The Resilience Endgame: Scaling Up Adaptation for a Sustainable Future
Check against devliery
T
hank you Professor Zwitter
[PAUSE]
New World Order
NEW WORLD ORDER
Ladies and gentlemen, all protocols observed.
We have an entirely new world order today.
You know it already.
You are living it.
We may not want this new world order.
But we have it, and we are getting more of it.
The sooner we wake up to this reality…
The sooner we can take smart decisions for how to prosper in it.
A new global trade war.
Relocation of all Palestinians from Gaza.
USAID dismantled.
American support to all multilaterals under question.
Withdrawal from agencies like the WHO.
And changes not limited to the United States !
Elections in Germany, Canada and Australia this year.
Political developments from France, to Korea, to Norway, to right here in the Netherlands.
By end of year, virtually every western nation with clout is likely right wing.
The shift to the right is not a glitch—it’s the democratic will of the people.
And a response to some very legitimate concerns.
COVID.
Ukraine.
Cost of living crisis.
Families hurting.
50,000 asylum seekers entering the Netherlands last year.
Ter Apel, a village of 9,000 in THIS province of Groningen..
Hosting 2,000 asylum seekers any given day.
[PAUSE]
Where are we going?
Well: spending on defense is going to go up.
Spending on other priorities – including education – set to go down.
Environmental regulations are out, and large-scale deportations are in.
“Drill, drill, drill” and “dig, dig, dig”– that’s the new policy playbook.
New – World – Order.
[PAUSE]
Rector Magnificus,
Prime Minister Balkenende,
Ambassadors,
Mayors,
Honorable Deans,
Students and Faculty,
Dear Colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
My name is indeed Patrick Verkooijen and I am President and CEO of the Global Center on Adaptation, and Chancellor of the University of Nairobi.
And I am absolutely honored and humbled..
To speak following extremely generous words by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon..
My mentor for many years.
The greatest international statesman alive today.
After who, this University’s Chair of Climate Adaptation Governance is named.
I am also extremely honoured to accept the tenure as chair of this program.
And I thank all of you for joining this inaugural lecture.
[PAUSE]
New – World – Order.
My central thesis, ladies and gentlemen, today is this:
We are in a planetary endgame.
To be specific, I am calling it a “Resilience Endgame”.
Why?
Because to adapt to our new reality..
Is the very last “get out of jail free card” society has.
And playing that card, or not, will affect everything we do from this point onwards.
New – World – Order.
Indeed, we have to reimagine everything about how we govern our planet.
[PAUSE]
Let us begin then by considering where we are in this dilemma.
I was negotiating the Paris Agreement in 2015.
I was the World Bank’s Special Representative for climate change.
The goal of Paris is to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.
The last safe guardrail for life on Earth, according to science.
Reality check:
Last December, the UN Environment Programme found we hit 1.5 in the next two and a half years.
That’s technically tomorrow.
[PAUSE]
It should not come as a surprise.
The pandemic aside, emissions have been going up ever since the Paris Agreement.
Last year: emissions were the highest on record, EVER.
And with it, record breaking temperatures.
And disaster, escalating in tandem:
Deadly heatwaves.
Crippling drought.
Devastating floods.
Turbo-charged hurricanes.
Planet – on fire.
We all see the changes happening around us.
We knew it was coming:
We simply haven’t delivered targets or action bold enough to stop at 1.5.
The Paris regime suffers a terminal illness.
And President Donald Trump has simply pulled the plug from its life support system.
We had a decade to get the world on track: 2015 to now.
Well? Society has come up short.
Paris was a 1.5 degree plan, and we’re headed for 3.
So we must now live with the escalating consequences.
We are stuck on this overheated and overheating planet, and we cannot go BACK.
Stuck in a world where each half-degree of warming can double the disasters.
That’s the math. That’s the reality.
[PAUSE]
Before you get too worried.
This is not going to be a doomsday speech – I assure you!
In fact, I am absolutely convinced.
Absolutely determined that effective adaptation leads us to a bright future.
More even than just some “Get out of Jail Free Card”.
In fact, it’s the winning hand.
But let’s not be naïve.
My basic predictions for the next five years are this:
GHG emissions will continue to rise.
International climate and development resources will shrink.
Climate impacts will go up – more people on the move.
Insurance sector: in retreat.
It’s already happening across the US.
Fires in California. The top insurance firm didn’t renew 70% of its clients in the Pacific Palisades.
For the few holding on, premiums went up 50% in one year.
[PAUSE]
Financial system in shock:
Banks hesitant to write mortgages.
Their portfolios exposed to all the new risks.
Think about it: This is where the rubber hits the road.
Where YOU will feel the heat – in your pocket.
Ladies and gentlemen, your pensions EXPOSED!
Prime Minister Balkenende, my mentor and partner and fellow Board member.
You may be spared, but for sure Amelie here will be affected.
And maybe I will be spared too, but every student here could suffer.
Let me bring this close to home.
In the front row here today.
My son, Nicolas, is 20.
Nicolas, stand up.
Nicolas enters the workforce in the next five years.
This is a 1.5 degrees world, and he will live through the developments I just predicted.
Our children are about to enter a world where climate disasters are twice as bad as the ones we remember.
But my twin daughters, Fleur and Romée, just turned 17.
Fleur, Romée, please stand up !
Fleur and Romée are going to enter the workforce about 5 years later then Nicolas.
Almost certainly a close to 2 degrees world, by then.
And once again: that 2 degree world can be twice as bad, or worse, than a 1.5 world.
But there’s more.
Also joining us today, is my youngest:
Vicente.
Vicente is… SIX … YEARS … OLD.
Vicente – come up here !
Please give him a round of applause !
When Vicente enters the world of work, some two decades from now.
Many of the young students here in this room will be middle aged like I am today.
But facing a 3 plus world of warming, potentially.
Why?
With 1.5 lost, the window to avoid 2 or even 3 degrees is right now.
When we know very well..
Populism will take us down the opposite path to Paris.
New – World – Order.
Now, I did promise this will not be an apocalyptic speech.
So how do we move from here?
That’s where the Resilience Endgame comes in.
So, let’s talk about resilience and adaptation for a moment.
Starting with the definition of “adaptation.”
It simply means: to adjust to new and different conditions.
To be adapted is to be fully optimized to your surroundings.
And the definition of resilience?
The ability to rebound from a shock.
What’s not to like.
We MUST adapt. We MUST be resilient.
If not, we lose out.
That’s the basic premise, even, of the survival of our species.
And when change is fast, like today..
If we are not ahead of the curve, like today..
We can lose out … BIG.
We are in the Resilience Endgame.
The only real question is: will we play to win?
To give this question some perspective…
Allow me though share an example of the power of resilience.
Not from here, but from Africa, the world’s most climate vulnerable continent.
[PAUSE]
I also served as the first ever head of climate-smart agriculture at the World Bank.
In Kenya, I visited a farmer, Anne Akinyi, in Kisumu.
We financed 60,000 small-holder farmers there.
Digital weather advisories to mobile phones.
Smart irrigation.
Agro-forestry.
Anne, was showing me her farm.
Only thing was..
Over here, I saw a flourishing farm.
Right next to it: wasteland.
I said, Anne, why? Why is this?
Answer was: those farms were not in the program.
Were not adapted.
Were not resilient.
Anne’s farm was.
Anne’s family was well fed.
Anne’s children went to school.
Her production had doubled !
That is exactly where the economics of adaptation come in.
Which is very simple:
Adaptation PAYS.
For every dollar, euro, pound, Kenyan shilling invested..
In early warming systems..
Productive agriculture..
Resilient roads and supply chains..
Adaptation returns between 2 and 10.
If for every dollar invested, you get up to ten back. That’s not a cost—it’s an opportunity.
It’s smart investment, in fact.
Investments in resilience create jobs..
Expand production..
And support higher, more reliable economic growth.
So, through Anne, I identified a principle I called the “Triple Dividend”.
Or, if you like, the “Triple Win.”
That is:
Avoided losses
Positive economic gains, and,
Enhanced social and environmental benefits.
Through my time at the World Bank, and since presiding the Global Center on Adaptation, the “GCA”..
Everywhere I have travelled, I see evidence of these dividends, of these wins.
Adaptation not a ‘nice-to-have’—but a jobs strategy, a growth strategy, an economic winner.
The catch, though, is this: smart, resilient investments pay off, (only) if and when..
The resources to make such investments are available in the first place.
Of course, the world is not The Netherlands.
Here, where adaptation is central to everything that we do for centuries.
Here, where two thirds of the nation is below the high tide mark.
A sub-Ocean nation, in fact.
Here, where one in five call reclaimed land our home.
Here, where we turned water into land, land into production, and survival into prosperity.
Adaptation: not just survival—but smart economics.
The reality today though is this:
Living in a poor country? You are seven times more likely to die of a weather disaster than if you live in a rich one.
That is why we are in the midst of a 21st century “climate apartheid.”
In this “CLIMATE apartheid”, without adaptation..
The wealthy invest and grow richer..
While the vulnerable are left behind to drown, burn, or flee.
How do we break out of this downward spiral?
And why does it even matter for the developed world?
Remember: New – World – Order.
We cannot and will not find our way forward without a fundamental re-thinking..
Re-tooling..
And re-imagining..
of HOW we do business.
Our political environment is running a fever.
Our planet is running a fever.
So ladies and gentlemen,
Let me offer you today three key suggestions..
For re-imagining our world order.
First, we need to re-imagine the global social contract.
Second, we need to re-imagine the global finance and development system.
Third, we need to re-imagine research, innovation and higher learning.
[PAUSE]
One: Global social contract.
Thomas Hobbes.
He warned against “The War of All against All.”
The United Nations was created 80 years ago.
For much of that time multilateralism expanded.
Today, it’s at an all-time low.
Why is that?
Let’s look at the shortcomings of the Paris Agreement.
World’s most successful global pact – on paper.
Signed in record time.
More countries than nearly any other agreement, ever.
And yet..
Not implemented.
Not delivered on.
Falling to pieces.
As a graduate at Harvard Kennedy School, I was a student of international negotiations.
There’s a cardinal rule that the path to a negotiation outcome cannot be zero sum.
And it needs to be clear to all, just what you get out of it.
Nations have failed on Paris because Paris failed to deliver clear mutual gains for them.
Now, I firmly believe mutual gains exist to be exploited.
We are wealthier, healthier and more educated than ever before.
But global economic growth is slowing down.
Though that’s not the whole picture:
Economic growth, highest in the poorest countries.
Growth lowest in the richest ones.
This divergence brings challenges and opportunities.
To continue to prosper, developed nations have to do more business with emerging economies.
Only thing is: foreign investors won’t do business with risky operators in risky regions.
Where supply chains are disrupted because of storms and floods.
Risky regions need de-risking gameplans.
And those will benefit all.
Mutual gains.
Think about it:
Africa’s currently a net food importer, but it could be feeding the world..
IF it “future-proofs” its food sector.
We have a youthquake in the continent with two thirds of the world’s untapped arable land.
That’s grounds for a genuine new partnership.
We should seize it.
Which brings me to my second point: re-imagining our global financial and development systems.
Of course, it so happens that the Bretton Woods are also 8 decades old.
They helped lift billions of poor out of extreme poverty..
And kept financial meltdowns to a minimum.
But a lot of developing countries, in vulnerable regions..
Now find themselves cash-strapped and over-burdened with debt.
Confrontation on tough choices:
Invest in education or climate.
Paying off debt, or funding healthcare.
Then natural disaster strikes.
And those choices become even more pronounced.
And this JUST as climate and development funds are being cut back.
Remember: New – World – Order.
The most fundamental priority, therefore, is to mainstream resilience across all financing.
And to spread the momentum from the development sector to the entire private sector.
This is because there is not a building, road, bridge, dam, power plant, electricity line, school, hospital, community center, farm or fishing operation..
That doesn’t need more resilience today, let alone tomorrow.
And the only way to reach all these things at speed and scale – my personal mantra – is through financial flows.
So what the GCA has focused its energy on is to “future proof” as many projects as possible..
That are financed by the World Bank and the different development banks.
Together with the African Union and the African Development Bank..
By the end of this year..
We will have “future proofed” more than 25 billion dollars of projects..
in some 40 African nations.
Tens of millions of beneficiaries across Africa.
[PAUSE FOR APPLAUSE]
That’s our flagship “Africa Adaptation Acceleration Program”, known as “AAAP.”
We must double down on that success.
On the eve of the AU Summit tomorrow, the next, bolder new phase of AAAP is on the table.
Africa’s offer of genuine partnership in this era – we must seize it.
And we need to also bring this model to Asia and the world’s small island developing states.
United, we can do it.
We are expanding our partnership with the IMF and its Resilience and Sustainability Facility to catalyze policy reforms that mobilize the markets.
Which, ultimately, hold the largest potential for change.
That is why, last month, at Davos, we launched the first ever business leaders platform on adaptation..
With the World Economic Forum.
So that commercial Banks build resilience into their lending to all their clients.
That will be transformation at scale.
We should seize it.
Which brings me to the third re-imagining.
We cannot possibly mainstream resilience in all the world’s finances..
Without a MASSIVE parallel investment in research and innovation.
To succeed, we, the universities and the research institutions..
Have to become much more connected to the world of action, and much more collaborative globally.
Take CGIAR – what is it?
A consortium of the world’s best research institutes on agriculture.
Professor Rabbinge, my PhD supervisor, was the Chair of the Science Board of GCIAR.
Because we know that drought tolerant maize produces 15% more crop.
And it also reduces crop losses by 30%.
But if they’re not in the hands of the small-holder farmers, what impact can they have?
NONE !
So, I am extremely glad to announce that we now have a partnership between GCIAR and the GCA.
Linking the phenomenal expertise of this consortium to the development projects of the world’s largest international financiers.
And students of this program will be linked into the work as a part of their master theses, PhDs, fellowships and internships.
Running against the clock, we absolutely must speed up the conveyer belt from knowledge to action.
A huge part of that will also be to re-imagine knowledge partnership themselves.
What works in Miami may not work in Mombasa.
But the flip side is also true: even the Netherlands has adopted water management innovations from Bangladesh.
So, we must absolutely prioritize global research partnership across different continents and regions.
And the good news is: we now have the model.
Because this university is working hand in hand with the University of Nairobi on adaptation research.
The first PhD students from Kenya are already here.
And the first training academies, with help from Groningen faculty, have already taken place in Nairobi.
Going forward we will replicate and scale these North-South, South-North partnerships as part of this Chair group, supported by GCA.
We’re open for business, ladies and gentlemen.
Let me conclude then with some words for students.
My generation looks at the world through a lens of constraints.
The students, the upcoming generations – growing up in a hyper-digital age – only see possibilities.
We have to listen and learn from them !
We have to re-imagine.
The Resilient Endgame is a world full of opportunities.
[PAUSE]
Let’s bring it home..
To Ter Apel.
The Ukraine war created 7 million refugees.
Whole regions of the world – at 2 or 3 degrees – could be rendered uninhabitable.
If we don’t get our act together.
People – massively – on the move.
We’ll no longer have blue states and red states, but risky states or resilient states.
We won’t have 2,000 asylum seekers in Ter Apel.
We will have 100,000 !
We can’t solve Ter Apel in The Hague or even in Brussels.
We need to solve it in Africa, at its roots, together.
And the resilience upside is that our interconnectedness cuts both ways:
We spread the risks faster to everyone..
But the benefits also move just as quickly, and just as far.
Getting resilience right, a rising tide that lifts ALL ships.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to return briefly to Anne Akinyi.
It was Anne that taught me we are at the sunrise of a resilience revolution.
And indeed, her last name “Akinyi” means “born in the morning”, in Luo.
And that’s exactly the inflection point where we are right now.
The resilience revolution is here.
The only question is whether we will embrace it.
OR, we pay the price of ignoring it.
A new global social contract.
Will make us unstoppable.
A transformational financial and development system.
Will make us unstoppable.
A knowledge sector built for the future.
Will make us unstoppable.
By putting adaptation and resilience at the heart of everything that we do.
We become UNSTOPPABLE, at last.
The Resilience Endgame:
That’s the winning play.
I thank you very much.
