- Build dense, walkable housing with solid bike infrastructure and public transit so that people don't have to emit carbon on a daily basis to get around.
- Move the power grid to renewables, especially distributed renewables like solar and small wind producers, which will be more resilient in the face of natural disasters. Nuclear and hydro are also definitely an important part of the mix, and we should continue to research storage options.
- Areas on the coasts need to start relocating people further inland. Sea walls can temporarily delay the inevitable, but in the US semi-annual Katrinas, Harveys, and Marias are going to make the south eastern and gulf coasts unlivable.
- Likewise, if you live outwest, consider moving back east to the midwest. The fires are only going to get worse, and water is only going to get more scare. The aquifers are going to run dry in a decade or two. The west cannot support anything remotely resembling its current habitation density over the long term.
- Inland cities in the midwest should prepare for mass migrations by overbuilding dense, walkable housing and everything else needed to support it (retail, offices) in compact urban areas. That means urbanizing the downtowns of many midsized cities that are resisting it. And for the older sprawling major cities, they need to incentivize much more compact development and develop public transit systems that can make up the difference.
- Everywhere, we should be relocalizing the food system and looking for ways to move towards a food system based on agro-ecology, that can provide natural habitat and sequester carbon, while also producing food. That mostly means tree crops and silvopasture.
All of these things will _both_ help reduce the consequences and help prepare for them.
Sounds like we still need to prepare for the effects.
c0nducktr's claim "By trying to prevent them, we lessen their effects" is backed up by the summary. In particular, the summary addresses the following question:
What would happen if...
(A) we could magically go carbon neutral right now? (i.e. "what are the lingering/2nd-order effects of the all of our carbon emissions so far?")
(B) we curbed emissions so global warming[2] stabilized to 1.5°C by $TARGET_YEAR (without "overshooting" that goal [3])
(C) we "overshot" and let global warming exceed 1.5°C... but then got it down <= 1.5°C by $TARGET_YEAR
(D) we curbed emissions so global warming stabilized to 2.0°C by $TARGET_YEAR
It turns out that there are real differences between each outcome -- even between (B) & (C) (See A.3.2). Section B addresses specific differences wrt how bad things will get at different levels of global warming (mainly 1.5°C vs. 2°C).
For example:
(A) Immediate effects (B.3.1): "Of 105,000 species studied, 6% of insects, 8% of plants and 4% of vertebrates are projected to lose over half of their climatically determined geographic range for global warming of 1°C, compared with 18% of insects, 16% of plants and 8% of vertebrates for global warming of 2°C (medium confidence)"
(B) Secondary effects ("Reason for Concern #5"): "Large-scale singular events: are relatively large, abrupt and sometimes irreversible changes in systems that are caused by global warming. Examples include disintegration of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets." If a marginal increase in the level of global warming causes a singular event to happen, then that increase causes a disproportionate amount of suffering via its secondary effects.
(C) Lingering effects (A.2): "Warming from anthropogenic emissions from the pre-industrial period to the present will persist for centuries to millennia and will continue to cause further long-term changes in the climate system, such as sea level rise, with associated impacts (high confidence)"
That said, you are totally right that we still need to prepare for the effects, and we need to do it sooner rather than later. E.g. "(B.6.2) Adaptation is expected to be more challenging for ecosystems, food and health systems at 2°C of global warming than for 1.5°C (medium confidence)."
Unfortunately, global warming is expected to have disproportionate impact on some vulnerable regions/ecosystems (e.g. coasts & tropical regions). Some of these vulnerable regions are Least Developed Countries and/or small countries with correspondingly small infrastructure budgets (e.g. some island nations). On an individual level, it may be "advantageous" for less-vulnerable nations to focus on improving their own infrastructure, rather than reducing their carbon footprint. In economics, this "advantage" is called a "negative externality"[4] (aka "tragedy of the commons")... it's part of what got us into this mess in the first place.
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/chapter/summary-for-policy-makers/
[2] Note: the term "global warming" is an average value -- robust to normal fluctuations in temperature. It's defined as the average temperature at the earth's surface over a period of 30 years. So the "1950's level of global warming" is the average surface temp over the period [1950 - 15, 1950 + 15] == [1935, 1965].
[3] "overshooting" here means "letting the peak levels of global warming exceed 1.5°C". Note: if we let global warming[2] exceed 1.5°C for just a few years (and still get down to <= 1.5°C by $TARGET_YEAR), it still counts as "overshooting".
[4] https://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Market_failures/Externalit...