Climate Destruction Fuels Growing Sector of the US Economy
Spending tied to the consequences of global warming has made up 32% of America’s GDP growth since 2016.
Category 4 hurricane Ian did widespread damage to parts of Florida, including Matlacha island (above), bringing high winds, storm surge and rain in September 2022. But while the climate crisis wreaks destruction all over the world and across America, there is a part of the US economy that is growing as a result.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty ImagesThe cost of the climate crisis keeps going up.
In terms of damage to the atmosphere and life on Earth, this may seem obvious. But the overall price tag of global warming has long been the subject of debate. Now, new data from Bloomberg Intelligence has put a number to the cost of burning fossil fuels.
It’s averaged about $500 billion a year since 2016. That’s equal to about 2% of US gross domestic product, according to Bloomberg Intelligence senior ESG climate analyst Andrew John Stevenson. Those figures represent the combined expenses from property damages, power outages, government spending and construction-surge inflation at the state level, he says.