The era of climate change is happening now. Governments and communities are largely unprepared to address the cascading impacts of climate-related hazards, let alone proactively prepare for them. Thus far, the piecemeal approach to addressing the impacts of climate change has been ineffective in reducing the health and economic burden in American communities, and is no longer sufficient to address accelerating impacts. This lack of coordinated, efficient, innovative investment in climate resilience, to increasing urgent hazards such as extreme heat, risks undermining progress, and incurring substantial economic costs.
FAS takes a multipronged approach to address the myriad challenges in this arena – working to:
- Accelerate both technological and policy innovation to improve climate resilience
- Advance policy solutions to address cascading hazards of climate change such as wildfires and extreme heat events
- Keep a focus on communities and populations disproportionately affected by the effects of climate change and the legacy of unfair government policies
This strategy provides specific, actionable policy ideas to tackle the growing threat of extreme heat in the United States and was co-signed by more than 60 labor, industry, health, housing, environmental, academic and community associations and organizations.
Extreme heat has become a national economic crisis: lowering productivity, shrinking business revenue, destroying crops, and pushing power grids to the brink. The impacts of extreme heat cost our Nation an estimated $162 billion in 2024 – equivalent to nearly 1% of the U.S. GDP.
The increasing frequency of extreme weather events, which caused over $200 billion in global economic losses in 2023, is disrupting global supply chains and exacerbating migration pressures, particularly for the U.S. Investing in climate resilience abroad offers a significant opportunity for U.S. businesses in technology, engineering, and infrastructure, while also supporting job creation at home.
A new initiative targeting service investment to build resilience in low-capacity communities would help build capacity at the local level, train a new generation of service-oriented professionals, and ensure that federal funding gets to the communities that need it most.
National extreme heat resilience requires a “whole of government” federal approach. Here are 18 policy ideas to inspire and inform federal action to tackle our increasingly hot and devastating summers.
The U.S. is short 3.8 million housing units to keep up with household formation. Here are twenty bold policy ideas to fix that.
We’re looking for policy ideas to advance science, technology, and innovation to deliver dramatic progress and build a more inclusive America.
The U.S. is experiencing more frequent and intense wildland fires. While fire is a natural and normal ecological process, today’s fires are causing more destruction to people and property. A changing climate and our current policy responses are amplifying these negative effects. The U.S.’s response to wildland fire can be better informed by science, evidence, […]
While state and local governments can make significant advances, national extreme heat resilience requires a “whole of government” federal approach.
The U.S. is experiencing more frequent and intense wildland fires, but policy informed by science, evidence, and Indigenous perspectives can lessen the disastrous effects.
