The Trump administration released a major new climate science report today, warning of “hundreds of billions of dollars” in annual losses to some economic sectors without scaled up actions to adapt to current changes and slash emissions to avoid future warming.
The report by scientists from 13 federal agencies constitutes the second volume of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which is a congressionally mandated report.
Its conclusion:
Lives and property are already at risk in the U.S. due to climate change.
The report’s authors, who represent numerous federal agencies, say they are more certain than ever that climate change poses a severe threat to Americans’ health and pocketbooks, as well as to the country’s infrastructure and natural resources.
And while it avoids policy recommendations, the report’s sense of urgency and alarm stands in stark contrast to the lack of any apparent plan from President Trump to tackle the problems, which, according to the government he runs, are increasingly dire.
The congressionally mandated document — the first of its kind issued during the Trump administration — details how climate-fueled disasters and other types of worrisome changes are becoming more commonplace throughout the country and how much worse they could become in the absence of efforts to combat global warming.
The release date of the report, on Black Friday, which is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year, is likely to bury the news coverage of its findings.
On a call with reporters this afternoon, David Reidmiller, the director of the assessment, said the timing was determined in order to have the report come out in advance of the next round of U.N. climate talks beginning in Poland on Dec. 2 as well as a large scientific meeting in Washington in mid-December.
“We wanted to get this out sufficiently in advance of those meetings so that folks have a chance to review it,” Reidmiller said.
Monica Allen, a spokesperson for NOAA, said the decision to release the report on Black Friday was “made in the last week or so.”
In all honesty, it’s clear the Trump team did not want this report to be widespread news.
The contents of the report, which consists of 29 chapters that were extensively peer reviewed, are bleak.
It points out that the era of climate consequences for the U.S. is well underway, and only actions taken in the next few years can be effective in addressing the scope and severity of the problem.
The authors warn that neither climate adaptation or the pace of emissions cuts are keeping up with the severity and swiftness of the challenge.
The report release comes as the death toll from historic California wildfires continue to rise, and it finds that climate change is expected to bring more frequent wildfires and poor air quality.
The report finds that under a worst-case climate change scenario, in which emissions continue to climb at current rates, extreme heat would cause labor-related losses of an estimated $155 billion per year by 2090. At the same time, coastal property damage in the U.S. from sea level rise and storm surge flooding could reach nearly $120 billion per year.
The new report builds off of findings from the first volume of the National Climate Assessment, which was released by the Trump administration in November 2017.
The second volume contains more information specific to vital U.S. economic sectors, regions and national interests. It includes a region-by-region breakdown of how global warming is altering life and economic productivity, as well as what opportunities there are to adapt to it.
The first report was a sweeping overview of climate science findings, which decisively concluded that there is no credible explanation for modern-day global warming other than the burning of fossil fuels for energy.
The report was written and published under the auspices of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which brings together the 13 federal agencies that work on climate change issues, from the Energy Department to NOAA.
“This report dives into details concerning the US in a way that has not been done before,” Michael Wehner, a climate researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told Axios.
The Trump administration has allowed the National Climate Assessment process to move forward without interference, while at the same time expressing doubt about the causes and extent of the threat of human-caused climate change when it comes to forming its energy policies.
President Trump has said repeatedly that he believes climate change is “a hoax” perpetrated by the Chinese government.