Beat the
Extreme climate events are presenting a new and unexpected
challenge to the private sector in Latin America. While attention understandably focuses on the ordinary citizens caught up in catastrophes such as the
floods in Tabasco, Mexico and Hurricane Noel in the Dominican Republic, the
painful economic effects on the hemisphere’s business community are often
lost in the news coverage. With mounting evidence that the frequency and
severity of such disasters are squarely linked to global warming, firms that
operate, invest or are based in Latin America must act aggressively to reduce
their losses from the twenty-first century’s increasingly volatile climate.
The good news is that there are concrete and effective methods of
adaptation—responses that reduce harm from current and anticipated
impacts of climate change and that can prevent the private sector from getting caught flat-footed. These measures employ existing technologies, in areas
from energy efficiency to water management to building design, which can
help firms diminish the economic sting of global warming. The six guidelines
Climate change is posing unprecedented challenges to Latin
Here are six
