Name: Climate change costing U.S. households up to $900 per year
Uploaded: 2025-12-05T01:58:26.196Z
Duration: 3 min 15 s
Description: AccuWeather Vice President of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin and AccuWeather Climate Expert Brett Anderson discuss the top headlines related to climate change in the December 5 edition of Climate In The News.

AccuWeather Vice President of Forecast Operations Dan DePodwin and AccuWeather Climate Expert Brett Anderson discuss the top headlines related to climate change in the December 5 edition of Climate In The News.

Washington

A study by three economists has found that climate change has already imposed significant financial burdens on U.S. households, costing up to $900 per year and totaling between $50 to $110 billion nationwide annually. The main contributors to these costs include more frequent and severe wildfires, widespread smoke, increased health and property insurance costs, and greater property damage from extreme weather events such as flooding.

While the U.S. has adapted to rising temperatures with widespread air conditioning, adaptation to other climate hazards, particularly flooding, remains insufficient. The study also notes the importance of climate risk information in real estate markets and stresses the need for continued adaptation and awareness as climate risks evolve.

Climate change costing U.S. households up to $900 per year

Today, we'll first look back 56 million years ago, and then we'll examine how climate change has already cost US households near $1,000. Brett, our first story from the conversation looks at plants 56 million years ago during a prolonged period of heat across the world and how plants were impacted. Yes, over a 5,000 year period, Dan, we saw a rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 and therefore, temperatures responded worldwide, increasing as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit, and so many of the world's plants could no longer survive. That's a big problem. What is really scary, though, I will say, is today, the Earth is warming 10 times faster than it was 56 million years ago. That certainly raises concerns about what impact our warming now will have on plants today. Why are plants so important to the carbon cycle? Well, they are. Let's look at photosynthesis. Plants take up carbon dioxide, absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and release oxygen, so if we limit that, again, we're gonna see more CO2 in the atmosphere and more problems. It also seems like there are certain parts of the world that this study found where this may not have been disrupted as much, actually, and there were some benefits of this, but it didn't seem to outweigh the negative impacts. Right, and not talking about the far northern latitudes, the high latitudes, I should say, we're seeing more drought-resistant plants thriving in these areas, and therefore, less problems up in those areas. It certainly raises questions about how our systems on this planet will keep up with this rate of warming. Our second story today from Heat Map that was an interesting study by three economists, Brett, that did not look forward in time, but rather back in time at how much climate change has already cost U.S. households, and it has cost them up to $900 per year. Yeah, $900 per year, 50 to 110 billion nationwide per year. One great example they used, wildfires. We're seeing more large fires, extreme fires now, and so therefore, more destruction, higher insurance costs to replace these homes. That's affecting a big part of the population. Smoke, also, much more widespread across the country. That's increasing health insurance costs, so both sides of it. Yeah, the insurance costs, a big chunk of that cost per year. It also was an interesting note here that the U.S. has adapted quite well to heat with air conditioning installed across most of the country, but there's many other hazards where we have not adapted as well. No, flooding is the big one, really. We're seeing many more extreme rainfall events and flooding in areas that really never saw such sudden, massive floods, and again, this is causing a tremendous amount of property damage, much higher insurance costs. And one other interesting thing I thought was, that was noted here was the impact on the real estate market overall. Yeah, we're seeing a removing of climate risk scores from some sites because I think it was affecting the real estate market a little bit, but those scores are very important. They are important. More information is generally good, and it helps people make decisions. Also important for us to know what the climate risks are so we can build ways to adapt. Well, thanks, Brett. For other stories about climate, you can find that at accuweather.com slash climate.

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