Here's one big climate fight that California is botching

It has been demoralizing to witness in Santa Cruz, my hometown, the destructive power of waves and water on our beaches, piers, roads, homes, businesses, rivers and levees. But we knew this was coming, and we're overdue to adapt to the new realities of our climate.

In 2015, global leaders resolved to cut carbon emissions in an effort to keep the planet from heating more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. California has played a significant role in that campaign, with worldleading policies and innovations on technologies such as solar power and electric vehicles and in the development of carbon markets, which reduce emissions through caps and tradeable credits. All of this has been aimed at averting a future climate challenge. That challenge is here now.

Mitigation must continue, but adaptation has become urgent as well. California should step up once again.

It's not enough to invest just in strategies to protect future people, property and nature. The risk of climate change to people here and now has become quite clear.

Recovering from climate-fueled disasters will take an ever-greater bite out of national and local budgets. The United Nations lauds countries' mitigation commitments, but finds an ever-widening “adaptation gap” between what is spent, around $29 billion annually, and what is needed, around $71 billion a year now and $340 billion in 2030. For many developing countries, particularly island nations, falling behind on adaptation is an existential crisis.

Californians have done a lot to contribute to this crisis. Among U.S. states, we rank second only to Texas in total carbon dioxide emissions.

So we should help solve this adaptation crisis — as innovators and leaders.

First, that means experimenting with more solutions to adapt to climate change across the state, innovations that we can export elsewhere. Many states and countries are already doing more than California has.

California can't afford to lag behind in the race to adapt to existing climate dangers. Catastrophic collapses along our open coasts this month are a reminder that we must greatly expand efforts to reduce risks on our coastlines.

Second, California should lead in the development of an adaptation marketplace. California helped build carbon markets, and we need the same leadership for an adaptation marketplace that gives benefits and credits for reducing present climate risks to people, property and nature.

One key step will be to measure risk and the benefits of adaptation solutions, and then we must price them. We already know how to price risk; that's the basis for the insurance industry.

We also need incentives or government requirements to advance adaptation projects. Such incentives are already emerging from the private sector. Companies are increasingly being pushed by investors to report on the risks of climate change to their balance sheets, which has led to voluntary compliance with reporting developed by the businessled Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures.

It makes sense for businesses and governments to get out in front with voluntary adaptation commitments. At the U.N. climate conference in Egypt in November, one of the few points of agreement was that developed nations will increasingly have to take responsibility for the losses and damages that climate change is already driving in developing nations.

California is likely to soon become the world's fourth-largest economy, and we reap many benefits from that. Californians have also been willing to take ownership of problems we have helped create. We must continue to lead on cutting carbon emissions to protect the future, and we must develop the same leadership on climate adaptation — because Californians and vulnerable nations need those protections now.