New Highs in Risk and Resilience

With the increase in the magnitude of risks and changes in their characteristics, some of the basic approaches in the traditional risk–resilience calculus call for a revision. To face the new highs in risks, innovative pooling and deployment of resources to get them to the right place at the right time become a priority as countries and localities confront tight resource constraints. It becomes necessary to go beyond the norm, innovating and even breaking rules as disasters display unanticipated features. It also pays to be prepared for downward spirals, like global warming hurting the energy supply, raising energy prices, and putting pressure to use fossil fuels, thus aggravating warming; or forest fires on the one side, and global warming on the other, feeding on each other. There is a clear role for imaginative and strong leadership that can drive preventive measures even when popular sentiment may not yet be in their favour.