Climate change is costing the US $150 billion a year. Here’s what that looks like | CNN Business (2024)

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Is climate change costing the US 150 billion a year? ›

In total, extreme weather events cost the US $150 billion per year, due to direct impacts such as infrastructure damage, worker injuries and agricultural losses, the authors of the report estimate.

Media Tip Sheet: Climate Change Costs the U.S. Roughly $150 Billion Each Year, New Report Finds. A new federal report released this week finds that extreme climate events cost the U.S. $150 billion each year, an estimate that doesn't account for loss of life, healthcare-related costs, and damages to ecosystem services.

Climate change is one of the biggest risks to global development, as high temperatures, droughts, floods, and other extreme events destroy infrastructure, jobs, and livelihoods. Already, climate change costs the world $16 million per hour.

The global cost of climate change damage is estimated to be between $1.7 trillion and $3.1 trillion per year by 2050. This includes the cost of damage to infrastructure, property, agriculture, and human health.

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.

The U.S. losses from billion-dollar disasters over the last seven years (2017-2023) are more than $1 trillion and have further skewed the total distribution of extreme weather costs.

Estimates of how much money it would take to end global climate change range between $300 billion and $50 trillion over the next two decades. Why such a massive range? Because experts disagree about how to stop climate change.

Public funds from donor countries account for the largest share of climate financing. About half of this flows bilaterally from donor to recipient state, largely in the form of development aid. The other portion is multilateral money, meaning that multiple states give money to multiple other states.

The reason: Warmer temperatures, extreme weather events, and changes in precipitation patterns are expected to challenge farmers, interrupt food supplies, and increase retail prices.

How much will climate change cost by 2050? ›

BERLIN, April 17 (Reuters) - Damage to farming, infrastructure, productivity, and health from climate change will cost an estimated $38 trillion per year by 2050, German government-backed research finds, a figure almost certain to rise as human activity emits more greenhouse gases.

Climate change will cost about $38 trillion a year by 2049, a new study calculates. AP News.

Key Facts. Damages from climate change will set the global economy back an estimated $38 trillion a year by 2049, with a likely range of between $19 trillion and $59 trillion, warned a trio of researchers from Potsdam and Berlin in Germany in a peer reviewed study published in the journal Nature.

According to NOAA's 2023 Annual Climate Report the combined land and ocean temperature has increased at an average rate of 0.11° Fahrenheit (0.06° Celsius) per decade since 1850, or about 2° F in total. The rate of warming since 1982 is more than three times as fast: 0.36° F (0.20° C) per decade.

For the 48 developing economies included in the calculations, the annual cost to fight climate change, protect biodiversity and cut pollution is projected to cost nearly $5.5 trillion annually from 2023 to 2030, which is about 18% of their collective GDP. This translates to an average yearly cost of $1,213 per person.