As 2024 comes to an end, lawmakers in the United States are left to contend with a bleak outlook regarding the financial costs of extreme weather disasters.
What's happening?
After Hurricane Milton brought a second catastrophic event to the Southeast, The Washington Post reported in October that the U.S. government has been forced to come to an unfortunate realization that "climate calamities are becoming more frequent, deadly, and costly in a country already facing massive fiscal challenges."
President Joe Biden said that after Hurricane Milton, experts estimated it caused roughly $50 billion in damage across Florida, per the Guardian. Just a week prior to that, Hurricane Helene brought nearly $60 billion in damages to North Carolina.
Earlier this year, a release from the White House revealed that the U.S. experiences a billion-dollar climate disaster roughly every three weeks on average. The cost of rebuilding after these extreme weather events has created yet another financial strain on a federal government already fighting against a national debt exceeding $35 trillion, per the Post.
"It's one more reason to be nervous about our fiscal future unless we make some changes," Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, told the Post.
Why is this important?
Rising global temperatures have supercharged extreme weather events, making them more frequent and intense. While disasters like hurricanes Milton and Helene dominate the headlines, catastrophes like storms, droughts, wildfires, and floods are also occurring at higher rates, creating a harsh reality regarding the nation's financial future.
"I think the cost of climate [change] is increasingly a threat to our already very fragile fiscal outlook," Zandi said, adding that when considering the prospect that the government must spend "tens of billions or hundreds of billions more each year to help mitigate the fallout of climate events, the outlook looks even darker."
Despite efforts from the Biden administration to reduce heat-trapping pollution and boost clean energy through initiatives like the Inflation Reduction Act, ongoing climate disasters have made for an untenable battle against a looming economic crisis.
"The effects of human-caused climate change are already far-reaching and worsening across the United States," the administration stated in its budget issued in March, per the Post. "As broad economic damages from climate change grow, so does the impact of the climate crisis on the federal budget."
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What's being done about the climate crisis?
ABC News reported this month that the new government spending bill revealed that "Congress is allocating more than $100 billion in emergency aid to address extensive damage caused by hurricanes and other disasters."
Long-term solutions like reducing air pollution, switching from gas to electric, and supporting policies that minimize pollution can help mitigate the financial risks caused by climate catastrophes. By working together and making smarter lifestyle choices, we can contribute to a healthier planet and a more stable future.
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