Paying for Extreme Weather: Wildfire, Hurricanes, Floods and Droughts Quadrupled in Cost Since 1980

The costs related to natural disasters, growing increasingly intense and frequent because of climate change, have quadrupled since 1980, a new report says. In the U.S. alone, natural disasters, including fires, tropical storms, floods, droughts and crop freezes, have cost the country an estimated $1.77 trillion in those 40 years, with expenses expected to grow steeper as the planet warms.