Climate change is closer to home than you might think

How long is it since you last heard the expression “safe as houses”? Its almost total disappearance from use may seem surprising – but I would hazard a guess there might be more to it than changing times.

- DAVID SIMON

We are far more vulnerable where we live than many believe. In my work on cities and climate change for the UN, what I have seen time and again is that while people understand - and fear - that climate change will impact the lives of our children, few give pause to think about the shifting ground under their own feet, the places they call home and the very foundations on which they've built their lives.

Increasing numbers of homes here and worldwide are being damaged or destroyed - sometimes repeatedly - by flooding and other disasters. The most extreme weather events, such as Hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Sandy (2012) in the USA, Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (2013), Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica last month and Typhoon Kalmaegi in Cebu, the Philippines this week, can literally overwhelm entire coastal neighbourhoods, villages or towns, particularly when ferocious winds drive storm surges of several metres that penetrate quite far inland. Indeed, the poorest neighbourhoods of New Orleans, devastated by Katrina 20 years ago in August, have yet to recover.