OPINION: Two years into the climate resilience legacy of the Inflation Reduction Act (2024)

On Aug. 16, 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law – the largest investment in clean energy and climate action in American history. Two years later, the Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is spending an unprecedented $3.3 billion to lay the groundwork for a climate-ready future. Communities across the country have been waiting too long for this caliber of investment – which comes at a critical inflection point in our battle against the impacts of climate change.

As we move further into a century increasingly shaped by climate change, every corner of the country is experiencing more extreme weather events than ever before. Between 1980 and 2023, we saw an average of 8.5 weather and climate disasters each year in the United States, with losses totaling over $1 billion each. Already in 2024, there have been 19 and more expected in the final months of the year. The magnitude of challenges posed by the climate crisis was underscored last year when the U.S. endured a record $28 billion in weather and climate disasters that caused more than $90 billion in aggregate damage. The gap is shrinking between what we see in science fiction movies and what we see on the news as increasingly destructive disasters impact our safety, prosperity, and way of life. We are all already paying for the impacts of climate change – whether we realize it yet or not.

Right here in Alaska, I’ve met with community members on the frontlines of climate change – where warming ocean temperatures have accelerated the loss of protective sea ice and increased shoreline vulnerability in the wake of storms. Nearly two years ago, Typhoon Merbok brought extreme water levels and hurricane-force winds into communities during the fall subsistence harvest season. Communities were left without critical food resources during a culturally significant, typically abundant time.

So often we feel helpless in the face of climate change – but thanks to the historic Inflation Reduction Act investments that have been championed by President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, communities coast-to-coast are finally getting the resources they need to combat its impacts with strength and local expertise.

The Inflation Reduction Act funds workforce initiatives to train and place thousands of people in jobs that support resilience efforts – keeping us on track to become a more climate-ready nation. Businesses across the private sector benefit from the environmental intelligence NOAA collects and is improving with Inflation Reduction Act funds.

As we continue to navigate a blazing summer of record-breaking temperatures, heat domes, drought, and wildfires – heat-related illness remains the number one weather-related killer. The Inflation Reduction Act funds research and interventions to mitigate this risk. And, experts are increasingly armed with the resources they need to better face climate-driven hazards and improve drought and coastal monitoring.

Right now, Inflation Reduction Act investments are being brought to life in Alaska by last month’s Climate Resilience Regional Challenge award of $78.9 million to help Alaskan communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis become more resilient to climate change and other coastal hazards.

Building on this momentum and finding ways to meet this demand will be crucial to increasing coastal resilience in the years to come. Across the country, there are unprecedented opportunities to build on NOAA’s progress and scale up successful projects. For just one of NOAA’s competitions – the Climate Resilience Regional Challenge – communities’ demand for funding was 28 times what we could offer, demonstrating the extraordinary need in coastal communities for resources to support resilience projects.

The Biden-Harris Administration is using Inflation Reduction Act funding to redefine our relationships with Earth’s systems. We’re building and rebuilding community infrastructure to support both sustainability and a healthy economy – two synergetic goals that are often mistakenly viewed as mutually exclusive.

Two years after being signed into law, the Inflation Reduction Act – like many other American infrastructure investments – has proven to be remarkably popular. Because of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, we still benefit from the hospitals, schools, and airports that our great-grandparents built. Because of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, our great-grandchildren will be able to watch the sun rise and set from the same coasts we protected.

Richard W. Spinrad, Ph.D., serves as undersecretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator.

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