As disaster costs keep rising nationwide, a troubling new debate has become urgent: If there\u2019s not enough money to protect every coastal community from the effects of human-caused global warming, how should we decide which ones to save first?<\/p>\n
After three years of brutal flooding<\/a> and hurricanes in the United States, there is growing consensus among policymakers and scientists that coastal areas will require significant spending to ride out future storms and rising sea levels \u2014 not in decades, but now and in the very near future. There is also a growing realization that some communities, even sizable ones, will be left behind.<\/p>\n New research offers one way to look at the enormity of the cost as policymakers consider how to choose winners and losers in the race to adapt to climate change. By 2040, simply providing basic storm-surge protection in the form of sea walls for all coastal cities with more than 25,000 residents will require at least $42 billion, according to new estimates from the Center for Climate Integrity, an environmental advocacy group. Expanding the list to include communities smaller than 25,000 people would increase that cost to more than $400 billion.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce you get into it, you realize we\u2019re just not going to protect a lot of these places,\u201d said Richard Wiles, executive director of the group, which wants oil and gas companies to pay some of the cost of climate adaptation. \u201cThis is the next wave of climate denial \u2014 denying the costs that we\u2019re all facing.\u201d<\/p>\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n If there\u2019s not enough money to protect every coastal community from the effects of human-caused global warming, how should we decide which ones to save first? https:\/\/t.co\/rniY6yD2TM<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 The New York Times (@nytimes) June 20, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n