By adopting green infrastructure in place of some gray infrastructure, Kansas City reduced the total costs of managing its combined sewer system through 2040 by over $2 billion.
Cities spent decades building pipes and pumps to move water out fast. Hoboken tried absorbing it instead—and cut flooding by 88%.
The economic losses from disasters that are not covered by insurance continue to grow, but resilience projects are generating measurable positive returns.
Cities spent decades building pipes and pumps to move water out fast. Hoboken tried absorbing it instead—and cut flooding by 88%.
From wildfire prevention to flash flood forecasting, better data is enabling earlier, more targeted decisions about risk
Climate resilience is often framed as a problem of insufficient funding. In reality, it is a problem of how funding is structured and deployed.
Incrementalism is often dismissed as not scalable enough to translate into population-level outcomes. But a series of incremental changes, conducted by various stakeholders in concert, can translate into new norms, higher standards, and more resilient cities.
By adopting green infrastructure in place of some gray infrastructure, Kansas City reduced the total costs of managing its combined sewer system through 2040 by over $2 billion.
The economic losses from disasters that are not covered by insurance continue to grow, but resilience projects are generating measurable positive returns.
If today’s funding landscape resembles disconnected wells, then climate resilience requires something closer to a watershed—where resources are intentionally pooled, directed, and circulated across geographies, sectors, and time horizons.
From June through August, warming temperatures and atmospheric moisture combine to produce the hail, tornadoes, and derechos that are now responsible for more cumulative insured losses than tropical cyclones.
Early proof points are what eventually unlock scale, and they almost never look like proof when they begin. We need the compounding of resilience over time, and we need to recognize when the next disaster creates a narrow window for rapid investments in resilience—all at once.
Wildfire-prone communities across the West are no longer waiting for federal dollars to mitigate wildfire risk. As FEMA funding stalls and detection technology gets cheaper, local districts are investing in wildfire-detection sensors, drones, and AI-monitored cameras.
With fire seasons now roughly two months longer than they were in the 1970s, 2026 could reset the ceiling on wildfire losses again.
Climate change and federal policies are making wildfires more frequent and intense. Migration patterns are increasing the exposure of assets to wildfire threats. And assets that are more vulnerable to wildfires translate into higher costs.
With fire seasons now roughly two months longer than they were in the 1970s, 2026 could reset the ceiling on wildfire losses again.
Climate change and federal policies are making wildfires more frequent and intense. Migration patterns are increasing the exposure of assets to wildfire threats. And assets that are more vulnerable to wildfires translate into higher costs.
Part II of our Wildfires Briefing explores four categories of opportunity for the private sector: 1) Implementing modern building materials and codes; 2) Technologies for better fire management; 3) New insurance models; and 4) Private financing for forest management.
Several drivers are contributing to the rise in expensive severe convective storms: 1) population growth in high-risk areas; 2) non-resilient physical assets; and 3) rising building premiums.
The economic losses from disasters that are not covered by insurance continue to grow, but resilience projects are generating measurable positive returns.
If today’s funding landscape resembles disconnected wells, then climate resilience requires something closer to a watershed—where resources are intentionally pooled, directed, and circulated across geographies, sectors, and time horizons.
Wildfire-prone communities across the West are no longer waiting for federal dollars to mitigate wildfire risk. As FEMA funding stalls and detection technology gets cheaper, local districts are investing in wildfire-detection sensors, drones, and AI-monitored cameras.
As federal disaster support shrinks, resilience districts offer local governments a promising new financing tool to fund climate adaptation on their own terms.
