The consequences of GOP climate denial will be costly
With the second Trump administration refusing to acknowledge ongoing climate change, primary concern is naturally with its plan to gut U.S. efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions and again exit from the Paris Agreement. Unfortunately, this is not all the wreckage that is to come.
Persistent climate denial will increase the domestic cost of extreme weather events driven by the warming now built into the global system. Incentives for where to live and build will be mis-aligned, needed institutional reform will be shelved, and priorities for protective investment will be distorted. Leaders of vulnerable states like Texas and Florida are following the same playbook.
Over decades of more stable climate, the U.S. has developed two types of institutions to help manage weather risks. In one, losses by individuals and communities impacted by extreme events are reduced by a combination of insurance and government disaster aid. For residential and commercial property, costs of storm damage or wildfire are passed (for a fee) into private insurance markets, and flood risks in vulnerable coastal and river zones are provided (also for a fee) by a National Flood Insurance Program. (A federal crop insurance program managed by the Department of Agriculture covers weather-related loss.)
Meanwhile, governments, supplemented by the Red Cross and other nonprofits, stand by to provide aid, in programs that range from city cooling centers provided on dangerously hot days to housing assistance.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/opinion-consequences-gop-climate-denial-170000607.html
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