RALEIGH, N.C. _ Jessica Whitehead still recalls a speaker stepping up to a microphone in Robeson County to say that the most personal conversation you can have with someone is one about their home.
That remark was made last fall, when the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency was deciding how to spend $168 million in mitigation funds from Hurricane Matthew. But Whitehead, North Carolina's chief resilience officer, kept it in mind as she worked on the state's Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan.
"It's true," Whitehead said, adding that officials should work to mitigate risk to people's homes where possible and find "the most just resolutions" where engineering won't work.
Every part of North Carolina is going to face climate-related threats in the coming years, according to the Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan, released this month by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. That means there will be tough conversations about landslides in the mountains; flooding along the coast and in the Piedmont; and heat throughout.
The DEQ document explains those risks, shows how they are harming different pieces of state government and demonstrates how they impact the state's most vulnerable groups. It also provides decision-makers with a road map to mitigate those hazards.
Gov. Roy Cooper signed Executive Order 80 in the weeks following 2018's Hurricane Florence. The order called for North Carolina to take sweeping action to address climate change, including a stated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% from 2005 levels by 2025, integrating climate change mitigation into state agencies' planning and creating the risk and resilience plan.
In a letter introducing the report, Cooper wrote, "This strategic document reflects the commitment we share in creating a North Carolina where folks are healthier, better educated and have more money in their pockets so they have opportunities to live more abundant and purposeful lives."
The state is virtually certain to see higher temperatures and other impacts over the rest of this century, according to the North Carolina Climate Science Report by North Carolina State University's North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies, a document that is included in the plan.
Researchers found that a changing climate will bring disruptive sea level rise, more frequent intense rainfall and more humid summers, the News & Observer has previously reported.
Those who are already among society's most vulnerable are also most at risk from climate change, the plan says in a section dedicated to climate justice.
For instance, poorer households have fewer resources to fix flood damage or afford higher energy bills. And discriminatory housing policies have resulted in high numbers of African Americans living in flood plains and facing increased risk from threats like inland flooding.
"We may all be affected by the climate crisis, but we're not all affected by it the same way. We must avoid a situation where affluent areas are able to harden themselves, harden their grid and harden their infrastructure and leave those poor communities to fend for themselves," said William Barber III, a manager of strategic partnerships at the Climate Reality Project and member of DEQ's Environmental Justice and Equity Board.
Other risks include landslides in the western part of the state and increased energy costs associated with higher temperatures statewide.
The resilience plan recommends that North Carolina Emergency Management and the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency increase their ability to communicate with non-English speakers and figure out how to better reach rural communities. It also lays out a statewide policy shift called "targeted universalism" under which the state would increase its overall resilience against climate change by focusing on the most vulnerable.
Every Cabinet agency contributed to the risk and resilience plan, in addition to the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Each evaluated how rising temperature and increased flooding could impact their operations, as well as how those risks could be mitigated.
"Resilience is one of those things where it can't just be (the Division of Coastal Management), it can't just be renourishing beaches because the impacts of climate change impact the state from the coast to the mountains and everywhere else. It has to be everybody because all departments and divisions are responsible for a certain carbon footprint," said Erin Carey, the director of coastal programs for the Sierra Club's North Carolina Chapter.
As an example of a non-coastal impact of climate change, Carey pointed to a section about the North Carolina Forest Service. During 2016's Hurricane Matthew, floodwaters inundated the service's Claridge Nursery at the Goldsboro Forest Center, causing the loss of much of its annual crop of seedlings.
To fix that, some Forest Services offices and research stations could be relocated to higher ground _ an expense the state might not be willing to undertake.
Funding looms throughout the plan, with suggestions to move, raise or overhaul government facilities so they can be better prepared for warmer, wetter conditions. There are, however, no dollar amounts, other than a $16 million recommendation from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to fund the Back@Home program, which helps low-income people find homes after hurricanes.
If money isn't found for resilience, "we're going to be paying more later in increased disaster payments, increased impacts to the people of North Carolina and to the environment of North Carolina," said Will McDow, who works on mitigation efforts for the Environmental Defense Fund.
The report also outlines next steps: Each agency must develop resilience strategies by next March and then publish annual updates on their progress. Whitehead will also form an interagency resilience team to design programs that help improve North Carolina's resilience and update the plan.
"We hear really strongly that people want to get something done, but we need to make sure that we're setting up processes that are as inclusive as we can be and recognize that we're dealing with really challenging long-term issues," Whitehead said.
Keeping the plan updated is important, said Rob Moore, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"There is no last step on this stuff, frankly," Moore said. "This is going to be an ongoing exercise for North Carolina and every state in the country. We're going to have to continually refine our knowledge of the impacts of climate change and refine how we're making decisions in the face of that knowledge."
