How bad climate change will be in the United States and why there is hope

Clean Energy, Climate and Sustainability in the U.S. Between 2018 and 2020: Impacts from the Inflation Reduction Act of 2005 to 2020

According to the Climate report released in November, global warming costs the US$150 billion in direct damages each year, whether it is due to rising seas, heat waves, or floods. From 2018–2022, the United States experienced 89 climate disasters that cost at least $1 billion in damages. It takes one every three weeks as compared to four every four months in the 1980s.

First off, the (somewhat) good news: Between 2005 and 2019, greenhouse gas emissions in the US decreased by 12 percent, even though the population and gross domestic product have grown. The decrease in costs of wind and solar is one of the reasons for that. The current rate of decline isn’t good enough to meet national and international commitments, according to the report. To reach net-zero emissions by midcentury—meaning that the US is capturing as much greenhouse gas as it’s emitting—we need a decline of 6 percent each year on average. The US had less than 1 percent per year on average for between 2005 and 2019.

It can get to that 6 percent quicker if more solar panels and wind turbines are deployed. To that end, last year’s Inflation Reduction Act allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to accelerate decarbonization; for instance, tax breaks for home improvements like better insulation and switching to electric appliances and heat pumps. It was also meant to juice the domestic green economy: According to one study, it has already created almost 75,000 jobs and spurred $86 billion in private investments.

The report released by the White House coincides with the announcement of more than $6 billion in new investments, funded through a pair of landmark laws that boost funding for infrastructure, clean energy and climate resilience. Several hundred million dollars are targeted to help communities secure reliable water supplies and be more resilient to flooding, all of which were part of the $6.1 billion earmarked for the modernization of US electric grid.

The nation’s creaky energy grid desperately needs an overhaul, both to cope with increasingly extreme weather and to accommodate more renewable energy. The number of power outages affecting over 50,000 customers has risen by about 64 percent between the years of 2001 and 2010 according to the report. It is the US that needs a grid that is better able to deliver electricity from renewable-energy hot spots, such as the Southwest and the Midwest. “Undergrounding” more powerlines, especially in the parched West, would prevent the infrastructure from igniting catastrophic blazes, like the Camp Fire that destroyed the town of Paradise in 2018.

For Cleetus, the report weaves a compelling picture about the need for fairness and equity as the country moves to build a clean-energy economy. Policymakers should make sure that marginalized communities see the benefits of fossil-fuels for their jobs, she says.

“It’s a breath of fresh air,” says Kyle Whyte, a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation who studies environmental justice at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. A lead author of a chapter on Indigenous peoples says the report shows their rights and solutions to the climate problem. “In many native communities, our infrastructure is not up to the task of protecting our populations from the massive climate impacts that threaten us.”

That is a message that should ring loudly to the public and to policymakers, according to the author of the report and chief scientist with The Nature Conservancy. “Our actions matter,” Hayhoe says, “and that’s the science”.

After taking office, Biden had the United States rejoin the United Nations’ Paris climate agreement, which Trump had exited. The country will be halving greenhouse-gas emissions by the year 2030. Biden also stated that the country will achieve net-zero emissions by midcentury. The new climate assessment makes it clear that the United States is so far falling short on those goals.

“This is not about curling up in a corner in despair,” says Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an advocacy group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “There are very concrete steps we can take to cut our emissions and to promote climate resilience.”

A tropical storm watch as a result of the Maui wildfire and Hurricane Hillary observed in a hurricane-dominated region in the United States

The deadliest US wildfire in more than a century occurred this year in Maui, and a tropical storm watch was issued for southern California in the wake of Hurricane Hillary.