David Mc Cauley highlights the growing risks posed by our rapidly changing climate and the need to ramp up individual, community, national, and global protections against more frequent and intense droughts, wildfires, heatwaves, floods and other climate-induced disasters. He offers hope from observing the near-immediate returns from protecting people’s lives and property through investments, such as expanded early warning systems. He notes that modelling is improving to predict what more we can expect from our warming climate even as funding expands for developing country actions. David McCauley is a climate change and environmental policy specialist who previously led climate change programs for the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila and was Senior Vice President for policy, climate change and partnerships at the US World Wildlife Fund (WWF). He currently advises numerous public and private institutions on policies and investments needed to tackle the causes and consequences of climate change and in response to the accelerating degradation of ecosystems, including serving as Co-Chair of the Independent Expert Group for the Nature, People and Climate Program of the Climate Investment Funds. Before his work with ADB and WWF, Dr. McCauley lived and worked in the Asia and Pacific region, including through positions with the US Agency for International Development, the Ford Foundation and Harvard University. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx