Craig Fugate and Amna Nawaz discuss climate change and disaster response on 'Settle In'

Amna Nawaz:

Craig Fugate led the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Obama administration through record-breaking disaster years.

I spoke to him for the latest episode of our PBS News podcast "Settle In" about how climate change has upended disaster response. Here's a clip from that conversation.

How much of the conversation inside the agency was about climate change? Did you feel like you had to push that a little bit inside?

Craig Fugate, Former Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency:

Most of the conversations were really about we needed to mitigate the effects of climate, which that also caused a problem, because when people use the word mitigate in emergency management, that means reducing the impacts of a disaster.

What they were talking about, and this was across the administration, was reducing greenhouse gases and addressing the effects of greenhouse gases and the transition away from carbon base to an electrical base, mitigating that.

But it wasn't dealing with the disasters. And, really, I think within the agency -- and this was something that President Obama said. I was traveling with him up to see Governor Christie in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy.

And, again, I need to be clear. A singular event is not an indication that the climate's changing. We get these types of storms. You get these types of events. But the president said something I really took to heart, and that was, he said: "Craig, I think the debate about climate change is over. We need to start talking about climate adaptation."

And that immediately caused a rift within the climate community for those who felt that, if we talk about adaptation, we're giving up. And others, that was it was merely recognizing the climate had already changed. I think that was the thing we kept hearing was, it was going to change. And it was like, no, it's already changed.

We're already seeing these impacts. And we need to adapt. Really, we were able to go back. FEMA says, look, just building back for the past 100 years' worth of data doesn't work anymore if we're dealing with record-setting events. How do we change our guidance so that we're not just building it back where it was, the way it was, with maybe some upgraded building codes, but really focusing on, what are the future impacts and are we really mitigating for the future, versus only looking at the past?

Amna Nawaz:

I mean, what did you think when President Obama said that to you? Did you agree with that?

Craig Fugate:

I have sat through several times when President Obama would just off the cuff say stuff, and it was just like, why didn't I think of that?

(Laughter)

Craig Fugate:

And it framed it in such a way that it got rid of all the vagueness. We were still -- at that time, everybody was arguing about what's causing climate change, is it real? You still had that going on.

And his position was, the debate's over. We're seeing the impacts. We need to be talking about adaptation. And, for FEMA, that meant that, because we spend a lot of your tax dollars rebuilding infrastructure, buildings and stuff, after disasters, particularly in these floods and other things, we needed to look at what we could do differently to address the future risks, not just the current risks.

Amna Nawaz:

And you can watch our full conversation and all episodes of "Settle In" on our PBS News YouTube page or wherever you get your podcasts.