The world's experience with the COVID-19 pandemic has vividly demonstrated not only the untold cost on human and economic health associated with a failure to prepare, but also the significant power of collective action to alter the spread of the disease. The Fight for Climate after COVID-19 uses the lessons of 2020 to argue, unequivocally, why the time to scale up resilience to the mounting effects of climate change is now.

Alice C. Hill is Senior Fellow for Climate Change Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, she served as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and Senior Director for Resilience Policy on the National Security Council, and led the DHS Leadership Group responsible for bio-security and bio-preparedness efforts, including pandemic planning efforts. Her first book, Building a Resilient Tomorrow, co-authored with Leonardo Martinez-Diaz, published in 2019.

• Introduction


• 1. Account for the future, not just the past


• 2. Prepare for concurrent, consecutive, and compounding disasters


• 3. Plan across borders


• 4. Weave tighter safety nets


• 5. Jumpstart resilience


• 6. Marry mitigation and adaptation


• Conclusion: Adaptation can no longer wait


• References