Climate and environment updates: Fires would have been extreme without climate change

(NEW YORK) — The climate crisis is not a distant threat; it’s happening right now and affecting what matters most to us. Hurricanes intensified by a warming planet and drought-fueled wildfires are destroying our communities. Rising seas and flooding are swallowing our homes. And record-breaking heat waves are reshaping our way of life.

The good news is we know how to turn the tide and avoid the worst possible outcomes. However, understanding what needs to be done can be confusing due to a constant stream of climate updates, scientific findings, and critical decisions that are shaping our future.

That’s why the ABC News Climate and Weather Unit is cutting through the noise by curating what you need to know to keep the people and places you care about safe. We are dedicated to providing clarity amid the chaos, giving you the facts and insights necessary to navigate the climate realities of today — and tomorrow.

2024 natural disasters cost the world $320 billion in damages

While its impact varies from disaster to disaster, extensive research has found that changes in our climate are making extreme weather events like heat waves, hurricanes, flooding and wildfires worse. Now, a new analysis shows us just how costly these natural disasters were in 2024.

Munich Re, a reinsurance company, found that natural disasters in 2024 caused $320 billion worth of financial losses worldwide. That’s $52 billion more than in 2023. And of those losses, the company says less than half were covered by insurance.

According to the company, weather catastrophes were responsible for almost all of the financial loss. They say 93% of overall losses and 97% of insured losses were caused by severe weather like floods, wildfires, thunderstorms and tropical cyclones. Hurricanes Helene and Milton took the top spot for the most destructive disasters of 2024.

Munich Re says 2024 was also the third-most expensive year in terms of insured losses and the fifth-most costly for overall costs since 1980.

“The physics are clear: the higher the temperature, the more water vapour and therefore energy is released into the atmosphere. Our planet’s weather machine is shifting to a higher gear. Everyone pays the price for worsening weather extremes, but especially the people in countries with little insurance protection or publicly funded support to help with recovery,” said Munich Re’s chief climate scientist, Tobias Grimm, in a statement.

-ABC News climate unit’s Matthew Glasser

Climate change amplified dryness, but LA fires still extreme without it: UCLA analysis

In a new quick-turn analysis, UCLA climate scientists found that climate change could be responsible for roughly a quarter of the extreme vegetation dryness present when the Palisades and Eaton fires began. But they say the fires would still have been extreme even without that moisture deficit.

“We believe that the fires would still have been extreme without the climate change components noted above, but would have been somewhat smaller and less intense,” the team noted.

The climate scientists at UCLA’s Climate & Wildlife Research Initiative considered what contributed to the fire “to quantify how unusual these factors are, in the context of the natural weather and climate variability.”

The researchers examined the intense summer heat, drought and extreme precipitation that impacted the region in recent years. They concluded that the unusually warm temperatures during the summer and fall of 2024 are the most likely way climate change could have helped intensify the wildfires by lowering fuel moisture in the region.

However, the analysis found that this stretch of unusually warm weather was likely not the primary driver of the extreme vegetation dryness that was in place at the time of the wildfires.

Researchers point to the lack of early wet season precipitation as the main contributor of the extremely dry fuels, estimating that about 75% of the dryness was due to lack of rain and roughly 25% attributed to the stretch of anomalous warmth. They say the current rain deficit is more likely due to California’s highly variable natural climate rather than human-amplified climate change.

“As I’ve often said, no one claims that climate change directly causes natural disasters. Instead, we highlight that human-caused climate change amplifies these events. As this issue becomes more pronounced, it’s essential that we focus on mitigation, adaptation, and planning for the warming that is already inevitable,” explained Ginger Zee, ABC News chief meteorologist and chief climate correspondent.

Based on their findings, the research team recommends aggressively suppressing fire ignitions when extreme fire weather is forecast, making homes more fire resistant, and building new units in low wildfire risk zones.

The analysis has not been peer-reviewed and additional findings are likely to emerge as new studies are completed.

-ABC News Climate Unit

A perfect storm: How weather and climate fueled LA’s devastating wildfires

The devastating wildfires in Southern California were fueled by a perfect storm of weather and climate factors. While the exact causes of the fires are still under investigation, the conditions that led to their rapid spread are a combination of a lots of rain followed by extreme dryness and powerful winds. We also know that climate change is amplifying the intensity and destructiveness of wildfires in general.

After a period of massive amounts of rain and flooding, Los Angeles has only seen 0.16 inches of rain since May 6, leaving the region exceptionally dry and filled with fuel for potential fires. But dryness alone wasn’t enough to create the chaos. An extraordinary mountain wave wind event, with gusts reaching 100 mph, spread the flames uncontrollably. At that point, firefighters were not going to be able to stop them.

The National Weather Service had warned of these conditions 36 hours before the fires began, calling them “life-threatening and destructive.” Unlike a similar wind event in 2011, this year’s extreme dryness and a unique atmospheric setup made the winds even more devastating, spreading fires to areas not typically impacted by those weather conditions.

While climate change’s exact impact on these fires is still under study, scientists agree that along with rapid urbanization, human-amplified climate change is intensifying dry-wet cycles that increases vegetation growth followed by extreme drying. This hydroclimate whiplash, along with more extreme heat, is contributing to wildfires being larger and more destructive.

-ABC News Chief Meteorologist and Chief Climate Correspondent Ginger Zee, ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck, ABC News Climate Unit’s Matthew Glasser and ABC News meteorologist Dan Manzo

How global warming is making Earth’s climate more volatile

Scientists know that human-amplified climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of many extreme weather events, but our changing climate could also be making wild weather swings more common and more extreme, according to new research published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment and the Fifth National Climate Assessment.

For example, moving from devastating drought to record-breaking precipitation, or vice versa.

Parts of the world, like the southwestern U.S., historically experience highly variable weather and climate conditions, typically shifting from periods of very dry to very wet weather. However, in recent years, the rapid succession of extreme droughts, wildfires and floods has significantly impacted these regions, prompting scientists to look closely at how global warming affects climate variability.

The new research, which involved UCLA and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, further investigated this variability, focusing specifically on hydroclimate volatility. Hydroclimate volatility is sudden, large and/or frequent transitions between arid and very wet conditions.

Researchers found that this volatility, also known as “hydroclimate whiplash,” has become more frequent and will increase significantly as global temperatures rise.

The analysis found that since the mid-20th century, inter-annual hydroclimate volatility has increased by 8% to 31% over land areas, meaning more frequent shifts from dry to wet conditions in recent decades.

“This increase in hydroclimate volatility likely underpins a good portion of the societal perception that the impacts from climate change are accelerating,” Daniel Swain, lead researcher and climate scientist with UCLA and UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, said in a statement.

To better illustrate their findings, the authors formally introduced the analogy of an “expanding atmospheric sponge,” saying that the underlying physical processes driving the increase in volatility can be compared to using a kitchen sponge.

With each degree of global temperature rise, the hypothetical sponge becomes 7% larger, and, therefore, can hold more water. — just like a larger kitchen sponge can soak up more water from the countertop compared to a smaller one. And when you wring out the bigger sponge, more water will pour out. A larger sponge will also require more water to become fully saturated.

A warmer atmosphere will also want to soak up more water vapor to achieve this through processes like evaporation, which can enhance dry conditions. These changes in atmospheric water vapor capacity will not only increase the chances of moving from very dry to very wet conditions, but it could fuel droughts and more extreme rainfall.

And as hydroclimate volatility continues to increase, more rapid swings between extreme weather events will amplify many of the associated hazards and potentially require changes to how we manage them.

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

Biden bans offshore oil and gas drilling in 625 million acres of ocean

Just days before he leaves office, President Joe Biden is taking executive action to ban offshore oil and gas drilling in more than 625 million acres of ocean.

Using a provision in the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act that gives the president the authority to ban drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf ocean zone, Biden declared the entire U.S. East Coast, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California and portions of the Northern Baring Sea in Alaska off limits to future oil and natural gas leasing.

“My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs. It is not worth the risks,” Biden said in a statement.

The decision is not unprecedented. President Barack Obama used the act to ban oil and gas production in parts of the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans. And President Donald Trump used it to prohibit drilling off both Florida coasts and the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina. Trump also tried to overturn the Obama decision in 2019, but a U.S. District Court judge ruled that it would require an act of Congress to undo the ban. With that ruling, Trump may have difficulty ridding himself of the ban.

Environmental groups are praising the decision, and one senior administration official told ABC News that the ban is “one of the most significant climate actions the president could take” regarding climate protection and natural resource protection.

The American Petroleum Institute panned the move, saying, “American voters sent a clear message in support of domestic energy development, and yet the current administration is using its final days in office to cement a record of doing everything possible to restrict it.”

The group, which represents America’s natural gas and oil industry, is urging “policymakers to use every tool at their disposal to reverse this politically motivated decision and restore a pro-American energy approach to federal leasing.”

But Biden is pushing back on the criticism, and the White House says hundreds of municipalities and thousands of elected officials have formally opposed offshore drilling in these areas because of health, environmental and economic threats.

“We do not need to choose between protecting the environment and growing our economy, or between keeping our ocean healthy, our coastlines resilient, and the food they produce secure and keeping energy prices low. Those are false choices,” Biden added in his statement.

While the eastern Gulf of Mexico is considered a lucrative region for drilling, the oil and gas industry has not shown much interest in developing some of the other areas receiving the new protection. And there’s been bipartisan pressure to protect many of these locations as many legislators don’t want oil platforms near their beaches.

-ABC News Climate Unit’s Matthew Glasser and ABC News White House Correspondent MaryAlice Parks

Could the UK be a model for clean electricity production?

When it comes to curbing climate change, scientists have been clear. The world needs to stop burning fossil fuels. However, much of the world still depends on significant amounts of oil, gas and coal for its energy needs.

England kicked off the coal power revolution in 1882 and, for the next 142 years, burned the greenhouse gas-emitting energy source. But last year, the U.K. became the first G7 country to phase out coal power plants. When the Ratcliffe-on-Soar plant in Nottinghamshire closed in September, it marked the end of an era for the most-polluting fossil fuel in that region.

A new analysis by Carbon Brief, a U.K.-based climate publication, found that by eliminating coal and adopting more clean energy sources, the U.K. has significantly cleaned up its electricity generation, meaning it’s generating the least amount of greenhouse gas emissions in its history.

According to the analysis, in 2024, renewable energy sources reached a record-high 45% in the country, while fossil fuels made up 29%. Nuclear energy accounted for another 13%. Over the last decade, renewable energy sources have more than doubled. As a result, carbon emissions have plunged by two-thirds over that time.

While gas-fired power plants are still the U.K.’s single-largest source of electricity, wind power has almost caught up. However, the analysis found that when new wind projects come online in the coming months, the U.K. will likely generate more power from wind than gas in 2025.

While the incoming Trump administration calls for more drilling and fossil fuel use, including coal, in the United States, the U.K. just had its cleanest year ever for electricity generation. The combination of sunsetting coal power plants and increasing the amount of renewable energy is moving the country in the direction scientists say is crucial for stopping the worst impacts of human-amplified climate change.

-ABC News Climate Unit’s Matthew Glasser

New York will make polluters pay for climate change damage

New York State is establishing a “Climate Superfund” that will make companies that release large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions financially responsible for some of the damage that climate change caused to the state’s infrastructure, communities and ecosystems.

On Thursday, Gov. Kathy Hochul, signed a bill into law requiring large fossil fuel companies to “pay for critical projects that protect New Yorkers.” Citing the hundreds of billions of dollars the state will have to spend on climate adaptation through 2050, the law requires that the companies responsible for most carbon emissions, more than a billion metric tons, between 2000-2018 pay nearly $3 billion annually for the next 25 years.

“With nearly every record rainfall, heatwave, and coastal storm, New Yorkers are increasingly burdened with billions of dollars in health, safety, and environmental consequences due to polluters that have historically harmed our environment,” Hochul said in a press statement.

The new law calls climate change “an immediate, grave threat to the state’s communities, environment, and economy.” According to NASA, 97% of climate scientists believe human activity, specifically burning fossil fuels, is the primary driver of climate change and global warming. And those changes to the climate have resulted in more intense and more frequent extreme weather events.

The New York legislature said the “Climate Superfund” was now possible because scientific research enables them “to determine with great accuracy the share of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere by specific fossil fuel companies over the last 70 years or more, making it possible to assign liability to and require compensation from companies commensurate with their emissions during a given time period.”

“The governor’s approval of the Climate Change Superfund Act is a welcome holiday gift for New York taxpayers,” said Blair Horner, executive director of the New York Public Interest Research Group, in a statement. “Until her approval, New York taxpayers were 100% on the financial hook for climate costs. Now Big Oil will pay for much of the damages that they helped cause.”

The state anticipates collecting up to $75 billion over 25 years, and the law requires that at least 35% of the funds go to disadvantaged communities.

New York State Senator Liz Krueger said the new legislation was modeled after the federal Superfund law that requires polluters to pay for toxic waste cleanups.

But not everyone is cheering the new legislation. In a letter to Gov. Hochul, urging her to veto the bill, the Business Council of New York State, which represents more than 3,000 companies, chambers of commerce and associations, wrote, “The bill discriminates by targeting only the largest fossil fuel extraction and processing firms, including petroleum, natural gas, and coal.”

The Council added, “This legislation ignores the near universal use and benefits associated with fossil fuel.” They argued that the new law would do nothing to address what they said is the primary cause of carbon emissions: “consumption.”

There are still a lot of specifics that have yet to be determined, and the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation is responsible for figuring out the program’s details over the next few years. With legal challenges all but certain, it will be some time before the companies actually have to pay up.

-ABC News Climate Unit’s Matthew Glasser

Could climate change bring more earthquakes?

Earthquakes are usually triggered by seismic activity deep beneath the Earth’s surface and far beyond the influence of atmospheric conditions. However, according to new research, there may be instances where climate change can impact seismic activity.

A recent Colorado State University study suggests that melting glaciers could impact earthquake activity in some areas. Researchers analyzed southern Colorado’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains during the last ice age. They found the active fault responsible for triggering earthquakes was held in place by the weight of glaciers sitting on top of it.

Thousands of years ago, as the last ice age ended and the planet began to naturally warm, glaciers in this region began to melt. The study found that as the ice melted, there was less pressure on the quake-prone fault, which triggered an increase in earthquake activity. Basically, the glacier was holding the fault in place — less ice, less weight.

There is limited scientific evidence linking changes in Earth’s climate to earthquake activity. Still, this study demonstrates that, in some cases, climate-related events, like melting glaciers, could influence seismic events.

Sean Gallen, Geosciences associate professor and senior author of the study, highlights that this research helps us better understand the factors that can drive earthquakes.

Even though the study focused on investigating links between Earth’s natural climate variability (an ice age) and seismic activity, this research shows how other glacier-adjacent faults worldwide could respond as greenhouse gas emissions accelerate global warming.

As human-amplified climate change continues to drive global glacier melt, earthquake activity along these faults could increase as glaciers recede.

“We see this in the rapid mountain glacial retreats in Alaska, the Himalayas and the Alps,” said Cece Hurtado, an author of the study. “In many of these regions, there are also active tectonics, and this work demonstrates that as climate change alters ice and water loads, tectonically active areas might see more frequent fault movements and earthquakes due to rapidly changing stress conditions.”

-ABC News meteorologist Dan Peck

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