This article was written by Andrew Freedman and first published by Axios.
The Trump administration released a major new climate science report on Black Friday, warning of "hundreds of billions of dollars" in annual losses to some economic sectors without scaled up actions to adapt to current changes and slash emissions to avoid future warming.
Why it matters
The report by scientists from 13 federal agencies constitutes the second volume of the Fourth National Climate Assessment, which is a congressionally mandated report. Its conclusion: Lives and property are already at risk in the U.S. due to climate change.
The details
The contents of the new report, which consists of 29 chapters that were extensively peer reviewed, are bleak. The report points out that the era of climate consequences for the U.S. is well underway, and only actions taken in the next few years can be effective in addressing the scope and severity of the problem.
The backstory
The new report builds off of findings from the first volume of the National Climate Assessment, which was released by the Trump administration in November 2017.
"This report dives into details concerning the US in a way that has not been done before," Michael Wehner, a climate researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told Axios.