The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released its 2024-2027 Climate Adaptation Plan, which describes agency actions to address the impacts of climate change and help build a more climate-resilient nation. The plan expands the agency’s efforts to ensure its programs, facilities, workforce and operations are increasingly resilient to climate change impacts.
Highlights from the 2024-2027 plan include priority actions EPA is taking to:
- Foster a climate-ready workforce through ongoing education and training and to ensure staff are equipped with an understanding of projected climate impacts, the vulnerability of EPA programs to these impacts, and adaptation approaches
- Build facility resilience with facility resiliency assessments to identify vulnerabilities and recommendations to increase facility resilience
- Develop climate-resilient supply chains by including assessment of climate hazard risk as part of the Agency Supply Chain Risk Management plan; EPA will conduct supply chain risk assessments under the Program Management Improvement Accountability Act and Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act in FY2024
- Integrate climate resilience into external funding opportunities by encouraging investments by communities and Tribes that are more resilient in an era of climate change; EPA has launched an internal Climate-Resilient Investments Clearinghouse website to help managers of financial assistance programs incorporate climate adaptation and resilience considerations in investment decisions
- Equipping communities and the recipients of financial resources with the tools, data, information and technical support they need to assess their climate risks and develop the climate-resilience solutions most appropriate for them
- Integrate climate adaptation into rulemaking processes, one example is the March 14, 2024 final rule requiring a broad array of facilities that manage hazardous materials to develop response plans to prepare for the largest foreseeable discharges in adverse weather conditions; EPA is also planning to apply climate change and environmental justice policy principles through National Environmental Policy Act reviews
