Business View Caribbean | May 2022

14 BUSINESS VIEW CARIBBEAN VOLUME 9, ISSUE 5 working across many aspects of land, real estate, construction, and infrastructure. There are clear differences across global geographies, but there are also commonalities in our experience and practices. We all face different challenges according to our local markets. For example, Los Angeles, where I’ve lived and worked for over the past 45 years, has been experiencing more extreme heat and drought cycles over the past few decades, resulting in devastating fires and mudslides. There are also longer-term impacts such as lessening snowfall at higher altitudes leading to shortages of drinking water and agricultural irrigation supplies. The Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California warns that we can expect these instances to intensify and it will be vital to rethink our patterns of urban settlement. We cannot design homes to resist 1100oC wildfire temperatures. Looking more broadly, we see similar examples of communities around the world having to respond to such climate extremes and the influence of human activity on the natural environment. In January, the Indonesian parliament approved a bill to relocate the capital from Jakarta to a new site, in part due to rising sea levels. The decision to move the capital is not something to take lightly and has implications for more than 10 million people who currently live in Jakarta, not to mention the estimated cost of the move in GUEST SUBMI SS ION