Adapting to the sweeping effects of climate change will cost Los Angeles County and its 88 cities about $12.5 billion for projects that prevent flooding, wildfire damage and fatalities from extreme heat exposure and diseases, according to a report from the environmental watchdog group Center for Climate Integrity.
The study, “Los Angeles County’s Climate Cost Challenge,” released April 2 by the center, advocates such projects as applying coating that cools urban streets and reduces ambient air temperatures by up to 10 degrees; planting trees to expand the urban shade canopy; and building up shorelines to protect coastal homes and infrastructure from rising seas.
The study listed 13 areas for improvements and the cost for each, culminating in a total cost estimate through 2040 for cities and the county that will bust budgets and drain resources, the study predicted. They include:
• Better stormwater capture to prevent flooding ($4.3 billion) and shoreline abutments that protect homes and preserve beaches ($576 million).
• Adding cool pavements ($2.5 billion) and planting trees ($1.4 billion) to eliminate “heat islands,” particularly in majority Black and Latino neighborhoods where cooling will be three times more costly — due to the greater need — than in areas with a higher than average white population.
• Preventing fatalities and damage to structures and the environment from more intense wildfires ($919 million). The report emphasized creating buffer zones between homes and wildlands.
• Responding to upticks in childhood asthma and West Nile virus cases ($1.1 billion)
The cost breaks down to about $780 million per year to protect communities in L.A. County from extreme heat, above-average rainfall or droughts, wildfires, rising sea levels and related public health threats, the report stated.
“I look at this report as a down payment to get started, to prepare the cities for these impacts. The longer they wait, they more expensive it will be,” said Richard Wiles, president of the Washington D.C.-based group that produced the study, during an interview on Friday, April. 5.
“Climate change is accelerating, so you’ve got to get serious about this,” he added.
One of the more difficult effects to address is extreme heat, experts said. L.A. County is expected to experience 48.5 days per year above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, from now until 2040, the report stated.
To combat extreme heat, Los Angeles began a second phase of “Cool Streets LA” in October 2021 when the city added 60 miles of cool pavement and planted nearly 2,000 trees in neighborhoods of Pico Union, Westlake South, North Hollywood, Canoga Park, Sylmar, Vermont Square, South Central and Boyle Heights.
Creative Painting Solutions applies a reflective asphalt sealer to a section of Anges Avenue in North Hollywood on Oct. 4, 2021. The coating is part of the city’s Cool LA program, a project to bring cool pavement and street trees to eight communities in Los Angeles. The reflective coating can cool streets by 10 degrees or more. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
“A place like Los Angeles will get a lot hotter very quickly, producing some health effects,” Wiles said. He pointed out that in the summer of 2023 Phoenix had 640 heat-related deaths, he said.
“We are finding extreme heat coming up more and more,” said Rita Kampalath, the county’s chief sustainability officer on Friday, April 5. “And we are seeing increasing impacts.”
Six-month-old German Shepard puppy Jenka cools off with a drink after playing in the unusually hot weather with her owner Avi Itach at the Sepulveda Basin Off-Leash Dog Park in Encino, Monday, Oct. 23, 2017. Excessive heat is one of the areas recommended to be addressed by a report on climate change released by an environmental watchdog group on April 2, 2024. (Photo by Hans Gutknecht, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Kampalath was directed by the Board of Supervisors to create a heat action plan, she said.
Third District Supervisor and board chair Lindsey Horvath said that plan will budget for climate adaptation projects. “Prioritizing these investments is essential given that L.A. County is the most at-risk to multiple natural hazards of any county in the nation,” Horvath said in an emailed response. “This is why we are working tirelessly to plan and budget to protect Angelenos from the ever-changing climate.”
Kampalath said the county’s plan would include a framework to help decide where to apply coatings for cooler streets and where to open cooling centers during hot days. “We are open to a broad array of strategies for cooling,” she said.
She’s also relying on funds from voter-approved Measure W for flood prevention and other water-saving projects. The county has to adjust to periods of intense rainfall, often followed by protracted droughts, Wiles said.
Capturing more rain for drinking water can be done by building bioswales which are landscape features made of grass, rocks or vegetation to absorb rainwater and send it into groundwater basins; and changing to more porous pavement, the report recommended.
Wiles cautioned that the report lists “least cost” estimates and that the actual cost of resiliency and reacting to climate-driven incidents like wildfires may be much higher.
“We are saying do not make the taxpayers pay for all of this but make the oil companies pay their fair share of these costs,” Wiles said.
His group advocates suing the oil and gas companies, arguing that they knew their products would raise the Earth’s temperature and bring about global climate change as far back as the 1980s.
California, along with eight cities in the state, as well as dozens of other states and communities, have filed lawsuits to recover the costs of climate damages from major oil companies, following the same legal framework as landmark tobacco and opioid lawsuits, the report stated.
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