Climate

As 2024 winds down, with its parade of climate-and extreme weather-fueled disasters, people across the nation are feeling the sharp pinch of rising insurance premiums and dropped policies. There are other factors at play here—including growing development in flood-prone and wildfire-prone areas and fundamental inequities and information gaps in the insurance market—but all of that is being exacerbated by worsening flooding, wildfires and intensified storms. Policymakers and regulators must act quickly because the market is not going to solve this problem on its own, and it’s definitely not going to do it in a way that protects low- and middle-income people. 

Please see earlier blogposts I’ve written on this topic to learn more.  

More data transparency is urgently needed 

Despite the many headlines and heart-breaking stories about the impact of high insurance costs and dropped policies, there’s a lack of publicly available, granular data on where and how much premiums are increasing and why.  

Earlier this year, the US Department of the Treasury’s Federal Insurance Office (FIO) and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) announced a first-ever data call to assess how climate risks were affecting the insurance market. This is a voluntary effort and some states, including Florida, Texas and Louisiana, have already signaled they will not participate. That’s a problem because these are also states where consumers have experienced sky-rocketing rate increases and insurers dropping policies or even exiting the market entirely—and they are highly exposed to climate risks. 

According to an annual report from the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), “The data call required participating insurers to submit ZIP Code-level data on premiums, policies, claims, losses, limits, deductibles, non-renewals, and coverage types for the ZIP Codes in which they operate nationwide. State insurance regulators sought more than 70 data points. An anonymized subset of the data was shared with FIO.”  

Yet, none of that data has been shared publicly. That’s why UCS has joined in signing a letter from a group of organizations, calling on FIO to release the data so it’s available for local planners, policymakers, decisionmakers, scientists and community-based organizations to have a better understanding of how best to address this rapidly growing problem.  

Private insurers are holding a lot of proprietary data that regulators and the general public do not have access to. This creates a gap in information—an information asymmetry—that can prevent people from making informed decisions and prevent the market from functioning well. A lack of freely available, localized information about climate risks and projections is also part of the challenge for many communities and homeowners.  

Congressional oversight is needed 

The insurance crisis is now a nationwide problem, spilling into parts of the country that may not yet be on the frontlines of climate risks, and into the broader insurance market beyond property insurance. Congress must step up to examine the problem and propose solutions, working alongside state regulators.  

That’s why it’s heartening to see that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and the Senate budget committee are holding a hearing on December 18 on the climate-driven insurance crisis. Among the witnesses is Dr. Benjamin Keys, who has done important work in highlighting the role of climate risks in driving increases in insurance premiums.  

According to his research, homeowners in the US saw their annual insurance premiums increase by an average of 33% or $500 between 2020 and 2023. Further, his work analyzing premium increases at the county level shows a stark correlation with places that are more exposed to climate risks.  

Average annual insurance premiums in the first half of 2023 by county 

Source: Keys and Mulder, 2024 https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w32579/w32579.pdf 

Earlier this week, Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee, chaired by Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM), released a report highlighting the growing risks of climate change to insurance and housing markets.  

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has also released a recent report and conducted recent briefings on climate change, disaster risk and homeowner’s insurance. One of the challenges they point out is that, even as disasters are worsening, many people are underinsured.  

Low- and moderate-income households are more likely to be underinsured. According to their report: “In 2023, insurers covered $80 billion of the $114 billion of losses attributable to natural disasters, meaning that 30 percent of those losses were not insured.” With insurance premiums increasingly unaffordable, that gap in insurance will likely increase as many people may be forced to go without.  

There are important ways insurance affordability could be tackled by policymakers, including increasing access to parametric insurance, microinsurance programs, and community-based insurance, as well as passing legislation to include means-tested subsidies in the National Flood Insurance Program. Parametric insurance contracts can help simplify and speed up payouts since they are set up based on specific disaster thresholds being crossed (e.g. an earthquake of a certain magnitude or a hurricane with a specific wind speed), rather than being based on an actual evaluation of loss which can take time. Microinsurance programs can provide low-income households access to basic insurance with lower premiums and less comprehensive coverage. Community based insurance is purchased at the community level instead of individual households.  

Insurance companies should also be required to provide more information about why they are increasing rates, how they determine the magnitude of the increases, and what incentives they provide to help homeowners reduce their premiums by investing in risk reduction measures. Regulators must ensure that insurers are not discriminating against low-income policyholders or dropping less profitable lines under the guise of climate impacts.  

Time to act

The crisis in the insurance market we’re seeing today was entirely foreseeable, and largely preventable if we had acted earlier to limit the heat-trapping emissions driving climate change, invest in climate resilience, and enact equity-focused reforms in insurance markets. Climate scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades, and yet the market and policymakers have reacted with short-term strategies because those are the timeframes for determining shareholder value, profits and elections.  

As we look to find ways out of this crisis, let’s keep in mind the continued mismatch in time horizons for decision making in the insurance marketplace and the climate impacts we have unleashed and are locking in for the long term by continuing to burn fossil fuels today. And, in an outrageous contradiction, the insurance industry continues to insure the build-out of fossil fuel infrastructure! 

Data from Swiss Re shows that, globally, insured losses will exceed $135 billion in 2024. Two thirds of that happened in the US, with Hurricanes Helene and Milton alone causing $50 billion in insured losses.

US insurance companies will very likely hike rates again in the new year as global reinsurers reset their rates to reflect the growing costs of disasters worldwide. Rate hikes will hit homeowners hard. Renters, too, as landlords are increasingly passing through this increase in insurance costs in the form of higher rents, thus worsening the housing affordability crunch. More people will find their monthly budgets stretched or be forced to go without insurance and live in fear that they won’t be able to recover from the next disaster.  

The question for policymakers and regulators is whether they are willing to take bold action to help keep insurance available and affordable wherever possible (which unfortunately won’t be everywhere); help people invest in resilience measures to keep their homes and property safer in a warming world; help provide options for people to move away from the highest risk places; and help cut the heat-trapping emissions driving many types of extreme disasters.  

Insurance is one important tool. Let’s make sure it’s working well, guided by the latest science and with strong oversight and equity provisions. And let’s invest in a whole range of necessary actions to complement that because the current insurance crisis is likely just the tip of the iceberg.  

Climate risks are not just affecting the insurance market but also the housing and mortgage markets. And it isn’t just insurance that is increasingly hard to buy, finding safe, affordable housing in places protected from climate extremes is a growing challenge for many low- and middle-income people. 

One thing we can’t afford our policymakers and decisionmakers to do is to deny that climate change is an economic and pocketbook issue.  

Jacinta Allan’s plans to give police ‘wide-ranging power’ to help tackle antisemtism could be used against other protesters, lawyer says

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The Victorian government has been accused of “shoehorning” new anti-protest measures that could be used to crack down on the climate movement into a suite of fresh measures touted as necessary to combat antisemitism.

On Tuesday, Jacinta Allan announced a suite of legislative proposals to crack down on what the premier said was antisemitism and extremism at protests. The proposals were announced in the wake of an arson attack on a Melbourne synagogue.

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We tend to look at environmental problems in isolation. A holistic approach would be more effective, a new report says.

Report says rivers, the sea and surface water endangering properties and that number could hit 8m by 2050

More than 6m homes in England are at risk of flooding under the latest climate projections, a study by the Environment Agency has found.

This could rise to 8m – or one in four properties – by 2050, the study said.

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Jennifer Granholm said a new analysis showed that the continued pace of exports was “neither sustainable nor advisable.”

France's interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, has told emergency workers during a meeting not to panic following the worst cyclone to hit Mayotte for 90 years, which has devastated the Indian Ocean territory’s health services. Rescuers are racing to reach survivors after Cyclone Chido laid waste many shantytowns, with hundreds believed dead. The cyclone also damaged Mayotte’s airport, cutting off electricity and water on Saturday. The territory's prefect, François-Xavier Bieuville, told a local broadcaster that he expected the number dead would reach 'close to a thousand or even several thousand'

• Mayotte cyclone: health services in ruins

• Hundreds feared dead as cyclone devastates island of Mayotte

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Rainfall patterns are changing, crops are ripening earlier and the normal rhythms of farming have fallen off – exactly as climate scientists warned

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Smell is the most evocative sense. I lit a mozzie coil this week and a flood of childhood memories came back. The great long, dry days of summer stretched before us as the five of us slept side-by-side in a canvas tent like a can of sardines. Playing cards in a classic Australian caravan park. Running across hot sand before jumping on a towel to save our feet. Summer meant sliding down green waves, dodging bluebottles, too much sunburn and fish and chips.

In the last 30 years though, summer has meant harvest and the battle to get the crop off in a reasonable state for the best possible price. It has meant never knowing whether the wheat would be in the bin before Christmas Day.

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One of the world’s longest continuous bird counts has dashed the ‘wistful optimism’ of scientists hoping for a La Niña-driven recovery

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Drier conditions have led to waterbird numbers in eastern Australia plummeting by 50% compared with 2023, one of the country’s largest wildlife surveys has found.

Conducted annually since 1983, the eastern Australian waterbird aerial survey is one of the world’s longest continuous bird counts as well as one of the largest by geographical distance covered.

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Peter Dutton’s path ‘would be an absolute failure’ in decarbonising the electricity sector and meeting Australia’s emission targets, analyst says

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Australia would emit far more climate pollution – more than 1.7bn extra tonnes of carbon dioxide – between now and 2050 under the Coalition’s nuclear-focused plan than under Labor’s renewable energy dominated policy, analysts say.

The opposition last week released modelling of its “coal-to-nuclear” plan that would slow the rollout of renewable energy and batteries and instead rely on more fossil fuel generation until a nuclear industry could be developed, mostly after 2040.

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As the days grow shorter and I prepare for the holiday season, it’s a fitting moment to reflect on the state of climate litigation—a field that continues to evolve as both a tool for accountability and an arena for climate action. In the past year, we’ve seen significant victories that inspire hope, like the Swiss KlimaSeniorinnen case, which called for an improved government climate action plan; Held v. Montana, where young plaintiffs won the first U.S. trial court ruling affirming a constitutional right to a safe climate; and in Hawaii, which settled a landmark transportation-related case that will fund critical efforts to decarbonize its transit system. These victories illustrate the power of courts to advance meaningful progress in climate governance and highlight the growing importance of science and scientists in providing the evidence needed to inform these legal decisions. 

Yet, progress often feels frustratingly slow. In the U.S., cases challenging fossil fuel companies for decades of climate disinformation remain stalled, tied up by the defendants in procedural wrangling that prevents them from being heard on their merits, delaying justice for affected communities. It’s a familiar frustration: will 2025 finally be the year these cases move forward?  

While I’ve learned not to make bold predictions on this front, I remain cautiously optimistic. In fact, last week the U.S. Department of Justice weighed in on this with two key Supreme Court briefs supporting state-level climate lawsuits. In both cases, the DOJ sided with local governments, arguing that their claims against fossil fuel companies for misleading the public about climate harms should proceed under state law. These briefs underscore a clear federal stance on the importance of preserving state-level legal avenues to address deceptive practices.  

Although US Courts in the U.S. have made progress in hearing other types of climate-related cases, the lack of substantive rulings in disinformation lawsuits is a glaring gap. 

Similarly, even cases that appear to be securing meaningful outcomes often face uncertainties. In the Milieudefensie et al. v. Shell case, for instance, the Dutch courts upheld the ruling that Shell must act to reduce emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. However, the appeal process revealed uncertainties about the precise scale and timing of these reductions, exposing challenges of translating scientific evidence into clear legal mandates. 

This tension—between exciting breakthroughs and persistent delays—underscores the complexity of litigation’s role in climate governance. Courts are emerging as critical players in climate action, especially as a lack of political will and obstruction by fossil fuel interests continue to impede bold outcomes and accountability in international processes like the COP negotiations. I previously wrote about expectations for the incoming Trump presidency, positioning courts as an essential backstop for accountability in the U.S. in the absence of federal leadership. 

The ability of courts to enforce obligations, act on science, and elevate human testimony has never been more crucial. With this in mind, here are three key developments that I believe will shape climate litigation in 2025. 

International Courts Grapple with Climate Change Action  

2025 will undoubtedly be defined by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and its advisory opinion on states’ obligations to combat climate change. The ICJ hearings, which wrapped last Friday, drew unprecedented global engagement, with a historic number of countries and organizations submitting arguments. These comments repeated an often-shared plea for justice, sustainability, and progress, emphasizing the need for international cooperation rooted in sound science and human rights. 

The ICJ’s advisory opinion has the potential to set a new benchmark for climate accountability. While not legally binding, such opinions hold significant moral and legal influence. They can guide future litigation, encourage governments to align their policies with scientific imperatives, and clarify the responsibilities of states under international law to protect vulnerable populations from climate harms. 

This moment at the ICJ builds on a growing trend of international courts stepping into the climate governance arena. In 2024, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) issued a landmark advisory opinion affirming that greenhouse gas emissions constitute marine pollution under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). ITLOS went further, clarifying the obligations of states to prevent, reduce, and control emissions, protect marine ecosystems, and collaborate internationally to address climate-related ocean impacts. While the ruling didn’t impose specific measures, it established UNCLOS as a legal framework for climate accountability that complements other treaties like the Paris Agreement and provides a pathway for legal action. 

Similarly, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) held hearings on climate change and human rights earlier this year, with a focus on the Americas. Submissions from states, NGOs, and individuals emphasized the disproportionate impact of climate change on vulnerable populations,  the need for regional cooperation, and corporate accountability. The IACHR’s forthcoming ruling could further solidify the link between climate action and human rights, providing another layer of legal precedent for addressing the climate crisis. 

Together, these international judicial interventions highlight a growing recognition of the courts as key arbiters in the fight against climate change. When diplomatic negotiations falter, judicial action serves as a complementary pathway, providing a critical counterbalance, grounded in evidence and accountability.  

A Surge in Greenwashing Litigation 

Another defining feature of 2025 will be the continued rise of greenwashing lawsuits. These cases, which challenge companies for making deceptive claims about their climate commitments or sustainability efforts, are becoming a cornerstone of climate litigation. Over 140 such cases have been filed globally since 2016, with 47 new filings in 2023 alone.  

Climate-washing lawsuits are particularly potent because they expose and disrupt the narratives corporations use to greenwash and bolster their reputations while continuing to contribute to the climate crisis. Recent cases have targeted sectors ranging from finance to consumer goods, and the scope is expanding. Courts have ruled against companies for overstating their “net zero” pledges, misleading consumers about the environmental impact of products, and greenwashing their financial products. 

As governments introduce stricter regulations on corporate sustainability claims and public awareness of greenwashing grows, this area of litigation is poised for significant expansion. Beyond penalizing false claims, these lawsuits send a clear message: corporations must back their promises with real, measurable action. 

Post-Disaster and Failure-to-Adapt Cases Gain Ground 

The growing prevalence of climate-related disasters—wildfires, hurricanes, floods—continues to drive litigation targeting both public and private entities. In 2024, lawsuits were increasingly filed in response to catastrophic events, including the Maui wildfires, which devastated communities and underscored systemic vulnerabilities.  

Similarly, earlier this month, the town of Carrboro, North Carolina, file a complaint against Duke Energy, alleging that the utility’s failure to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy has contributed to intensified weather events, such as flooding and storms, causing significant harm to local infrastructure and residents.  These cases focus on holding governments and corporations accountable for failing to adapt to foreseeable climate risks or mitigate their impacts. 

As courts wrestle with these issues, they are shaping a new era of accountability. Post-disaster cases bring the abstract reality of climate change into sharp relief, translating emissions data into the lived experiences of communities harmed. In 2025, we can expect to see more cases that address the human cost of climate inaction while pushing for systemic change. 

The Critical Role of Courts 

Courts have the ability to enforce accountability in ways that are direct, timely, and rooted in evidence. However, the power of courts to affect change depends on the conditions we create for them to act. This includes fostering robust scientific research, empowering communities to bring cases, and ensuring that legal systems are equipped to handle the complexities of climate litigation. Efforts to integrate science more effectively into legal arguments, help judges accurately interpret technical evidence, and improve access to justice for climate-vulnerable populations are all critical to building a resilient legal framework. Reach out to get involved in our expert working groups and engage in this work with us. 

The ICJ’s deliberations, the rise of climate-washing cases, and the focus on disaster liability all point to the transformative potential of litigation to address the climate crisis. But these legal battles are just one piece of the puzzle. They must be complemented by bold policy action, international cooperation, and a collective commitment to protecting future generations. 

2025 holds immense promise, but it also demands care, creativity, and persistence. While we are facing great challenges in the U.S. and around the world, courts have shown they can play a transformative role in shaping our collective response to climate change. As we look to the year ahead, let us renew our resolve to leverage every available tool—legal, scientific, and political—to combat the greatest challenge of our time. Together, we can create the conditions for a more just, sustainable future. 

Medical supplies airlifted to French Indian Ocean territory after Cyclone Chido leaves hundreds feared dead

• Explainer: Everything you need to know about Mayotte

The worst cyclone to hit Mayotte for 90 years has devastated the French Indian Ocean territory’s health services, leaving the hospital severely damaged and health centres out of operation, a minister has said.

“The hospital has suffered major water damage and destruction, notably in the surgical, intensive care, maternity and emergency units,” the French health minister, Geneviève Darrieussecq, told France 2 on Monday, adding that “medical centres were also non-operational”.

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As warmer winters melt the snow drifts that endangered Saimaa ringed seals use to raise their young, humans are giving them a helping hand

• Words by Phoebe Weston. Photographs by Samuel Bloch

Eight hours shovelling snow in -20C might not sound like the ideal day out, but a committed team of volunteers in Finland are working dawn to dusk building enormous snow drifts for one of the world’s most endangered seals.

The Saimaa ringed seal was once widespread across Finland but is now confined to Lake Saimaa in the south-east of the country, where just 495 of them remain.

Clockwise from top: volunteers check the suitability of the ice to build a snow cave under the supervision of Heikki Härkönen, coordinator at the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation; Riikka Alakoski, from the Finnish forestry agency inspects an artificial den; and records the location of a breathing hole (the image has been altered to obscure its location); a small den in the ice

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Experts express fear – and resilience – as they prepare for president-elect’s potential attacks on climate research

As the world’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists swarmed a Washington venue last week, the packed halls have been permeated by an air of anxiety and even dread over a new Donald Trump presidency that might worsen what has been a bruising few years for science.

The annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) meeting drew a record 31,000 attendees this year for the unveiling of a slew of new research on everything from seismology to climate science to heliospheric physics, alongside a sprawling trade show and bouts of networking as scientists jostle to advance their work.

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I had read about how the rapid warming of the Arctic was upending the landscape and its people. Now I’ve seen it.

The president can still do a lot before he leaves the White House.

Stephanie Carrie gives tours and educates Angelenos on the importance of the urban forest – and how to improve it

On a recent Sunday morning, 25 Angelenos gathered under a large rusty leaf fig tree for a walking tree tour in a local Culver City park that was also playing host to an outdoor tai chi class as well as a group of yogis.

As we walked past Chinese elm trees, coast live oaks and Brazilian pepper trees, Stephanie Carrie shared the history of the city’s celebrated palm trees with a rapt audience. Many of today’s trees, planted in the 1930s, are approaching the end of their lives – and while they have become symbols of the city, they also guzzle water, fueling calls to replace them with drought-resistant trees.

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The closest ski hill to Los Angeles recently sold to an investment group with big plans. But can those ideas work amid catastrophic climate threats that continue to plague the mountain?

The man behind Amy and Senna has turned his attention to ‘techno-authoritarianism’ in the genre-defying 2073. He talks to our journalist – one of the movie’s unlikely stars – about the events that fed his dystopian vision

It was some time in the early 2000s and Asif Kapadia, already a successful film director, a wunderkind whose first feature in 2001, The Warrior, won the Bafta for outstanding British film, was travelling back from New York.

“There’s a beautiful, gorgeous sunset over Manhattan. I’m in a limo being taken to the airport. And I was taking photos of Manhattan because I was driving over Brooklyn Bridge and it’s just all so cinematic and I became subconsciously aware of the driver watching me in the rear view mirror.

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Despite a clever comms strategy, there are significant credibility issues around the assumptions on which the cost estimates are based

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The Coalition has moved a considerable way on climate and energy since Scott Morrisson brought a lump of coal into the parliament and told us not to be afraid. On Friday, the Coalition finally released the long-awaited details of the nuclear plan it will take to the election and, once again, asks us not to be afraid – of the price tag, the higher climate pollution and a range of other variables.

However, despite a clever comms strategy, there are significant credibility issues around the assumptions on which the cost estimates are based, and there are other critical issues that have been left unanswered. Australians have a right to consider all the issues they are being asked to vote on, with facts rather than political rhetoric. These issues can be broadly listed under three headings: the economics, the environment and the law.

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Nicki Hutley is an independent economist and councillor with the Climate Council

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The fall of Assad in Syria, protests in Georgia, the Franklin Fire in Malibu and the reopening of Notre-Dame de Paris: the past seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

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