Wildfires, hurricanes and other impacts of the changing climate are costing forest owners in the eastern United States tens of billions of dollars annually, an environment and energy research group said.
The working paper from Resources for the Future spotlights the economic hit climate change is taking in a part of the country that’s a key source of lumber and pulp — and an important region for the Trump administration’s goal to curb U.S. reliance on wood imports. It’s a discussion paper that isn’t necessarily peer-reviewed, the authors said.
To reach their conclusions, researchers compared tree deaths between two periods — 2005 to 2015 and 2014 to 2024. Losses grew from $30.8 billion annually in the earlier period to $49.5 billion annually in the more recent decade.
While researchers found that tree mortality was greater than would have historically been expected and was likely tied to the impacts of climate change, they said their findings don’t necessarily identify a trend toward greater disturbances in the future.
