Examining the impact of Climate Change on u. S. Household finances, especially for those living and foldable communities. The Treasury Department released a report that they of this event. This is hosted by the urban institute in washington, d. C. And runs about one hour and 20 minutes. Welcome, and good afternoon. I am signemary, Vice President urban institute on the center of labor, Human Services and population. And also a Financial Wellbeing expert. So this topic, todays topic is there into to my heart. Thank you to all of us could joint joined both in the room today and online and before i jump in here are a few notes on housekeeping. One, the event is being recorded and the recording and relevant links will be posted online after thehe event. If youre joining us virtually the life captions are turned on and you can adjust those at the bottom of your screen. And if youre b in the room you can use the qr code that is on all of your table to submit your questions, and the 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 postsurvey, postevent survey, and would ask that you share your feedback with us. Its helpful for us and for panelists to you what youre thinking about andou to shape hw we do events in what we look at in the future. If you would like to join the conversation online on twitter, please use liveaturban. Okay, so with logistics behind us, i want to thank all of our speakers for joining us for a discussion of how Climate Change impacts household Financial Wellbeing. We are going to be asked going both what drives the risks and also the pathways to building resilience. So far in 2023, the United States has suffered 23 billion disaster, many of them fueled by Climate Change. The increasing frequency, severity, and the cost of the disasters and the warmer temperatures is having an impact on peoples Financial Health. We know that many families in the unitedam states live paychek to paycheck, and that disasters can push households in the financial instability and distress. So it is imperative we both consider climate and are policies and programs, and that we consider them when were looking at those policies and programs aimed at both Financial Health and wealth. So 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. In a few moments im going to be joined on stage by graham steele, assistant secretary for Financial Institutions at the u. S. Department of the treasury. And were going to discuss treasuries work on Climate Change an American Household finances. Prior to his role as an assistant secretary to serve as director of the corporations and Society Initiative at Stanford Graduate School of business, that the Research Initiative that examined issues at the heart of markets, business and government to promote more accountable cabinet capitalism and governance. So we are pleased to have him here with us today. And please join me in welcoming assistant secretary graham steele. [applause] great to have you. Thanks for coming. Good to be here. Thanksomom to urban for lettings joined them. We often talk about climate in a a variety of different contexts, and today you released the report, treasury released the report, the impact of Climate Change on American Household finances. And so such an important intersection here, these two. Can you give us some background on the framework that you used in the report and why you chose a framework . Sure. I think we all know we are seeing today up in new york in particular the event of wildfires, flooding, heat waves are as you said in opening getting more and more frequent and more and more intense we know that theres a fivefold increase in the number of billion dollar disaster in the u. S. Going back to 1980, and thats even adjusted for inflation per week that things like Hurricane Ian last year we had 157eo people died and cost assessment to be over 100 billion. So were saying intensity and impacts here. As you know we released this report on the impact of Climate Change and index American Householdha today. Trying to get a close look at more because we see these numbers. E we see headline numbers around events like the wildfires in maui where we think they will cost around 4 6 billion. We want to get a little more of a human face on this kind of highlevel events and these numbers come kind of impact with the impacts are to households. Then we will take a step back a moment because some f folks, in the positions of income something to get like what is a Treasury Departments talking about Climate Change, like what is your agency have to do with all ofr this . But i with a number one, the white house has told all the cabinet agencies that we need to take a whole of government and hope of executive branch approach to climate picsan all e agencies need to think about what our goal is here in addressing the problems and then creatingcr solutions to address the challenges of Climate Change. Change. The secretary herself has spoken repeatedly about the urgency of addressing Climate Change both the cost and the toll that it imposes on the nation and the globe. But also think about what we can bring to bear as an agency to do that. So she is encourage all of our office to think that what were we could be doing to both analyze the problem and then think about solutions. And so we have done work through the Financial StabilityOversight Council about looking at thehe o broader risks to the Financial System caused by Climate Change. I am also responsible for the federal insurance offers which we can talk a a little bit abt more about later but there are things t happening in the propey and Casualty Insurance market due to Climate Change that were looking at. But weser office of consumer policy and through our partners in the Financial Literacy and Education Commission, we want to take a closer look at the Household Level and individual level impact of some of these events to rethink a particular about how the impact Household Level finances. To go back to the example of the wildfires, you can think about when the country that happens, what are the impacts on the ground . I do think theres aro of life that happens for folks that are exposed to the wildfires but there are also people that do work on maui who may now come the business may be closed down, there may besi Agricultural Workers enough you can go to the place of business anymore. So its either not accessible or theyve had their hours cut come serve and not getting income. At the same time there might be costs related to relocation, rebuilding their home after the fact. There could be less access resources on the island which could lead to Higher Energy or food prices. So that was really our goal with this report was to try to really put the granger Household Level focus on some of these broader events where we see the macrolevel impacts and the cost but understand it really reflects in peoples daytoday lives. And so important to go just see those total cost but also the daytoday lives on people. I know that the report primarily focused on flooding, and that includes extreme weather events, sea levels rising, flooding related to wildfires, extreme heat. Research from my urban institute colleagues and others demonstrate that disasters like this can have a long and and even process in terms of both recovery and rebuilding after, and that it can be really an equal in how different people are affected. I know the treasure report also look at the different impacts. What did you find . We tried to do a couple of things. One was just look at the broaded impact the Climate Changes have it across all households. So for workers in places like maui, that kind of dynamic that i i describe, but you could have events in other places that create unsafe working conditions for all workers regardless of what their Household Financial condition looks like. You c could imagine events increasing the cost of healthcare for example, on people or increase property destruction that happens with hurricanes. You can also look at the broad impact of chronic Climate Change that is happening this past summer was hottest summer on record, what does that mean for workers who work outside in the agriculture industry, and construction and manufacturing of things like that but also what does it do to energy prices, race a cost of like air conditioning . One piece of it is looking about the ways what other voices impacts all households, but then we really wanted to drill down on some of the most financially vulnerable households to better understand what the implications would be for those folks. People who do, people like folks in this room who do research on Financial Capability and wellbeing will be awareia of things like the cpd 2021 survey that found really onethird of households n could not cover moe than one months worth of expenses if you lost their income, or the annual Federal Reserve the set over 60 of households that even afford a shock 400 expense out of the cash and other available resources. That was one of the things we really wanted to look at in addition to the broad impact of Climate Change were how does that get exacerbated when a household is financially vulnerable . We are in washington. If folks were here this past summer this is a think i was there used to come from california, but there were wildfire smoke from the canadian fires here in washington, d. C. , even this past summer. So can Agricultural Workers comp construction workers who dont want to or are unable to inhale wildfire smoke within cant work, what does it mean if crates unsafe conditions . What does it mean for lowwage workers . Households with Health Conditions within our ingesting the smoke who then have increased medical costs, what does it mean terms of increasing the financial per carry . And again i think so be a term to repeat with consumer policy and insurance is probably times it comes out of this, for households that can barely afford to really absorb that kind ofaf expense. That is what were trying to do is think about the broad impacts of Climate Change, what does me mean for the most vulnerable. One section of the report i would recommend people take a look at his we tried to do a little bit oft geospatial mappig to try to see where those communities are located, where this overlaps are happening. The three rescue mission key, wildfire and flooding. What we saw is a little more than 50 of counties in the u. S. Are exposed to the impacts of climate in one of these three different ways. And then you overlay the Financial Vulnerability on top of that, you see theres about 20 of counties that have this overlay of exposure to Climate Change and Financial Vulnerability as well. Thats really important for someone who works in the federal government to understand that Climate Change is a global phenomenon and we are were experiencing it at a National Level but also the different committees are expecting this in very different ways and try to understand what those communities are,e what their experience he didnt try to think how we respond to that as well. Mapping is so important to help. Where to target resources. Where do we go first . I guess where i want to turn to talk a lot about the problems. What about some of thehe solutions . What can we do here . How can we support . How is treasury thinking that supporting states as they are looking at their policies and programs . I wish this report had all of thee solutions to all of the issues that we raised. Unfortunately its not that ambitious of a project. But yes, you are absolutely right. Try to does haveigig a role plao some degree and offering assistance to different kinds of businesses or state and local governments. Treasury was given historic to administer through the inflation reduction communities with various different kinds of clean energy investment, state and local governments, individual households to invest in things like evs and of the type of heat pumps, other types of energy efficiency. And also think about in the sense ofnv the technology and nw products and services that might help reduce the impact that some of these technologies are having on the claim as well. Thats an important part of it. Some folks were at the white house yesterday for the introduction of the resilient framework, another way we can get out ahead of this stuff. I think one piece of the report we can talk a little bit more about the specific recommendations is about households that have household can be aware and protect themselves and think about the ways its impacting them. An important thing for policymakers in particular realize when you look at the impact of Climate Change is some of these can be handled on the back and in terms of protection but also theres a lot of upfront investment that has to happenen which make communities and households more resilient. Atol times arsenic is might not connect those things and see the weight upfront recency and investments might lead to some of these Better Outcomes on the backend. And everywhere at the department were trying tohe think about tt is a third office the point is the office of community and economic development. Weve been trying to work in particular with community Financial Institutions to think, to hear from them what kind of investment work they are doing to try to help address both the Clean Energy Transition but also make committeesh more resilient to theit physical impacts of Climate Change is an accurate partner with him to make the jump easier as well. So again consistently with the white house, has told the department and with the sect has told us what kind of thing but all the different tools and how we can bring them to bear to address a lot of his really important problems. I just was thinking about you last mention of the Financial Institutions. I know that when the government went out with covidnm relief checks, often the people and give them the most got the last because theyot didnt have the connections to some of the mainstream Financial Institutions. Youve touched on somebody different aspects and the so many different places to come in. In. I know the report touches on credit reports, too. And what happens to credit and price of credit. So thats great. In terms of that state level programs, terms of like people, what can people who are impacted by fisc and what resources might you point into . Sure. Part of this report is identify some of the issues and problems for academics and policy makers to pick up and think about how the work overlaps with some of the issues were racing on the report. We can talk more about those pieces well and if you would like. But also part of the report is trying to raise awareness for households about the challenges they may interact, the equipments also but also to tell the they are not necessarily about when they get into these situations. Probably when people experience catastrophic events, they can feel very isolating, and in particular when we experience Financial Vulnerability, that can feel even more isolating, like it is our problem to solve ourselves come help is not availables to us. But what of the messages the report is trying to get across to households is our resources available, that there are agencies like the ones that join us today like hhs and fema and Even Small Business Administration that have product services, other tools to offer them when to get into these comp winter in thesese precarious situations. There are resources they control on inside the use Climate Resilience toolkit and also programs like Energy Assistance when cost of the energy bills go up. Thats, were trying to do a few Different Things ino the report, make sure households are aware of some of the risk that are out there but also wi