“We can start with strict carbon pollution standards for power plants and we must significantly expand investments in community resiliency to protect people and the economy from the gathering storms — and floods, droughts, wildfires, and heat waves,” said Browner, who is now a senior fellow with the liberal Center for American Progress.
The report finds that U.S. temperatures will continue rising 2 degrees F to 4 degrees F in most areas in the coming decades, and calls for effort to increase resilience to changes that cannot be avoided.
But it’s unclear how high temperatures will climb. The report provides a range of 3 degrees F to 5 degrees F by century’s end if global emissions are reduced sharply after 2050, and up to 10 degrees F if they’re not.
Average U.S. temperatures have risen roughly 1.5 degrees F since 1895, and more than 80 percent of that increase has occurred since 1980, the report concludes.
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