【世界经济论坛】气候适应：利用技术力量解锁价值链-2025.1_43页_5mb

Climate Adaptation: Unlocking Value Chains with the Power of Technology

Core Content

This white paper explores the critical role of technology and collaboration in enhancing the resilience of value chains against the escalating impacts of climate change. It emphasizes that as global temperatures rise and extreme weather events become more frequent, businesses and organizations must adopt a systemic and collective approach to adaptation, leveraging advanced technologies to anticipate, respond to, and mitigate climate risks.

Main Points

• Climate Change is Accelerating: 2024 was the hottest year on record, with the physical impacts of climate change becoming increasingly evident and persistent. These impacts threaten value chains in multiple dimensions, including natural resources, assets, operations, employees, and market dynamics.

• Value Chain Resilience is Key: Companies are not only vulnerable to climate change but also to the vulnerabilities of their suppliers and clients. Resilience across the entire value chain is essential to prevent system-wide disruptions and ensure long-term growth.

• Technology as a Catalyst: Frontier technologies such as AI, Earth observation (EO), IoT, drones, and advanced computing are pivotal in addressing climate risks. These technologies enable better risk anticipation, real-time monitoring, and efficient decision-making, thus building long-term resilience.

• Collaboration is Essential: Collaboration platforms allow stakeholders to share data, technologies, and capabilities, enhancing collective investment in adaptation. These platforms are crucial for aligning efforts across the value chain and driving innovation.

• Investment in Adaptation is Cost-Effective: While mitigation remains essential, investing in adaptation (less than 1% of GDP) can significantly reduce economic losses, with estimates suggesting up to 4% of GDP in savings. The net cost of inaction could range from 10% to 15% of global GDP by 2100.

• Adaptation is a Shared Responsibility: Stakeholders across financial institutions, policy-makers, shaping agents, and local communities must work together to ensure equitable and inclusive adaptation strategies.

Key Industries

The report focuses on three key industries where adaptation is most critical:

1. Food Systems

• Vulnerability: Food systems are highly dependent on natural resources and are extremely vulnerable to climate impacts such as droughts, floods, and temperature shifts.
• Impact: Under current warming trends, rice, maize, and soybean yields could fall by 24% by 2030, while wheat yields may rise by 17%. Soil erosion could reduce crop production by 10% by 2050.
• Price Volatility: Extreme weather events have led to significant price surges, such as a 27% increase in olive oil prices and a 400% surge in cocoa prices.
• Benefit-to-Cost Ratio: Food and beverage companies report a median benefit-to-cost ratio of 19:1 from adaptation investments, with some reaching 43:1.

2. Energy Systems

• Vulnerability: Energy systems face significant risks from extreme weather events that can damage infrastructure and disrupt essential services.
• Adaptation Needs: Collaboration is necessary to ensure the resilience of energy systems, especially in maintaining reliable service delivery and protecting critical infrastructure.

3. Manufacturing Systems

• Vulnerability: Manufacturing systems, particularly in sectors like automotive, are susceptible to climate-related disruptions at multiple stages of their supply chains.
• Adaptation Strategies: These systems require tailored adaptation strategies, including optimizing global distribution networks and enhancing operational resilience through technology.

Call to Action

• Engage in Climate Adaptation Forums: Leaders should create or join forums within their value chains to foster collaboration.
• Define Shared Purpose: Establishing a clear understanding of the value at stake helps create a unified purpose for adaptation.
• Standardize Metrics and Language: Common language and metrics are vital for effective cross-stakeholder collaboration.
• Invest in Secure Data-Sharing: Implementing secure protocols for data sharing is essential for informed decision-making.
• Host Open Technologies: Investing in innovation and infrastructure that support open technology ecosystems can accelerate adaptation efforts.
• Involve Local Communities: Engaging local communities ensures that adaptation strategies are inclusive and grounded in local knowledge.

Conclusion

The time to act is now. Organizations that lead in climate adaptation will shape the resilient and sustainable economies of the future. By investing in technology and fostering collaboration, companies can not only protect themselves but also unlock new value and drive meaningful change across their value chains.