Haiti is a mountainous island nation. Haiti will be very little affected by rising sea levels. As to the rest of global warming, that’s probably low on the list of Haiti’s troubles. I’m no AGW denier, but Bangladesh, Pacific atoll nations, and so on are far more at risk.

As to why structures in Haiti are bad, they’re bad because no rebar was included in the construction. Failing rebar, chicken wire makes a big difference.

Failing chicken wire, any little bump will destroy a building. That’s also what happened in Iran (Qom? I forget the name of the city) and in a rural area of Nepal. Buildings made of stones piled one atop the other just don’t stand up well to shaking.

It should be on the agenda to make sure that as Haiti rebuilds, it rebuilds with rebar and chicken wire. Give them the stuff, subject only to the condition that it not be reexported. Send teams to explain how it’s used.

Greenville, Kansas was pretty much destroyed by a tornado. As they rebuild, they’re doing so with a state of the art building code. That way, next time, the structures will stand, or if hit in the worst possible way, at least the “safe room” will be safe. That’s the spirit. Don’t get sucker punched by nature twice in the same spot.