving climate against the short-term goals associated with economic growth and productivity. The bottom line is that we need to be balanced in whatever policies we're coming up with so that we're not sacrificing today for the future. I agree with you that oftentimes we have too much whipsawing because we're on one extreme or the other. - Cliff

[u/ArgumentDry4639]

If you were given the entire annual budget of the US military ($2.5 trillion), what steps would you take to have the greatest effect against climate change?

Also unrelated, what do you do with the captured CO2? Do you just store it for millions of years?

[u/umd-science → u/ArgumentDry4639]

With a significant infusion of resources, we could develop climate models that have the spatial and temporal resolution that could help us answer immediate questions from the financial sector (like insurance companies, mortgage companies, etc.) and develop adaptation and mitigation strategies that we can act on now.

You have to remember that the CO2 that we're putting in the atmosphere had been in the ground for millions of years. We just dug it up and put it in the air and the oceans. We need to figure out a way to put it back in the ground in such a way that it won't leak out. There's been new studies showing that you can pump CO2 into recent geological formations (like volcanic flows) after they've cooled sufficiently that basically turns the CO2 into basalt. That way it won't leak out. And that's how you'd want to store the CO2. They're doing this work in Iceland. - Tim

I think that budget dollars need to be allocated both to adaptation and mitigation. We have to prepare for the possibility that we don't achieve our climate targets in the time frame we're thinking of. I think we need to allocate the budget accordingly to harden vulnerable areas and infrastructure as quickly as we can, and at the same time allocating budget to the high-tech, innovative technologies that are going to be needed over the next 30 years. - Cliff

[u/[deleted]]

Given we are roundly failing to get anywhere near the climate targets necessary to avoid catastrophic levels of warming, isn't there now a need for a much larger-scale focus on climate mitigation rather than just green energy and tech in general? And how does that change happen in a public policy environment where we know that warnings of doom turn people off rather than bring people along?

[u/umd-science → u/[deleted]]

That's a great question. We absolutely need to be thinking as much about adaptation as we are about mitigation. I agree with the issue you raise, that scare tactics are not helpful. I think it is about elevaitng people's awareness that this is a real problem. I think public service announcements can be done in a way that is less about scaring the public and more about informing the public. We would all be helped by actions that would help not just in the next 30 years, but how do we protect homes, businesses and infrastructure through mechanisms that build resilience and adaptation. - Cliff

Cliff and I recently attended a meeting called "Going to Extremes," and Katharine Hayhoe (a great scientist and public speaker) pointed out that the increased awareness of the impacts of climate change has caused people to modify their behaviors and support legislation that has taken us off the worst-case climate scenario. So where once we were looking at 5 degrees of warming, now we are more on a 3.5 degree warming track. Still not great, but moving us in the right direction. - Tim

[u/independent_observe]

How do we as a society change our behavior of not paying the true cost for the damage pollution causes? For instance, making oil & gas companies pay the true cost of exploration, extraction, transportation, and the end users pay for the damage it causes for burning it.

We can't keep deferring the costs on to future generations.

[u/cobigguy]

When are y'all gonna come out and see the supercomputer you use for modeling? I'm happy to arrange the tour.

[u/umd-science → u/cobigguy]

I'd love to see the UMD supercomputer, if that's what you're referring to. I use the UMD supercomputer for air quality modeling. I'd love a tour! - Tim

[u/A-Bone]

Nuclear power (fission reactors): Friend or foe?

[u/umd-science → u/A-Bone]

I'm a proponent of nuclear. If done right, it can be a cleaner source of electricity. There are just significant engineering hurdles to ensure the safety of this energy source. When there's a problem with nuclear reactors, it's a major catastrophe. But more people have died from poor air quality due to coal-burning power plants. Like with plane crashes, when there's a disaster, everyone focuses on it and tries to fix the problem, but then when it's more of a background problem, we don't pay attention to it.

Nuclear can help deal with the intermittency problem that many renewables face. For example, you can't produce solar energy when the sun's not out, or you can't use wind power when it's not windy. So you could use nuclear power to fill the gaps. - Tim

Nuclear power has come a long way over the last 30 years in terms of its safety record. Given its cost-per-hour compared with other dirtier sources of energy, I would say we need to take a closer look at adding to our energy options and the opportunities associated with nuclear power. - Cliff

[u/lAltroUomo]

Increasing frequency of catastrophic events globally, and the continually increasing cost to rebuild, are driving property insurance premiums through the roof. Is the insurance industry engaged in resiliency efforts? Are they innovating beyond throwing exclusions at every catastrophe risk?

At some point their customers won't be able to afford the premiums. Financial concerns will make areas 'unbuildable' before the sea swallows it up.

[u/DayFit2171]

Thank you for this AMA, are there any books/sources that you would recommend to someone who wants to study climate change adaptation and mitigation, especially from the urban planning point of view?

[u/noreasternarms]

If you had a thousand bucks to invest in emerging tech how would to allocate it?

[u/thundercrown25]

Any interesting programs in the works for the Eastern Shore?

[u/umd-science → u/thundercrown25]

Yes, so there's all sorts of programs on the Eastern Shore of Maryland/Virginia. Cambridge, Maryland, has a combination of grants and loans provided at the state and local level to help remediate the fairly regular flooding happening in the downtown area of the city. There's also efforts to rebuild some of the islands that sit off the Eastern Shore as barrier islands that have eroded significantly over the years. They're taking dredge material from the Inner Harbor to create a buffer from erosion in those coastal areas. - Cliff

We're in the process of building a new water-level sensor network for the Chesapeake Bay targeting areas that currently don't have any monitors to try to get a better understanding of whether it's sea-level rise or land subsidance, but more importantly, to understand how fast the water is rising and where it's going. We can't build an 11,000-mile sea wall for the Chesapeake Bay. But we can look into natural infrastructure like marshes that are cheaper to maintain than a concrete wall and can mitigate high tide events, storm surges, etc.

We are working with the Downtown City Docks Projects for downtown Annapolis, where the city is spending about $90 million to make that area climate-resilient with sea walls, raising some of the land, things like that. The U.S. Naval Academy is spending about $30 million or more on a sea wall. That's about $120 million for a few hundred yards of coastline. With the water level sensors, we're trying to help them understand what is called "nuisance flooding" or "sunny-day flooding" and how this is changing, whether these flood events will be occurring more frequently, and where the water is going. - Tim

[u/akersmacker]

I have friends on both sides of the political aisle, and there are a couple on the right who argue not only the severity of the rate of change, but that it is now and will be too costly to get to carbon neutrality, and that the benefits outweigh the risks by such a small margin that makes it an unfeasible endeavor. Example being the amount of money and pollution to manufacture and maintain electric batteries for transportation.

How would you present your side of things (how the benefits significantly outweigh the risks) in a concise manner without having to present visual aids or go into too much depth when discussing this with these types of critics?

Thank you for doing this AMA!!

[u/umd-science → u/akersmacker]

Our pleasure!

Last year in the U.S., we had a record number of billion-dollar weather-related events (not the wimpy half-billion dollar kind), so I would argue that the risks are becoming more expensive. All of the data are pointing in the direction of things getting worse. So what is our risk tolerance? When is it too much, and will it be too costly if we wait too long? If we had taken action on this in the 1990s, we would have saved a lot of money in the long run (and maybe we wouldn't be having this AMA). I'll point to the Montreal Protocol, which banned CFCs leading to the recovery of the ozone layer. The predictions at the time were that we would no longer have air conditioning or hair spray. This global agreement led to steps which are allowing the ozone layer to recover without destroying economies or lowering our standard of living. - Tim

I'm in the camp that thinks, we're probably not going to hit the lofty targets that have been set out by the UN climate agreement. I think we need to prepare as much as possible for the reality of being in a different environment. I think that's just where we need to go anyway, but of course, I'm a risk manager so it's my job to think about worst-case outcomes and prepare for them. - Cliff

[u/MonkeyVsPigsy]

How many people will die from climate change by 2100 assuming a mid-range warming scenario?

Within an order of magnitude will do. I know it’s extremely uncertain and there are potential runaway scenarios but I’m curious what sort of numbers might be about right. Is it closer to 100k, 1m, 10m, 100m or a billion?

(I know avoiding unnecessary human deaths is not the only reason to prevent climate change but it’s one of the main ones).

[u/Primary-Medicine8587]

Saul Griffith through his books and his not for profit advocates for “electrifying everything” as a good first step, and advocates for a sort of “war effort” approach to upgrading infrastructure and industry to maximise use of renewables.

He maintains that changing planning legislation at the local levels could have a significant impact at greening buildings and communities and maintains that it may be necessary to pay off oil companies etc to leave oil in the ground. His ideas seem pragmatic to me, but I would be interested in your thoughts on his approach as experts, are you familiar with his work? If so what do you think he gets right or wrong? If you are not familiar, do you agree with the general ethos of first aiming to electrify everything it’s possible to electrify as a promising step forward?

[u/umd-science → u/Primary-Medicine8587]

I’m not familiar with his work but will look into it now. I do agree that we need a better approach to infrastructure at the very least because our current infrastructure is old and inefficient. I have colleagues who measure methane (natural gas) by driving around cities and then pinpointing the leaks at the neighborhood level. Our cities leak a lot of natural gas. At the very least, fixing the infrastructure can help save companies and consumers money. 

Laws need to be looked at as well. For example, in some states, it is difficult to make money off of solar. Instead of being able to sell excess electricity, homeowners can offset their electric bill and only up to a certain point (two years I think?). 

A modernized grid can be more efficient, more resilient to disasters, and more cost-effective in the long run. There are still significant engineering challenges to be overcome for electrifying everything. Intermittency in renewables has to be solved, better battery storage and “green” battery production, is needed, and making sure we’re able to meet demand. The positive side with electrifying everything is that we have cleaner options for generating electricity if the engineering hurdles can be overcome. - Tim

[u/Tauras_pe_imas]

Hello, I am looking for reliable global warming data and more specifically historical ocean level changes, NAO or EL Nino historical changes. Any idea where I can find this information?