Climate change is having a negative impact on people's everyday lives and damaging the U.S. economy as extreme weather brings flooding, droughts and other disasters to every region in the nation, a federal advisory committee has concluded.
The congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment, produced by more than 300 experts overseen by a panel of 60 scientists, concludes that the nation has already suffered billions of dollars in damages from severe weather-related disruptions, which it says will continue to get worse.
The document, considered the most comprehensive analysis of the effects of climate change on the U.S., was released by the climate panel after a final vote by the authors Tuesday morning. President Barack Obama is planning to promote it in a series of events this week, calling for action to combat the trend and using the report to bring public attention to climate-change-related problems.
"This national climate assessment is the loudest and clearest alarm bell to date signaling the need to take urgent action," said John Holdren, assistant to the president for science and technology, during a news-media call on the report.
The report, by the Federal National Climate Assessment and Development Advisory Committee, details the effects of climate change on every state, from rapidly receding ice in Alaska to heat waves and coastal flooding in the Northeast. Rising seas in the South put major cities such as Miami at risk, it says.
The report pins much of the increase in climate change on human behavior. It says, however, that it isn't too late to implement policies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and calls on governments at all levels to find ways to lower the carbon emissions, particularly from energy production.
"Over recent decades, climate science has advanced significantly. Increased scrutiny has led to increased certainty that we are now seeing impacts associated with human-induced climate change," the report said.
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