Benefits of Global Action on Climate Change

IEc recently supported EPA’s Climate Change Division in producing three comprehensive reports on the physical and economic impacts of climate change in the U.S.  The reports are a product of EPA’s Climate Impacts and Risk Analysis (CIRA) project, which quantifies damages to multiple sectors of the U.S. economy (e.g., infrastructure, health, and water) resulting from climate change under multiple scenarios.

The most recent report, Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the United States: A Focus on Six Impacts, analyzes disproportionate risks of climate change to socially vulnerable groups across the United States. Specifically, it contributes to a better understanding of the degree to which four socially vulnerable populations—defined based on income, educational attainment, race and ethnicity, and age—may be more exposed to the highest impacts of climate change in six categories affecting health, labor, traffic, and property. IEc staff conducted five of the six analyses, and also wrote and designed the report.

The first report, Climate Change in the United States: Benefits of Global Action, includes analyses designed and executed by IEc staff, including those focused on infrastructure, water quality, water supply, and wildfire damages. In addition, our consultants drafted methodological summaries for all the analyses; compiled essential data; and developed numerous charts and other graphics to highlight key findings. IEc also oversaw the development of the CIRA website; created infographics and designed the layout of the report; assisted in responding to peer review comments on the draft report; and supported the report’s release through the development of presentations, talking points, and one-pagers.

The second report, Multi-Model Framework for Quantitative Sectoral Impacts Analysis, presents the results of the second phase of the CIRA project, with the goal of informing the fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). IEc staff designed and executed ten of the analyses featured in the report, including those related to infrastructure (roads, bridges, rail, Alaska infrastructure, urban drainage, and coastal property), health (water quality and harmful algal blooms), and water resources (water quality, and municipal and industrial water supply). Our consultants again played a central role in the development of the report, including drafting and editing text and developing infographics, maps, and charts to highlight key findings for all the analyses included in the report.

Full Report
Technical Appendix

IEc also supported the USEPA coauthors of a paper titled, Climate damages and adaptation potential across diverse U.S. sectors, by Jeremy Martinich and Allison Crimmins, Nature Climate Change (2019).  Data referenced in that paper can be found below.

IEc continues to work with EPA on this project and recently developed a paper titled Climate damage functions for the effects of temperature and precipitation in the United States submitted to the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy in August 2018. Data supporting this paper can be downloaded below.