New US strategy could create massive $10 billion fund to fight climate disasters

By Alexandra Kelley

One of the latest Biden plans introduces a new framework that will shape U.S. policy to tackle climate change by allocating about $10 billion to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to proactively address natural disasters related to climate change.

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The shift in focus for FEMA would ultimately shift some of its disaster relief funds to more preventative projects. While it would not take any funding away from FEMA’s projects related to other emergency situations, namely the COVID-19 pandemic, it will give officials the ability to release money from the existing disaster fund.

The new federal initiative will be called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC), and initial calculations suggest $3.7 million could be available readily, according to FEMA’s acting deputy associate administrator Michael Grimm. The program has also already garnered over $500 million in grant funding.

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Data from NASA’s Global Climate Change center notes that as climate change worsens, and more greenhouse gas is released into the atmosphere to cause major changes in the Earth’s temperature, natural disasters like hurricanes will become stronger, and sea levels stand to rise up to eight feet by the year 2100.

Specifically in the U.S., the southeast is likely to see rising sea levels, and the west and southwest could suffer wildfires even more damaging than those seen over the 2020 and 2019 seasons.