Lessons Learned to Prepare for the Next Climate Disaster
Q&A with Alice Hill
Alice C. Hill currently serves as the David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. She previously served as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director for Resilience Policy on the National Security Council staff, where she led the development of national policy, including executive orders related to natural disasters, national security, and climate change. Prior to this, Hill served as senior counselor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). At DHS, she led the formulation of the department’s first-ever climate adaptation plan and the development of strategic plans regarding catastrophic biological and chemical threats, including pandemics. Hill was a Research Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. She is the author of The Fight for Climate After COVID-19 and co-author of Building a Resilient Tomorrow: How to Prepare for the Coming Climate Disruption. She currently serves on the boards of the Environmental Defense Fund and Munich Re Group’s U.S.-based companies. In 2020, Yale University and the Op-Ed Project awarded her the Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis. Earlier in her career, Hill was a supervising judge on both the Los Angeles Municipal and Superior Courts as well as a federal prosecutor and chief of the white-collar crime unit at the United States Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, California.
Emily Chien/Anthony Mohr: Alice, welcome. It's delightful to have you here, and the timing is good because we're coming out of the worst wildfire incident in the history of Los Angeles. We know you focus on energy, resilience, climate change and security. If you're a social impact practitioner, what are some policy recommendations to adapt to floods, fires, drought, heat, and all the above?
Alice Hill: What's the best thing people can do with regard to climate change? It's to account for climate change. And what do I mean by that? I mean that decisions need to consider the future impacts of climate change — be it deeper droughts; bigger, more intense wildfires; rain bombs; extreme rainfall that quickly floods a community; heat waves; sea-level rise, and all the other cascading events that occur as a result of those new extremes.
Scientists are critical to our understanding of climate change, and, of course, their work does involve social impact. But the real social impact, I believe, will come from communicators. We desperately need people who can communicate science in a way that's understandable for other decision-makers. Most importantly, for policymakers, whether those policymakers are in government, in business, or their local community. We need people who can take science and tell others what it means, so that those decision-makers can apply science in making better decisions in the face of worsening events.
Mohr: Regarding communication, the Los Angeles Times ran an article about how the fire department put out a call for retired firefighters to help. Somehow it got on social media, got distorted, and came out that they needed anybody who wanted to fight the fire. All these volunteers who knew nothing about how to fight a fire showed up and jammed the communications. Then, they had to spend their time protecting people as opposed to fighting the fire. This suggests to me a communication breakdown. What do we do about that?
Hill: Misinformation is a tremendous challenge, in any field, but it's acutely damaging in the face of a disaster. Emergency managers are trying to do their best to avert more harm, and then you have misinformation that is causing people to do things that will potentially cause even more damage. I don't have a solution for that. It's a challenge, as we see across the United States.
But one thing we do need are people who can communicate in a manner that is trusted — what is happening with our environment and with our climate. Unfortunately, scientists have not been able to do that. There are probably reasons, because of their discipline, that it's hard for them to communicate what they're learning about the climate. We need others to move into this space, to bridge the divide between what science tells us and what's happening on the ground in terms of decisions.
Mohr: And one of the things we're running up against is recency bias. How do we handle that?
Hill: Social scientists have told us that humans aren't the best at making decisions, particularly when it comes to catastrophic risk. We tend to judge risk based on what we or our loved ones or close friends have experienced. So, with the fires in Los Angeles, for example, now that everybody has experienced them, we will have a recency bias. We will know that these big fires can occur. That's good. That will help us make better decisions going forward with a particular challenge. With climate change, however, the events get bigger and bigger, so no one has ever experienced them, at least not in recorded history of the type that we're beginning to see. And then it's hard for us to even imagine that it could be worse in Los Angeles. This isn't necessarily the last big fire. Another even bigger one is likely on the way, and that turns out to be very difficult for people to really internalize and then make decisions around.
There are tools that we can use to help us avoid that trap. But we need to be consciously applying those tools or using other methods to make sure we are accurately assessing the information rather than defaulting to just our recency bias. Say, if we’ve had a really bad thing happen, we may think a disaster is even more likely in the future than it is in fact. But if we haven't experienced a disaster, we may underestimate the likelihood of its coming.
Mohr: I'm thinking of the old phrase: We're fighting the last war.
Hill: Exactly. That sums it up.
Mohr: There's been a lot of talk on television about how we will rebuild. The question I would put on the table is managed retreats. Do we want to consider it? Let's talk about Staten Island after Hurricane Sandy. And what Bangladesh is doing after the floods.
Hill: There are two questions here. Should we consider a managed retreat? Yes. Will we consider a managed retreat? Maybe not, simply because the natural desire to rebuild could drive some choices that put people back in harm's way. If Los Angeles decides to rush forward and rebuild exactly as it was — which would be the natural desire of people who love their homes, love their neighbourhoods, love their communities — it's putting people back in areas that are likely to burn again. And if they build in the same way we built in the past, there'll probably be large conflagrations going forward. The challenge is the politics of this. Nobody wants to hear they can't rebuild, particularly at this terrible moment of pain and sorrow and sadness and loss. They just want their lives back, and they think the best way to get their lives back is to rebuild just as it was.
Mohr: You're familiar with the Palisades Highlands in Los Angeles. That development resembles a knife thrust into the middle of chaparral with one way in and one way out.
Hill: Well, I'll tell you one signal that will be very clear for those who want to rebuild there, and that will be the signal from private insurance companies. Private insurance companies will be reluctant to insure in areas that have recently burned. And even if there are strong building codes, as you have in California with its 2008 building codes, even those don't ensure the survival of properties. In the Camp Fire in 2018, the Sacramento Bee did a study of the homes that fire destroyed, and they found that 80% of the homes built before 2008 were destroyed by the fire. Fifty percent of the homes that survived had been built to the 2008 building code. But 50% isn’t necessarily great odds for an insurance company in terms of choosing where their risk is. So, there will be a signal for people who choose to rebuild that private insurance will not be readily available. Then, there's a question of whether the FAIR Plan — California’s backup plan when private insurance is unavailable — will be able to continue as it's currently constituted. It appears that the FAIR Plan will not have enough money to pay out all the claims it currently faces from the Los Angeles fires, and that might force some readjustment as well.
There are places that are looking at managed retreats. It's easier if you've done the plans in advance, and that's what Bangladesh is doing. Bangladesh is designating places within its country for people to relocate. It faces a huge flood risk both from riverine flooding and sea level rise, and it is designating other places within the country for migrants who were forced out of their homes to move to. It is also providing the receiving cities with resources and the necessary tools to help the migrants as they arrive. This reduces friction in those cities as a result of more people moving in.
Mohr: Brilliant. So let me ask you: if somebody lives in Chittagong, Bangladesh, would they be told, if and when you have to move, we’ll send you to Dhaka?
Hill: As I understand it, it's not that prescriptive. It's rather investing in the places that will be the receiving cities so that there are resources and investments that will help when the migrants arrive. And here in the United States, we have places that have volunteered to be communities that receive displaced persons. Duluth, Minnesota, comes to mind. It has stated it would welcome people moving there to escape climate risk elsewhere.
Mohr: In LA, rentals are hard to find; it’s a land rush to secure a place to live.
Hill: Yes, and unfortunately, that will drive some people to leave. We saw the same thing after Hurricane Katrina — when there wasn’t enough housing left, many people relocated, often to nearby Houston, and they never returned. There could be a population drain in Los Angeles as a result of these fires. I remember Craig Fugate, the head of FEMA under President Obama, telling me that if a city can’t get back up and running within six months, families leave. If schools are closed and shopkeepers can’t survive, people move on to seek better opportunities elsewhere.
Chien: The insurance industry faces a significant challenge in addressing climate change, as most state insurance commissioners do not approve premium increases based on forward-looking risk models. This creates a mismatch between rate practices and actual risk exposure, leading insurers to withdraw from high-risk areas because they cannot accurately price the risk. As publicly traded companies, their fiduciary obligation remains to shareholders. This raises an important question: should the government step in as the insurer of last resort, similar to the National Flood Insurance Program? Or, what alternatives might work better? Could state-level initiatives, national policy reforms, or entirely new frameworks provide a viable solution?
Hill: You've raised key questions. I chair a working group on climate change and insurance for the California Department of Insurance, and many of the recent reforms Commissioner Ricardo Lara implemented came from our recommendations. The biggest change was allowing risk assessment based on forward-looking models. Previously, California law required insurers to base rates on the past 20 years. But in a hotter world that meant risk was consistently underpriced.
Another important factor is reinsurance. Reinsurers are the companies that insure primary insurers, like State Farm, to ensure they can pay out claims in the event of major disasters. As climate risks escalate, even major insurers with a national footprint are reconsidering their role in property insurance. In 2016, I spoke with the CEO of a major reinsurer who predicted that private companies would eventually exit the property insurance market altogether. Property insurance is a major business line, so private insurers won’t abandon it easily, but as losses mount, it may become unsustainable.
That doesn’t mean insurance companies will disappear; they’ll pivot to other types of coverage — cyber, auto, and emerging tech risks. The challenge is whether they can offer property insurance at a price people can afford. If premiums skyrocket, people simply won’t buy coverage, leaving them exposed.
Other countries are grappling with similar problems. Italy recently required all commercial property owners to carry disaster insurance, spreading risk across a broader base. France strengthened its disaster insurance program. Switzerland has long had a successful system managed by its cantons. Australia expects that 1 in 4 homes will soon be uninsurable. Canada is also reviewing its flood insurance framework.
In the U.S., discussions about a national reinsurance program are gaining traction. But whatever policy emerges, it must acknowledge that some places are simply too risky to insure.
Mohr: That will be very unpopular.
Hill: Incentives matter in economics.
Mohr: And that ties into managed retreat. Who bears the cost?
Hill: Ultimately, elected politicians will decide. And no politician wants to tell constituents they can’t get insurance because they live somewhere too risky.
Chien: Building on Alice’s point, a national reinsurance program or even state-level initiatives may help in the short term, but they ultimately solve the wrong problem. Climate hazards are becoming more frequent and severe. Scientists have warned us, and we’re already seeing the consequences. If we use government-backed insurance to help people rebuild in disaster-prone areas, we’ll be repeating the cycle indefinitely — putting human lives, communities, and economies at ongoing risk. We’re in a phase of climate change where instability and volatility are increasing. It’s unrealistic to assume existing infrastructure can continue to support communities in certain locations. We may need to rethink where people can safely live. But, as Alice pointed out, no local, state, or federal official wants to be the one to say that.
Mohr: That reminds me of Walter Mondale’s acceptance speech: “Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did."
Hill: I think it was Rahm Emanuel who said, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste." And certainly, with wildfires, cities have repeatedly learned lessons. After the Roman fire of 64 AD, the Emperor widened avenues to reduce fire risk. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, they banned wooden buildings and required brick or stone. The Chicago Fire of 1871 led to similar changes.
Mohr: No more cows.
Hill: Yes, no more cows, Mrs. O’Leary. And after the San Francisco earthquake, they rebuilt with fire-resistant materials. So, this is an opportunity to make changes. The challenge, as we’ve discussed, is the politics. There’s also the question of areas that haven’t yet been hit by disaster but are clearly at risk. Many people in these areas are vulnerable and don’t have the means to relocate.
This is particularly true in Alaska, where villages that have no roads and can only be accessed by boat, plane, or snowmobile are slipping into the sea. The sea ice that once protected the land is disappearing, and these communities lack the funds to move. It’s estimated that relocating them could cost around a million dollars per person.
Chien: One underreported issue is the impact of climate disasters on municipal finances. Alice, you’ve written about migration scenarios, who stays and who leaves, and the inequities they create. The rising cost of living will determine who can afford to stay, with profound implications for the social fabric of these communities. We’re only now starting to absorb the impact of the recent California wildfires on human lives and livelihoods. I’m also curious about the ripple effects on municipalities — declining tax bases, strained budgets, resources to rebuild and create greater resiliency, and the broader economic vibrancy of these areas.
Hill: Before these fires, raising money for municipalities was relatively cheap. I’ve spoken to people in the municipal bond market who say bonds were underpriced in favor of issuers because climate risks weren’t properly recognized or internalized. Take Phoenix, for example. Various communities there have issued bonds, but some acknowledge the heat problem while others barely mention it. Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, for instance, stated in its bond offering that extreme heat could disrupt operations. Meanwhile, an adjoining community hardly addressed the issue.
So far, credit agencies have not proactively downgraded municipal bonds based on climate risk. They have only issued downgrades after disasters, rather than forecasting risks in places like Phoenix or Miami. The justification is that their rating timelines focus on short-term financial factors rather than long-term climate risks like sea-level rise. However, I believe this situation could start changing.
Just today, I was speaking with someone from a municipal bond association, and we discussed how the fires might alter the municipal bond market landscape. I don’t think it will upend things immediately, but it will certainly drive a greater recognition of how devastating climate risks can be.
One example in Los Angeles is the Department of Water and Power, which is now struggling with serious water-related problems exposed by these fires. They are dealing with major water supply challenges due to these fires, which affect their ability to raise funds. Utilities in California are also under immense stress from wildfires. There was even a debate over whether electricity should have been cut off to prevent fires.
California has a unique liability provision that holds power companies responsible for fire damages, even if they are not negligent. That means utility companies remain financially liable when their equipment sparks wildfires. The cost will ultimately fall on consumers because utility companies will have to raise rates to cover liabilities.
Mohr: Another issue is the lack of trained personnel to fight these fires. Relying on voluntary mutual aid agreements — like flying in firefighting crews from Quebec — is helpful, but what happens when there are simultaneous fires in Canada and here? What’s the solution?
Hill: We need to invest more in firefighting resources. The fire season has extended almost year-round, making it harder to rely on mutual aid agreements with places like Australia or New Zealand, since their fire seasons no longer complement ours.
Additionally, with wildland-urban interface fires, we can’t just call a neighbouring state for help — it’s often too late by the time reinforcements arrive. Fires can consume entire subdivisions in just a few hours. That’s why cities need to be designed to withstand wildfires with features like buffer zones, more firebreaks, and greater green spaces.
Mohr: Wider streets, too?
Hill: Absolutely. Narrow streets are a huge problem, especially in places like the Palisades, where older homes were replaced with massive mansions, yet the roads remain one-way in and out.
Mohr: Evacuation is another challenge. Has there been enough planning?
Hill: No, we haven’t adequately tested evacuation routes. We need a clearer understanding of how many cars will be on the road at once and whether people can get out safely.
Mohr: Should there be evacuation drills, like the fire drills we used to do in school?
Hill: Absolutely. Look at Japan — they are among the best-prepared countries in the world, especially for seismic risks. They set aside a day each year for preparedness drills, and their tsunami evacuation training has saved thousands of lives.
There’s an incredible story from the 2011 Japanese tsunami: a school had trained students to ignore their teachers and run to higher ground the moment they felt an earthquake. This was counter to Japanese cultural norms, where students are taught to obey authority figures. But during the tsunami, every child at that school survived — except for one who had been home sick.
Mohr: That’s remarkable.
Hill: We need to develop similar ingrained responses to disasters — just like CPR or the Heimlich maneuver. People should instinctively know how to react when a crisis strikes.
Mohr: Here’s another thought: what if we reinstated a national service draft — not necessarily for the military, but for disaster response? Young people could spend a year or two training as first responders, learning how to handle catastrophic events.
Hill: I think that's very profound. I also think that experience would help build a sense of sacrifice.
Mohr: You mentioned that in an interview where you said, “We are all in this together, and we all have a role to play.”
Hill: There should be a national adaptation plan — but we don’t have one. We need an overarching framework that assesses risk, defines the roles of federal, state, and local governments, and clarifies what businesses and communities should do. But we’re an outlier in this. We haven’t done the necessary work.
Mohr: We’ve done it in national security. The Department of Defense always has a national strategy plan.
Hill: The Department of Defense has adaptation plans for its facilities. But I’m talking about a national strategy for the entire United States. Other countries have done this. The Netherlands created the "Room for the River" program, which designated areas that must remain uninhabited to serve as flood zones. China has one of the most robust adaptation plans in the world to deal with extreme rainfall. The U.S. has no equivalent. Neither President Obama nor President Biden created one, and President Trump certainly wasn’t going to. So, we keep postponing the work.
One useful area might be more training. We still don’t fully understand how to fight these wildland-urban interface fires effectively. A lack of training for firefighters is part of the problem.
Mohr: What other policy suggestions do you have?
Hill: Building codes. The U.S. does not have a climate-resilient building code. Over two-thirds of communities don’t have modern codes, even though research shows that for every dollar spent on stronger codes, you save $11 in damages. Many communities resist adopting them because they worry about housing affordability. But a house that burns down is not affordable.
There’s also the looming mortgage crisis. Many people in California may walk away from their mortgages because they were underinsured.
Mohr: Banks could go down, especially smaller ones.
Hill: Yes. In some states, mortgages can be secured with other assets beyond the house itself. But in California, the mortgage is only tied to the house. If the house is gone, there’s nothing left to secure the loan.
We also haven’t talked about the toxic mess left in the land. Who knows what melted into the soil?
Mohr: If your mortgage is purchase money as opposed to funds from a refinance, banks can’t go after you beyond the house.
Hill: Right. So, we’ll potentially see a wave of defaults in Los Angeles. That could impact the city’s creditworthiness.
Mohr: We also need regional planning and coordination. The Los Angeles Basin has 88 communities — how do they all work together?
Hill: That’s a challenge. Climate risks don’t respect artificial boundaries, so planning has to be coordinated regionally. One city’s decision can affect its neighbors.
Mohr: How do we lower that pressure? Because LA will never be the same.
Hill: We need to recognize that people are hurting, and that rebuilding takes time. Louisiana offers an example. After the BP oil spill, several parishes used settlement money to create a master plan identifying areas that would inevitably be lost to sea-level rise. The U.S. did something similar in the 1960s with coastal barrier islands — it stopped funding development in areas that were too risky.
A clear policy should be no federal money for new development in high-risk areas. We’re already stuck with existing development, but at least we can avoid making things worse. That requires accurate risk assessments.
Mohr: We never talked about COVID as it relates to climate change. I know you mentioned it in an interview once.
Hill: There are a lot of lessons from COVID, and we’re going to see more disease as a result of climate change. We’ll probably see more zoonotic diseases — ones that jump from animals to humans — because of climate change.
When I was at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), I ended up getting pulled into catastrophic risk work. I spent a lot of time on H1N1 and other biohazards.
Mohr: Are you still able to sleep at night?
Hill: I do tend to see risk everywhere I turn. It’s the lawyer in me. But yes, for a while, I was focused on biological threats, and it was terrifying how easy it is to manufacture biological weapons.
Chien/Mohr: Thank you so much for your time, Alice. This has been an enlightening, yet sobering discussion.
About the Authors:
Emily A. Chien is a 2024 Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Senior Fellow specializing at the intersection of sustainability and AI solutions. She serves on the Advisory Council of the IFRS Foundation (ISSB, IASB Sustainability, and Accounting Standards Boards respectively). Previously, she led IBM’s Global Climate Risk Offerings andPartnerships and is the founding co-chair of the 100 Women in Finance (100WF) ESG C-Suite Peer Advisory Group. As a long-time champion of and innovator in digital and AI, Emily led AI business transformation serving IBM clients inbanking, investments, and insurance and was appointed 2021 AI/ML Fellow with the World Economic Forum program on “the Responsible Use of Technology”.
Anthony J. Mohr is a 2021 Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow. For almost twenty-seven years, he was a judge on the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County, where he presided over civil and felony trials. He still serves on a part-time basis. On two occasions, Anthony sat for several months as judge pro tem on the California Court of Appeal. Among his numerous professional affiliations, he served on the Executive Committee of the Los Angeles Superior Court and chaired both the Superior Court’s Ethics Review and Response Committee and the statewide Committee on Judicial Ethics of the California Judges Association. He sits on the Regional Board of Directors for the Anti-Defamation League’s Los Angeles Region and the ADL’s National Commission. With another judge, Anthony has authored two legal textbooks. In 2023, his memoir Every Other Weekend: Coming of Age With Two Different Dads was published.
This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.