The United States has suffered $23 billion in disasters so far in 2023, a record for this point of the year that underscores the country’s struggle to adapt to the effects of climate change.
The list, compiled by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, includes the Maui fire that killed at least 115 people, the deadliest wildfire in the United States in more than a century; Hurricane Idalia, which hit western Florida as a Category 3 storm; and a storm in Minnesota that dropped hail the size of ping pong balls and knocked out power to more than 25,000 homes and businesses.
And that was just last month.
In some ways, the rising costs of disasters are not surprising. Burning fossil fuels causes air and water temperatures to rise, which in turn causes hurricanes to become stronger, rainfall to become more intense, and wildfires to spread more quickly.
NOAA data, which tracks the inflation-adjusted number of billion-dollar disasters in the United States, shows a relatively steady upward trend, from three such disasters in 1980 to 22 in 2020. The current year has already surpassed that record in 2020.
But the rising number of victims shows more than just the effects of global warming. Since Hurricane Sandy in 2012, the federal government has spent billions of dollars to make American communities more resilient to the impacts of climate change through investments in levees, storm sewers, civil engineering, forest management and other strategies.
The increasing number of large and costly disasters shows the limits of these efforts.
The Biden administration recognizes these concerns and is increasing spending on resilience. The Federal Emergency Management Agency “has committed historic levels of climate funding to help communities build resilience,” Jeremy Edwards, a spokesman for the agency, said in a statement. Last week, FEMA designated nearly 500 communities as “disaster resiliency zones” eligible for increased federal funding.
“Rural communities are really on the front lines of climate change,” said Kristin Smith, a researcher at Headwaters Economics, a nonprofit policy advisory group that has studied the distribution of federal resilience funds. “But many don’t have the resources to do anything about it.”
The Biden administration has also tried to persuade state and local governments to adopt stricter building codes that can dramatically reduce damage from floods, hurricanes, wildfires and other disasters.
However, stricter regulations increase the upfront cost of home ownership, a powerful disincentive as much of the country suffers from a housing shortage. Despite the federal government’s efforts, only about a third of American jurisdictions use the latest building codes, according to the Institute for Building and Home Safety, a research group funded by the insurance industry.
This industry has every reason to be worried. As disasters become more common and expensive, insurers in high-risk states like Florida, California and Louisiana have increasingly stopped writing new coverage. The Maui wildfires also raised questions about the viability of Hawaii’s insurance market.
When insurance becomes either unaffordable or no longer available, it can lead to a general economic decline, reducing home values and local property tax collections. This downward cycle, until recently confined to particularly disaster-prone parts of the United States, is in danger of expanding as high-cost disasters become more common.
Amy Chester, executive director of Rebuild by Design, a nonprofit group that helps communities recover from disasters, said the United States needs to take adapting to climate change more seriously. That means not only spending money on resilience, but also requiring state and local governments to build infrastructure to higher standards.
Adapting to climate shocks also means “having real conversations” to help people leave vulnerable areas, Ms Chester added. “Maybe we can’t live everywhere we live.”
Meanwhile, she noted that billion-dollar disasters don’t just affect the people who experience them. As federal disaster costs rise, Ms. Chester said, “We’re all paying for it.”