Catalyzing American Innovation in Climate Resilience
By Ali Zaidi, National Climate Advisor; Arati Prabhakar, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and Brenda Mallory, Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality
Across the country, Americans are already experiencing the devastating and disruptive effects of climate change—including record-breaking extreme heat in cities and towns across the United States, wildfires burning millions of acres in the West, and storms like Hurricane Beryl endangering lives and causing widespread power outages. In just the past six months, the United States has experienced 15 different billion-dollar climate disasters.
Against the backdrop of these challenges, the Biden-Harris Administration is taking unprecedented action to confront the climate crisis. That includes investing more than $50 billion in climate resilience to help communities prepare for and recover from extreme weather events fueled by climate change. In addition, the Administration is cutting down on climate pollution by catalyzing hundreds of billions of dollars of private investments in wind, solar, electric vehicles, low-emissions concrete, steel, and more. These investments are bringing transformative benefits to our health, our environment, and our economy. Analyses show that every dollar spent on climate resilience saves $13 in economic costs, damages, and cleanup. Through the Administration’s Justice40 Initiative, many of these investments directly benefit disadvantaged communities marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is further catalyzing American innovation and investment bypublishing the first-of-kind Climate Resilience Game Changers Assessment. Building on the Biden-Harris Administration’s Net-Zero Game Changers Initiative, which is accelerating advancements in key decarbonization technologies, the Climate Resilience Game Changers Assessment identifies 28 critical technologies, management practices, and institutional and financial tools that can drive transformative positive impacts on our nation’s climate resilience while creating good-paying jobs, improving community well-being, and advancing environmental justice.
Figure summarizing the 28 Climate Resilience Game Changers identified by the Climate Resilience Game Changers Assessment.
As the National Climate Resilience Framework notes, becoming a climate-resilient nation requires developing and deploying new and enhanced tools in our nation’s toolbox to address climate-related threats. The Climate Resilience Game Changers Assessment highlights innovative technologies, practices, and strategies that, with additional research, development, and investment, can become these critical tools. These game-changing technologies include advanced grid control systems for our energy sector, next-generation desalination and recycling technologies for our nation’s water, and Resilience Hubs that support public safety and promote community health. The Game Changers Assessment also highlights innovations like next-generation remote sensing, analytics, and forecasting technologies, which can be useful across a wide range of sectors, as well as novel approaches for harnessing the resilience benefits of natural systems.
The Game Changers Assessment builds on recent historic actions and investments by the Biden-Harris Administration in climate resilience innovation, including:
Supporting advanced technologies and practices in agriculture and land conservation. Last week, the Department of Agriculture announced $90 million from the Inflation Reduction Act for more than 50 projects to develop new tools, practices, and technologies that advance natural resource conservation on private lands, including a range of projects that support adaptation and resilience. And earlier this week, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of the Interior and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced a $20 million investment to enable the use of NOAA’s satellite program to rapidly detect and report wildfire starts.
Investing in innovation to protect our nation’s reservoirs, rivers, lakes, and ocean. Last month, NOAA announced more than $16 million in awards to drive innovation in marine science and technology—including investments in critical climate adaptation technologies that address ocean acidification and enhance monitoring of the ocean and marine biodiversity. Also in June, NOAA also announced nearly $5 million to fund labs and research that help improve drought monitoring and prediction in the West. In May, the Department of the Interior announced $179 million to fund innovative drought resilience projects, including water recycling and groundwater recharge that will meet the average annual water needs of hundreds of thousands of people. These investments are part of tens of billions of dollars being invested over five years by the Biden-Harris Administration’s Investing in America Agenda to revitalize our nation’s water infrastructure.
Building a reliable, next-generation grid. The Biden-Harris Administration is investing more than $10 billion for projects across the country to support innovative and resilient grid infrastructure projects that will enhance our grid’s reliability in the face of extreme weather and climate change. These include hundreds of millions of dollars to harden critical grid infrastructure against wildfire risks in Hawaiʻi; deploy advanced battery, microgrid, and grid control technologies in Wisconsin; build a new smart grid in rural Georgia; and more. These investments will reduce the risks of weather-driven power outages, while creating a new innovation workforce.
Accelerating the climate resilience innovation ecosystem. The Biden-Harris Administration is creating new hubs, test beds, and accelerators that will drive investment in innovation across the country. These innovation pipelines, funded by the President’s Investing in America Agenda, include the National Science Foundation’s ten Regional Innovation Engines, NOAA’s Ocean-Based Climate Resilience Accelerators, and the Economic Development Administration (EDA)’s Regional Innovation and Technology Hubs. In Florida, for example, EDA’s new ClimateReady Tech Hub, in partnership with the Miami Dade County Office of Innovation and Economic Development, will scale advanced and low-emissions concrete technologies that protect low-lying areas. In Colorado and Wyoming, a new National Science Foundation Climate Resilience Engine will develop and deploy advanced sensing, monitoring, and predictive analytics to anticipate, predict, and measure water scarcity, wildfires, and other extreme weather events. These forward-looking investments will make sure that the critical climate technologies, industries, and supply chains of the next century will be researched, designed, and made in America.
Setting the stage for future innovation and progress. The United States is a beacon of game-changing science, research, and ingenuity in the world. The Climate Resilience Game Changers Assessment builds on this legacy by helping focus the attention of America’s public, private, philanthropic, and scientific institutions—in partnership with the federal government—on innovations with the potential to greatly enhance our nation’s resilience to the impacts of climate change. By thoughtfully researching, developing, and deploying the Climate Resilience Game Changers and other critical climate investments, we can continue to build a stronger, safer, and more climate-resilient nation.
