Who Bears the Burden of Climate Inaction?

Climate change is already increasing temperatures and raising the frequency of natural disasters in the United States. In this paper, we examine several major vectors through which climate change affects US households, including cost increases associated with home insurance claims and increased cooling, as well as sources of increased mortality. Although we consider only a subset of climate costs over recent decades, we find an aggregate annual cost averaging between $400 and $900 per household; in 10 percent of counties, costs exceed $1,300 per household. Costs vary significantly by geography, with the largest costs occurring in some western regions of the United States, the Gulf Coast, and Florida. Climate costs also typically disproportionately burden lower-income households. Our work suggests the importance of research that looks beyond rising temperatures to extreme weather events; so far, natural disasters account for the bulk of the burden of climate change in the United States.