Overview
Climate change is a serious and growing threat to the economy of Virginia and the country as a whole. Climate-related disasters inflicted nearly $150 billion in damage to the national economy last year, including up to $500 million in damage in Virginia alone. And those figures do not include hampered military preparedness, public funds spent on climate resiliency and adaptation rather than other priorities, and other costs that are increasingly impacting Virginia’s military, businesses, and households.
The good news is that we don’t need to resign ourselves to these costs as they continue to rise. With the right actions from Congress and Virginia’s leadership in Richmond, we can blunt the cost of climate change while simultaneously creating jobs, driving additional economic growth, and attracting new private capital.