Welcome and good afternoon. I am Vice President here at the urban institute the centron labor, human services. And also a Financial Wellbeing expert. So todays topic is near and dear to my heart. Thank you to all of us who joined both in the room today and online. Before a jump in here are a few notes on housekeeping. One the event is being recorded. The recording and relevant links will be posted online after the event. If you are joining us virtually the are turned on you can adjust those at the bottom of your screen. And if you are in the room you can use the qr code thats on all of your table to submit your questions and that virtual audience can submit your questions directly into the question and answer box at any time. We are going to be sharing a link with a post event survey and we ask that you share your feedback with us. It is helpful for us and for panelists to hear what you are thinking about and to shape how we do events in what we look at in the future. If you would like to join the conversation online on twitter please use the live at urban. With the logistics behind us i want to thank all of our speakers for joining us, for a discussion of how Climate Change impacts house hold Financial Wellbeing. We are going to be exploring what drives the risks and also the pathway to building resilience. So far in 2023 the United States has suffered 23 billiondollar disasters. Many of them fueled by Climate Change. The increase being a frequency, severity, the cost of the disasters and the warmer temperatures is having an impact on peoples Financial Health. We know that many families in the United States live paycheck to paycheck. Disasters can push households into financial instability and distress. It is imperative we both consider claimant and our policies and programs we consider them when we are looking at those policies and programs aimed at Financial Health and wealth. This conversation today brings together both leading Research Insights and also the perspectives of federal agencies working at the intersection of climate and Financial Health. And a few moments i will be joined on stage by grandma steeles assistant secretary for Financial Institutions at the u. S. Department of treasury. We are going to discuss the treasurys work on Climate Change in American Household finances. Prior to his role as assistant secretary he served as director of the corporations and society initiatives at Stanford Graduate School of business. That is a Research Initiative that examines issues at the heart of market, business, government. Promote more capitalism and governance. We are pleased to have him here with us today. Please join me and a welcoming assistant secretary. [applause] great to have you. Thank you for coming. Thank you thanks to urban. We often talk about climate in a variety of different contexts. And today you released a report the treasury released a report the impact of Climate Change on American Household finances. It is such an important intersection here of these two. Can you give us some background on the framework you used in the report and why you chose that framework . Short. I think we all know we are seeing today up in new york in particular the event of a wild fire, flooding, heat waves are you say in the opening more and more frequent and more and more intense. There is a fivefold increase in the number of disasters in the u. S. Going back to 1980 and thats adjusted for inflation liver things like Hurricane Ian last year where we had people die the cost that is estimated to be over 100 billion. We are seeing the intensity and the impact here. We released the report on the impact of Climate Change and on the American Household today. Get up close a little bit more we see these numbers. We see headline numbers around events like the wildfires in maui we think theyll cost four 6 billion. We want to get a little more of a human face on these highlevel events and these numbers at impact with the impacts are two households. We take a step back for a moment because some folks a bit in the position ive been and sometimes i get why is the Treasury Department talk about Climate Change . What does your agency have to do with all of this . Number one the white house has told all of the cabinet agencies we need to take a whole of government whole of executive branch approach to climate all agencies need to think about what our role hears in addressing the problems and in creating solutions to address the challenges of Climate Change. The secretary herself is spoken repeatedly about the urgency of addressing Climate Change with the cost and the toll that it imposes on the nation and the globe. But also thinking about what we can bring to bear as an agency to do that. She is encouraged all of our offices to think what more we can be doing to analyze the problem and think about solutions. And so we have done work to the Financial StabilityOversight Council looking at the Financial System caused by Climate Change im also responsible for the federal Insurance Office which we can talk a little bit more about later. Obviously there are things happening. The consumer policy through our partners the Financial Literacy and Education Commission we want to take a closer look at the level of the individual impacts in particular how the impact Household Level finances. To go back to the example of the wildfires we think about when that kind of event happens once the impact on the ground . Obviously theres a catastrophic loss of life that happens of folks that are exposed to wildfires but there are also people who do work on maui their business may be closed down for it may be Agricultural Workers who now they cannot go to the place of business anymore. Were there on accessible, theyve had their hours cut their not getting income. At the same time there might be costs related to relocation to rebuild think their home after the fact. To compete less access to resources on the island which could lead to Higher Energy and food prices. That was really our goal with this report was to try to put the granular household focus on some of the broader events will be see the macrolevel impact on the cost but understand that really reflects in peoples daytoday lives. So important to go in the day today it lives on people. I know the report primarily focused that includes extreme weather events events, sea level rising flooding related to wildfires, extreme heat. Researcher might urban institute colleagues and others demonstrate disasters like this can have a long and uneven process in terms of both recovery and rebuilding after. And that it can be really unequal and how people are affected. I know the treasury report also looked at the different impacts. What did you find there . Or try to do a couple of things. One was look at the broad impact Climate Change is having across all households. For places like maui and that is what i described. You have vents and other places that have unsafe working conditions for all workers regardless of what their Household Condition looks like. You can imagine events increasein the cost of healthcar example on people or increased property destruction that happens with hurricanes. You can also look at the broad impact of chronic Climate Change thats happening out the summer it was the hottest summer on record what is that mean for workers who work outside and many things like that. I wasnt happy with Energy Prices and raise the cost of things like air conditioning. What are the ways this impacts all households . But then we wanted to drill down some the most financially vulnerable households to better understand the implications would be for those folks. So people like folks in this room who do research on Financial Capability and wellbeing will be aware of things of the survey one third of households could not cover more than eight months worth of expenses that they lost their income. Are the annual Federal Reserve essay over 60 of households could not even afford a 400dollar expense out of their cash and other available resources. That was one of the things we really wanted to look at in addition to the broad impact Climate Changes how does that get exacerbated when the household is vulnerable . We are in washington. If folks are here this past summer this was what i was used to coming from california. But that wildfire smoke from the canadian wildfires here in washington d. C. Even this past summer break Agricultural Workers, construction workers who dont want to or unable to inhale wildfire smoke and then cannot work but it creates unsafe conditions what it means for lowwage workers. Households with Health Conditions who are ingesting the smoke and have increased medical costs what is that mean in terms of increasing and again this will be a return with consumer policy on the Property Damage that comes out of this the households that cant barely afford to absorb that expense. Thats what were trying to do is think about the broad impact of Climate Change what it means for the most vulnerable. The one section of the report i recommend people look at is a little bit of geospatial mapping try to see where they are community are happening. Front heat wildfire and flooding. A little more than 50 of counties in the u. S. Are exposed to the impact of climate and one of these three different ways. You overlay the vulnerability on top of that. You see this about 20 of counties that have the overlay of exposure to Climate Change and Financial Vulnerability as well. I think thats really important for someone who works the federal government to understand Climate Change is a global phenomenon. We are experiencing ed at National Level but different communities are experiencing this a very different ways and you try to understand where those pockets of the community are but what they are experiencing and think how do we respond to that as well. That mapping is so important. Where do we go first . I guess where i want to turn to shoot next we talk a lot about the problems. What are these solutions . What can we do here . How can we support . How is treasury thinking about supporting the state as they are look at their policies and programs . I sure pray wish this report had all these solutions and all the issues we raise. Unfortunately it is not that ambitious of a project. But yes you are absently right. Treasury does have two play at some degree in offering assistance to different kinds of businesses are state and local governments. Treasury was given historic appropriations to administer to the inflation reduction act. With different kinds of clean energy investment. Individual households invest in things and other kinds of heat pumps and energy efficiency. Also how to invest in some the Technology New products and services that might help reduce the impact some of the technologies are having on the climate as well. That is an important part of it. Some folks were at the white house yesterday for the introduction of the resilient framework is another way to try to get out ahead of the stuff. That is one piece of the report we can talk more about the recommendations how households could be aware and try to protect themselves on the ways are impacting them. Its important thing for policymakers in particular to realism that look at the impact of Climate Change. Some these can be ham on the hae back and in terms of protections but theres a lot of fun investment that has to happen. And at times policymakers might not connect those two things and see the way the investments might lead to some of the Better Outcomes in area where the department would try to think about that is a third office of mine is office of comedian economic development. Work with Financial Institutions to hear from them what investment work they are doing to try to help address both the Energy Transition will also make it more resilient to the physical impact of Climate Change. Hackley partner with them to make that job easier. Again consistent with the whitee asses told the department try to think about the tools and how we can bring them to bear to address a lot of these problems. Next i was just thinking about your last mention of the Financial Institutions. I know when the government went out with covid relief checks often people needed them the most got them at last it. Its because they did not have the connections to some of the mainstream Financial Institutions. You have touched also make different aspects and submit different places to come in. I know the report touches on credit reports two. And what happens to credit and price of credit. So that its great. In terms of statelevel programs like in terms of people what kind of people are impacted by this what resources might you point them to . Sure. This report is identified some issues and problems for academics and policymakers to pick up and think how their work overlaps with some issues in the report. We can talk more about this pieces as wellin a minute if youd like. But also trying raise awareness for households the challenges theyre making and equip themselves well. But also to tell them they are not necessarily alone and you get to the situations. Probably when people experience catastrophic events they can feel very isolating. And in particular may experience Financial Vulnerability that can feel even more isolating. They can solve ourselves that help is not available to us. One of the messages the report is trying to get across to households there are agencies like the ones that are joining us today like hhs and fema and Small Business administration that has product services, other tools to offer them. With there in the situations or resources they can draw on. There is a toolkit for theres also programs like Energy Assistance from the cost of their energy bills go up. We are trying to do a few different places. Make sure households are aware of some risks that are out there but also let them know they are not on their own. There are resources available. During the covid crisis everyone expected Financial Health to take a huge dip. Certainly not everybody fared equally well. But the programs and policies in place we did not do that over all. It can really work. We dont have a solutions that we are laying out the research. What additional knowledge or research do we need in order to get to them provide more solutions . There is potentially we view this report as a first step for additional policymakers. Academics, other type of research to hopefully pick up the baseline we are laying out and take it in a different direction to find out their interests are. The pieces that stick out to me as being of interest i would love to see other stakeholders really drill down. The psychological impact of these kinds of events. The trauma of experiencing some climate related disaster. But also the way Financial Stress impacts people Psychological Health and wellbeing. Im kind of what that does to peoples decisionmaking. How they respond to one of these situations. I think we know a lot of financial behaviors emotion driven in a lot of ways. The stress of a climate event on top of that and the threat of losing your home or your Community Just what that does to households. Then again how policy makers responding to those kinds of issues. It might be individual personal issue. But theres a role for others to step in and help them navigate this kind of situations. I think a second piece of this hopefully the geographic aspect of the report might tee up for others is how certain populations are impacted by these kind of events. At the household and Community Level. We are looking at it from the perspective but we know financial certain communities are particular impacted as well. And might also beat front line in communities now. So really drilling down on the specific populations that are most impacted by Climate Change in the Financial Vulnerability i would be grossly negligent if