Treating wood as a public utility, rather than a waste product, could reduce fire risk, support insurer re-entry, and unlock economic value that currently goes up in smoke.
Treating wood as a public utility, rather than a waste product, could reduce fire risk, support insurer re-entry, and unlock economic value that currently goes up in smoke.
The federal government's retreat from climate adaptation has created a gap in data, funding, and coordination, but a new decentralized ecosystem of nonprofits, state governments, and coalitions is stepping up to fill the void and may prove more resilient to political disruption in the long run.
As federal disaster support shrinks, resilience districts offer local governments a promising new financing tool to fund climate adaptation on their own terms.
Resilience districts give local governments a new financing mechanism to fund climate adaptation, but their success depends on applying a forward-looking, risk-informed approach rather than defaulting to traditional bond financing logic.
The absence of references to climate change in utilities' bond disclosures suggests we have not systematically assessed how climate hazards could disrupt operations or revenues and, just as concerning, that they aren’t incorporating climate risk into capital planning and investment decisions.
Twenty-three billion-dollar disasters, $115 billion in damage, and not one hurricane: 2025 was a masterclass in how climate risk in the U.S. has changed.
Twenty-three billion-dollar weather and climate disasters struck the United States in 2025, revealing important takeaways for decision-makers in the real estate, public infrastructure, and insurance sectors.
Property insurance markets across the U.S. are under strain as premiums rise and insurers pull back from high-risk regions. In response, a growing number of states are leaning on public and quasi-public reinsurance backstops.
States are making a mistake by using public reinsurance mechanisms to address rising insurance costs. Legislators should invest in climate resilience and risk reduction rather than transfer risk to taxpayers and ignore the underlying drivers of catastrophic insurance losses.
Extreme weather events and a changing climate are reshaping long-term housing affordability across America. The result is a migration pattern that would have shocked demographers a decade ago: people are leaving the Sun Belt and heading to the Rust Belt.
As the climate crisis exposes broader swaths of the U.S. to severe weather, responsible future-proofing strategies must account not only for fortified development but also for comprehensive cleanup. Real resilience can't exist without effective remediation first.
