Former FEMA Administrator Discusses Climate Resilience and Reducing Risks and Costs

In written testimony provided to the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate discusses the topic of climate resiliency and steps that need to be taken to reduce the risks and costs of making communities more resilient. Fugate notes the federal government already spends billions of dollars annually to deal with the effects of climate change and extreme weather while not spending enough to combat future risk (according to figures cited by Fugate, since 2005 federal funding for disaster assistance is about $430 billion). He adds that that these costs are growing at an unsustainable rate given the effects of heavy precipitation events, extreme temperatures, and the increases incidence of large forest fires since the 1980s. Fugate provides a series of recommendations to address the challenge, which include building better climate impact models and analysis tools, developing a tool to measure a community’s resilience to natural hazards, supporting research in building codes that address climate risk, and preparing for extreme flood risk, among others. Read the testimony at LinkedIn.