Extreme weather events have increased fivefold in 50 years. As a coastal city, Macau has been working on an urban plan that conditions the impact of these events. However, it seems to assume that there is little you can do to prevent them; a dangerous mindset.
The city’s progress prioritizes economic diversification based on urbanization, with more landfills, more buildings that do not balance sustainability. Just look at the most ambitious projects in Macau and you can see that they are not very hybrid, devaluing an ecosystem that the population itself demands. Not wanting to reduce the efforts of the authorities to an example, we live in a highly developed city that does not recycle, it takes time to find conditions to process the waste it produces; calls an Ecological Island a repository of garbage…
The latest edition of Macau Business highlighted what the future holds for us. Extreme weather phenomena will become increasingly frequent in Macau, and more severe. Macau’s inability to change this paradigm on its own is highlighted; the city is not one of the most polluting in Greater Bahia, nor in the world, but it certainly contributes. Ignoring your role only worsens the consequences in the medium and long term. It is mentioned in Macau Business, for example, that excessive urbanization is directly linked to the record of high temperatures and additional difficulties during floods. Macau cannot be held hostage by its own condition. There is a need to grow and expand to have a resilient and future-proof economy, but it has to be in line with ecological needs. Because the future also depends on this preparation. Works in the Inner Harbor are not enough to control the impact of floods, among other projects that do not change the current course. These are band-aids that require constant review.
There is a need to grow and expand to have a resilient and future-proof economy, but it has to be in line with ecological needs
We want a robust economy so that the quality of life is better. But several studies prove that these phenomena cause immeasurable damage to the lives of the population and the economy. In July 2021, floods in Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands caused an estimated loss of 43 billion US dollars and approximately 200 lives. In Sudan, more than 700,000 people were displaced by the biggest storms since 1962. In Henan, China, floods displaced more than 250,000 people and there were disruptions to coal transport and industrial production. According to the World Meteorological Organization, in the 1970s adverse weather events caused losses of around US$200 billion to the world economy. Between 2010 and 2019, they exceeded 1.3 trillion dollars, that is, they more than quintupled – proving that there is a quite proportional relationship between the number of phenomena and economic losses.
Progress also needs to address geographic location and the dangers that extreme weather phenomena pose. One cannot have a linear view of economic diversification; It has to be systemic, otherwise we risk becoming anti-progress.
*Executive Director of PLATAFORMA
