Erick Burgueño Salas
Research expert covering climate change and the water industry
Get in touch with us nowThe effects of a changing climate
The annual average temperature in the U.S. has experienced an upward trend in the past decades, with its highest value reported in 2012, when the mean temperature around the country hit 55.3°F for the first time since records started. The overall increase in temperature is already causing distress in U.S. climate patterns. In 2022, economic losses due to natural disasters reached nearly165 billion U.S. dollars, a slight decrease from the 169 billion dollars record reported a year prior. Of the different types of weather catastrophes, storms are the most destructive disasters, accounting for more than 80 percent of the total economic damage. Storms are also the most deadly. Only in 2022, there were more than 300 fatalities reported due to tropical cyclones, winter storms, and severe thunderstorms in the U.S.Along with natural disasters, the U.S. will have to cope with other consequences climate change will bring. For instance, due to a combination of melting water from glaciers and ice sheets and thermal expansion of seawater, sea level rise will be a pressing matter for coastal zones.
A call for action
As the second largest GHG emitter in the world, the U.S. bears a big responsibility in fighting climate change, and many actions have already been put into place. Net renewable electricity generation in the U.S. is rising, reaching a record high of almost 913 terawatt hours in 2022. Another example is the transition from fossil fuel vehicles to electric solutions. Recent years have seen a boom in this field, with sales of plug-in electric light vehicles growing 50 percent in 2022 in comparison to the previous year.The current administration has also reached several climate action milestones. In 2021, the U.S. rejoined the Paris Agreement under the administration of President Joe Biden, setting a new national goal of reducing emissions by 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. In August of the following year, the U.S. Congress enacted the Inflation Reduction Act, calling it the most ambitious investment in combating the climate crisis in the country’s history. This law establishes a set of clean energy incentives mostly through tax credits, for everything from electric vehicles to carbon sequestration. Even if some changes are already happening, more action is needed on topics such as pollution taxes, with elusive support of carbon pricing. Assuming no new policies put in place nor any drastic deviation in technology advancements, annual GHG emissions in the U.S. are forecast to decline around 40 percent by 2050, compared with 2005 values.
