Environment & Climate Change

Juliette Kayyem writes that the government is trying to suppress the message that insurance companies are sending about climate change.

To date, most of the climate policy attention has been focused on the need to reduce the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change and, as a corollary, to accelerate the U.S. economy’s transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. Yet climate change also is straining our nation’s emergency response capabilities as traditional climate-infused disasters such as hurricanes and floods become more frequent and destructive. At the same time, the emergency response community faces new challenges as slower-to-develop climate impacts like drought, heat, and wildfire increasingly are hitting an acute tipping points and becoming life- and livelihood-threatening disasters.

Juliette Kayyem writes that Hurricane Dorian has made the Bahamas the newest evidence of the changing climate and sea-level rise: Disasters are changing, and the response to them must change as well.

Juliette Kayyem explains why the White House’s decision to divert funds from the military to support border wall funding is not only unsound policy but also dangerous. First, the White House last week moved $271 million in Department of Homeland Security funding, a majority of which was allocated for FEMA planning and response, to support border wall construction; this week, the defense secretary authorized more than $3 billion in military funds for barrier construction. Those funds were designated for military construction and upgrades — the very funds Congress designates to keep its bases at full readiness.