PBS NewsHour | Latest assessment reveals cost of climate change for U.S. | Season 2023

AMNA NAWAZ: The nation's fifth national climate assessment was released today, and it shows America is warming faster than the global average, with climate change impacting nearly every facet of American life.

It also found extreme weather events now cost the U.S. roughly $150 billion per year.

Katharine Hayhoe is chief scientist of The Nature Conservancy and distinguished professor at Texas Tech University.

Katharine, welcome back to the "NewsHour."

Let's begin with that climate change trend here in the U.S.

The report says the U.S. is warming about 60 percent faster than the rest of the world as a whole.

Why?

What's driving that?

KATHARINE HAYHOE, Climate Scientist, Texas Tech University: Well, this is no surprise.

We have known that higher latitudes warm faster since the 1890s.

That is not a typo, 1890s.

And that is because tropical regions warm not as fast.

Northern regions warm faster because of the feedbacks in the climate system.

And, overall, the entire globe is warming.

So that means that the higher latitude we are, the greater we are at risk.

And, in fact, Alaska, for example, is warming faster than the rest of the continental U.S. AMNA NAWAZ: I need to ask you about that eye-popping number, annual average costs due to extreme climate events at $150 billion.

That is, for context, tens of billions more than the U.S. has pledged, for example, to Ukraine in its war against Russia, which we know is a huge subject of a funding battle here in D.C. Can we afford -- as a nation, can we afford to keep up with that cost?

KATHARINE HAYHOE: We cannot.

In the 1980s, the U.S. was experiencing, on average, $1 billion weather and climate disaster every four months.

The last 10 years, we have been experiencing one every three weeks or less.

There is no question that climate change is already slowing economic growth, even right where I live in Texas.

Extreme heat this summer slowed our economic growth, according to the Federal Reserve.

But we know that climate solutions present opportunities.

We can't afford not to act.

AMNA NAWAZ: The report also makes clear there is no part of the country that is untouched, right, from this, from extreme heat waves that we have seen in the Southeast, to heavier precipitation in the Northeast and Midwest, coastal communities, of course, dealing with rising sea levels.

You are, I understand, joining us from Arizona tonight, but, as you mentioned, you live in Texas.

Just make this real for us.

How does this show up in daily life on the ground in Texas?

KATHARINE HAYHOE: Well, so often, we refer to climate change as global warming, which references the increase in the average temperature of the entire planet.

But how we as individuals experience it is through what I call global weirding.

In other words, wherever we live, our weather is getting weird.

In Texas, we see hurricanes powering up overnight from tropical storms to Category 3, 4 or 5, dumping way more rain.

Our droughts are more intense and lasting longer.

Our summer heat seems endless.

Out in California, up north in Canada, we see the wildfires and the smoke we experience this summer.

In other places, we see heavy downpours and increases in flash flooding.

Wherever we live, our lives are being touched by how climate change is loading the weather dice against us.

AMNA NAWAZ: The report also says that Americans have to make deeper changes to how they work and how they manage their environments.

Tell us what that looks like on a day-to-day molecular level.

What are those deeper changes that need to be made?

KATHARINE HAYHOE: Well, the good news is, is that we are already moving in the right direction.

We just aren't going nearly fast enough.

So, number one, we need to cut our heat-trapping gas emissions as much as possible as soon as possible through efficiency, clean energy, and some smart agriculture.

Number two, we need to invest in nature to take some of that carbon out of the atmosphere, as well as cleaning up our air and our water and protecting us from flooding and heat.

Number three, we need to prepare, adapt, build resilience to the changes that are already here today, because climate is changing faster than any time in human history.

It is not about saving the planet.

It is about saving us, us humans and many of the other living things that share this planet with us.

We're the ones at risk.

AMNA NAWAZ: That leads me to the bigger picture question here, which is something we have noticed over time.

Has much of the conversation here shifted from how to stop or slow climate change or global warming into, how do we as humans make ourselves more resilient?

How do we survive it?

KATHARINE HAYHOE: Well, we're seeing more discussion and, as the national climate assessment shows, more plans being put in place by cities, by states, by corporations, by organizations to build resilience.

But the report is also crystal clear that, if we don't cut our emissions, we are not going to be able to adapt to what's coming.

So it's not a case of either/or.

We need to be doing all three of those, cutting our emissions, investing in nature and building resilience.

And the more we do, the better off we will be.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is Katharine Hayhoe, chief scientist of The Nature Conservancy, distinguished professor at Texas Tech University.

Katharine, thanks for joining us.

Good to see you.

KATHARINE HAYHOE: Thank you.

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