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CLIMATE WATCH - America is targeting a hotter planet… Bring it on!
That’s the only plausible explanation for the Trump administration’s gung-ho push for 100% fossil fuels and as much coal burning as possible while trashing mitigation of climate change, which is characterized as an expensive hoax, a farce, a threat to the U.S. economy, plus massive roll backs of environmental regulations that force American businesses to spend more to keep America’s environment clean. Based upon these cutbacks of environmental regulations, they’re clearly ignoring climate change.
But the property/casualty insurance industry has no choice in the matter. They are forced to recognize the damage caused by climate change. And, Boy, Oh Boy! are they ever squealing!
More to the point: Climate Change has Trapped the Unites States in a vicious Property Insurance Maelstrom that is negatively impacting homeownership, much more on this sensitive subject follows.
It’s indisputable that the U.S. is intentionally turning up the thermostat at the same time as the world is trying to tone it down. The United States pulling out of the Paris ’15 climate accord is already influencing others to join the U.S., Libya, Iran, and Yemen as the only countries not party to Paris ’15.
But pulling out of Paris ’15 is only part of the hotter climate equation: “Under the Trump administration, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions levels are estimated to rise up to 36 percent higher than current policy by 2035.” (The Trump Administration’s Retreat from Global Climate Leadership, Center for American Progress, Jan. 21, 2025). This certainly helps guarantee a hotter planet.
In addition to withdrawing from Paris ’15, the U.S. has signaled its intent to go one step further and withdraw from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, est. 1992). This is the underlying framework, “the father of international cooperation on climate change” that led to meetings such as Paris ’15. Abandonment will freeze-out the U.S. from any future global climate change negotiations and set a dangerous precedent. This could trigger a domino effect among nations questioning climate obligations and destabilizing the global consensus the Paris Agreement represents.
Already, Argentina’s President Javier Milei is reconsidering his country’s commitment to Paris ’15. Already, countries such as Germany are cutting back on mitigation commitments. Already, several brand-name corporate commitments to cut CO2 emissions by 2030 are out the window. Already, the fossil fuel industry is reneging on reduction of CO2 emissions promises.
Yet, the more the U.S. abandons efforts on global warming, the more property insurance companies abandon insurance altogether or crank up moonshot rates, for example, according to Insurify (a website partnered with major insurance companies) 15 States Facing an Imminent Insurance Crisis, October 4, 2024.
Moreover, the overall insurance industry is feeling the heat as explained in a message from a senior officer of Allianz SE, the world’s largest insurance company: Climate, Risk, Insurance: The Future of Capitalism d/d March 25, 2025).
Unfortunately, the world, other than the property/casualty insurance business, is truly out of touch with the gravity of climate change. Yes, “global warming” is a universal catchall phrase that everybody knows, but “global warming” is too hackneyed to trigger a strong emotional response, and it fails miserably at describing the depths of the biggest challenge in human history. For starters, serious disruptive danger is brewing at both poles and spreading across the land. It’s the reason why 350 polar scientists called an emergency meeting (see below) to warn the world: “Antarctica is starting to come unglued.” This is the nightmare of nightmares.
Already, according to Mau Lau Observatory, CO2 emissions, the primary cause of global warming, are flashing red at 430 ppm. According to an IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report: “In 2016, a worldwide body of climate scientists said that a CO2 level of 430 ppm would push the world past its target for avoiding dangerous climate change.” (MIT Climate Portal).
And, making matters worse yet, it was only a couple of months ago when the aforementioned 350 polar scientists held an urgent ad hoc session in Australia to declare an Antarctic emergency on course to catastrophically cascade because of global warming. That emergency session of November 2024 sent a chilling message to the world: “The experts’ conclusion, published as a press statement, is a somber one: if we don’t act, and quickly, the melting of Antarctica ice could cause catastrophic sea levels rise around the globe.” (Source: Emergency Meeting Reveals the Alarming Extent of Antarctica’s Ice Loss, Earth.com, Nov. 24, 2024)
“Runaway ice loss causing rapid and catastrophic sea-level rise is possible within our lifetimes,’ the team warned in their statement,” Ibid.
Shortly after that spooky news item, another unnerving announcement: Immense methane leaks discovered for the first time in Antarctica. To say “this is troubling” is an understatement. Rapusia.org d/d March 14, 2025, Massive Methane Leaks Detected in Antarctica, Posing Serious Climate Risks: “A team aboard the Sarmiento de Gamboa research vessel observed large columns of gas escaping from the ocean floor, with some extending up to 700 meters (2,300 feet) long and 70 meters (230 feet) wide.” These leaks are whoppers. The methane (CH4) molecule is extremely proficient at blanketing atmospheric heat.
Anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming is indisputable. Global mean temperature has increased far-far beyond nature’s normal course. NASA claims: “The rate change since the mid 20th century is unprecedented over millennia… Scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.” (Evidence, NASA)
Climate change is frustrating; public interest is declining. Climate change/global warming is cast aside as no big deal by people in positions of authority, no worries, blah-blah-blah, whilst perpetrators lose interests in mitigation efforts, with governmental policies abandoning the issue, the reality of global warming falls onto the shoulders of the insurance industry, which is abandoning coverage in some regions and raising prices across the board because of ‘never-witnessed-before’ damage. The property insurance biz is experiencing a crisis. They’re the first ones to admit it.
Along the way, every homeowner is getting hosed by insurance rates because of climate change: “Even if you haven’t suffered direct damage, you’re paying for increasingly extreme weather.” (Nobody’s Insurance Rates are Safe from Climate Change, Yale Climate Connections, Jan.14, 2025)
How does this end? Does the world, out of necessity, become insurance-less? Here’s how Insurance Europe views the dilemma: “The statistics are alarming, as is the destruction happening across Europe and beyond, and this makes the urgency for action undeniable. Cutting greenhouse gases remains a priority.”
Yet, confusion reigns supreme as the world’s largest economy, the U.S. at $30 trillion GDP, rejects the IPCC claim of human-caused climate change as a threat to society. This is completely rejected. But how can the White House ignore: Homeowners Insurance Has Soared Over 50% in These States, CNBC, May 9, 2025. In Florida, a homeowner with fair credit and $350,000 in dwelling coverage could expect to pay $9,462 a year, or $789 a month for insurance in 2024. Climate change is a costly protagonist.
And more troubling yet: South Florida Homes for Sale Quadruple as Residents Leave En Masse, Newsweek, May 11, 2025. As of April 2025, 52,000 listings versus 12,000 a few years ago, hit the South Florida market like a ton of bricks. Are people running-scared?
Confusion about U.S. climate change policy, and its consequences, is hitting American homeowners with a loud thud that reverberates from coast-to-coast as speculation about a RE-recession builds, in large part, fueled by climate change: The Climate Crisis is Set to Erase $1.47 Trillion in US Home Values, Business Insider, Feb. 4, 2025. According to the study, 40% of the losses will come from “climate abandonment communities.”
When will the Trump administration address this ongoing threat to homeownership? It’s an issue that’s well beyond State’s Rights; it’s a national failure with fossil fuel CO2 emissions trapping heat, upending five-thousand years of a Goldilocks climate system. Exxon scientists saw this coming decades ago. Now, it’s become a national nightmare and an emergency in the face of diminishing guarantors.
“How to end this madness?” is the question of the times.
(Robert Hunziker, MA, economic history DePaul University, awarded membership in Pi Gamma Mu International Academic Honor Society in Social Sciences is a freelance writer and environmental journalist who has over 200 published articles appearing in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide.)
