Photo: Tampa Bay Times
Michael Harper walks along the sea wall at Spa Beach early one morning in August 2012 as waves from Tropical Storm Isaac reached shore. [Times 2012]
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Florida could face $76 billion in climate change costs by 2040, report says
That's billion, with a B. The study says the state would need to spend that much on sea walls to mitigate rising sea levels.
Climate change is going to cost Florida more than any other state. It’s not even close.
That’s according to a new report from Resilient Analytics and the Center for Climate Integrity, which projects that the state could be on the hook for building $76 billion worth of sea walls by 2040 to mitigate the effects of climate change — and that’s based on a conservative sea level rise scenario.
To put that in perspective, Florida’s entire 2018 budget was about $88.7 billion.
“As a nation and as a global community, due to climate change, we are set to undertake the most dramatic economic and social transformation in human history,” said Center for Climate Integrity executive director Richard Wiles. “And yet no one has bothered to even estimate what the core components of climate adaptation will actually cost.”
Read the full story at the Tampa Bay Times.
