The 5 states hit hardest by climate change
Climate-related natural disasters have taken a devastating toll on the United States in recent decades. Between deep freezes, droughts, floods, severe storms, tropical cyclones, wildfires, and winter storms, there have been 376 weather or climate events that caused at least $1 billion in inflation-adjusted losses since 1980, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Cumulative damages resulting from disasters of this magnitude total nearly $2.7 trillion – or over 10% of U.S. gross domestic product in 2023.
The consequences of these events are not strictly economic. Billion-dollar climate disasters have resulted in 16,350 fatalities in the U.S. since 1980, an average of over 370 every year.
Recent trends suggest that large-scale natural disasters will only become more common in the coming years. Between 1980 and 2010, the annual number of billion-dollar climate events hit double digits only twice, never exceeding 12. Meanwhile, in three of the last four years, there have been at least 20 large-scale climate disasters, with a record-high of 28 reported in 2023.
As the frequency of these major weather and climate events has increased, so too has their destructive capacity. The total damage wrought by billion-dollar disasters in the last 10 years topped $1.2 trillion, about $70 billion more than the losses reported over the 30 years between 1980 and 2009.
These disasters do not threaten all parts of the country equally. There are 21 states, mostly concentrated in the Midwest and West, that have not been impacted by a major hurricane or tropical cyclone in at least the last 44 years. Over the same period, 25 of the 50 states have not endured a billion-dollar wildfire event.
But, just as certain natural disasters are a rarity in some states, other parts of the country suffer disproportionately. States like Texas, Florida, and North Carolina have been hit by every type of major climate disaster in recent decades, from droughts and floods to wildfires and winter storms.
The worst states for climate related natural disasters, as measured by the total value of damages, are coastal. Located along the Gulf, the Atlantic, or both, states like Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Texas, are at especially high risk of hurricanes and tropical cyclones. California, meanwhile, has had more billion-dollar wildfires than any other state, and is at higher-risk of catastrophic drought and flooding events than much of the rest of the country.
These five states alone have sustained a combined $1.3 trillion in losses from large-scale climate and weather events since 1980, half the total damage reported nationwide over the same period.
