GAO Report Summarizes Climate Adaptation Actions by Select Foreign Governments and the US

GAO has published a report entitled, “Climate Change:  Selected Governments Have Approached Adaptation through Laws and Long-Term Plans.”  The report focuses on fiscal exposure to climate-related risks and describes how selected governments (the European Union, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom) have approached enhancing resilience to weather-related disasters through climate change adaptation; as well as steps the US government has taken to enhance resilience through climate change adaptation.

The impetus for the GAO report stems from the President’s FY 2017 Budget that estimated direct costs to the Federal government at over $357 billion for managing all of the extreme weather and fire events in the last decade; and the United States Global Change Research Program’s (USGCRP) 2014 National Climate Assessment findings that as extreme weather events become more frequent and intense, they pose increasing financial risks to the Federal government.  The report includes:  a table showing the “Relationship among Risks, Resilience, Hazard Mitigation, and Climate Change Adaptation;” cost estimates of US disasters totaling over $1 billion per event; and a summary of actions by the five foreign government and the US related to planning, coordination, funding, monitoring and evaluation, aligning climate change adaptation with broader disaster resilience strategies, and legislative initiatives.

For more information and to read the report, visit the GAO website.