Climate Resilience Workforce Act

Care infrastructure— To ensure adequate, reliable access to and availability of formal services and informal, community-based support for healthcare, childcare, elder care, home care, domestic care, and other related care functions as climate change impacts increase and to protect vulnerable populations in times of disaster.

Human health— To prevent and address increased injury, illness, and death due to increased exposure to heat waves, floods, droughts, extreme weather events and vector-, food-, and waterborne infectious diseases and to changes in the quality and safety of air, food and water, and stresses to mental health.

Water— Changes in water quantity and quality, deteriorating water infrastructure, flood and drought management, extreme precipitation and rising sea levels, ensuring access to clean drinking water, and ensuring adequate water storage and availability.

Air— Worsening air quality, respiratory and cardiovascular illness and death, injury due to reduced visibility, damage to agricultural crops and forests, increased wildfire smoke, increased frequency and severity of allergic illnesses, and minimizing air pollutants to improve air quality.

Land— Loss of land cover and impact on agriculture, wildfires, coastal wetlands and vegetation, mitigating the impacts of deforestation and urbanization, and considering climate change risks in land use decisions.

Forests— Decreased tree growth and carbon storage.

Ecosystems and biodiversity— Altered or deteriorated ecosystem functions, altered individual characteristics of organisms, timing of biological events and geographic ranges of terrestrial, freshwater and marine organisms, spread of invasive species, loss of biodiversity, endangerment and extinction of organisms, and changes in agricultural and fisheries production, supply of clean water, protection from extreme events, and culturally valuable resources.

Coasts— Higher storm surges and sea level rise, chronic high-tide flooding, threatened investments along coasts, economic losses in tourism and fishing, increased pace and extent of coastal flooding and erosion, and forced relocation.

Oceans— Ecosystem disruption, loss of habitat, ocean warming, acidification, and deoxygenation, and losses to fisheries and fishing communities.

Public sector— Activities focused on ensuring stable governance and provision of critical safety net services and supports, adopting new policies to address emerging threats, risks and needs and provide specific protections for vulnerable populations, and expanding services to ensure that emerging and increasing needs are met.

Buildings and built infrastructure— Activities focused on strengthening buildings and built infrastructure to climate risks, weatherization to account for shifting and increasing temperatures, preparing for and adapting to changing patterns of energy use and peak demands, ensuring good indoor air quality, and ensuring affordable housing.

Transportation— Higher temperatures, increased precipitation, rising sea levels and extreme weather events on ports, vehicles and transportation infrastructure, preparing for travel disruptions, ensuring passenger safety, preparing for and adapting to fluctuations in fuel and electricity supply and communications disruptions, and demographic shifts and shifts in flows of goods and services that alter transport networks.

Manufacturing and industry— Supply chain shocks, new regulatory requirements and price shocks, and the impact of increasing temperatures on manufacturing processes.

Communications and technology— Damage to communications infrastructure and service interruptions and outages.

Financial systems— Physical risks associated with more frequent severe weather events and lasting environmental changes to insurance and banking sectors and local economies, preparing for, adapting to and addressing the transition risks posed by policy and technological changes to a reduced-carbon economy, and fluctuations in global markets, stranded assets.

Commerce— Mitigation of threats to small, locally owned businesses.

Energy systems— Impacts of increasing temperatures, severity of extreme weather events and increased precipitation on energy production and delivery, shifts in energy demand and supply, and growing population driving an increase in overall energy demand.

Agriculture and food systems— Disruptions to food availability, access, and quality due to reduced agricultural productivity, changes in temperature and precipitation patterns resulting in floods, droughts, changes in crop and livestock viability, new pests, pathogens and weed problems, depletion of water supplies for irrigation, soil degradation, illness and death in farm workers and livestock due to heat, economic losses, instability of food supply, closure of smaller farms with limited safety nets to deal with disrupting factors, economic losses for farming and rural communities, and increased food prices and greater food insecurity.

Labor— Impact of increased temperatures on workers, particularly those in high-risk industries where workers are doing physical labor and have a direct exposure to outdoor temperatures, and workers with limited labor protections such as incarcerated workers and undocumented and immigrant workers, preparing for and providing adequate protections for disaster recovery workers as the frequency of climate disasters increases, financial and economic disruption resulting in labor market shifts and potential job losses, and economic impact of disasters and long-term climate shifts on businesses, workers and local economies.

Education— Activities focused on minimizing disruptions to educational systems, addressing disparate impacts of heat and other climate impacts on student achievement and learning, ensuring the physical safety and psychosocial well-being of students and teachers, planning for the use of schools as shelters during climate disasters, strengthening the infrastructure of school buildings, revising curricula to ensure that the public is well-educated and informed to be prepared for the risks posed by climate change, and creating new programs to ensure that individuals are trained with relevant skills to contribute to the climate resilience workforce.

Foreign affairs— Increased need to provide foreign aid and assistance, increased migration, increased conflict, war, famine and political and economic instability, economic losses in trade and overseas operations, and shocks to global supply chains.