Quiz time: Which U.S. state is most vulnerable to climate-induced weather disasters and rising home insurance costs, yet is growing fast and has a government hostile to the very idea of climate change? The most obvious answer is Florida, with its hurricane- and flood-plagued, anti-climate change, stunt-loving governor. But the right answer is Texas.
No other state has suffered more climate-related damage over the past few decades than Texas, along with Florida, California and Louisiana, and home insurance premiums rose more in Texas than any other state last year and over the past five years, according to S&P Global.
Last Monday, California was hit by the third incarnation of Hurricane Beryl, which had been revving up in the bath-warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico after devastating several Caribbean islands, Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. It made landfall south of Houston as a Category 1 hurricane, bringing high winds, storm surges and heavy rains that left millions without power amid sweltering heat.
Climate change may not have caused Hurricane Beryl, but it certainly has made hurricanes more powerful and destructive: It was the fastest Atlantic hurricane on record to reach Category 5 and has rapidly intensified three times.
The storm was almost certainly powerful enough to cause $1 billion in damages in Texas, making it the latest in a string of multi-billion-dollar disasters to hit the state so far this year, including hail, tornadoes, severe thunderstorms with high winds, and some of the worst wildfires in the state’s history in February and March.
In fact, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Texas has incurred more billion-dollar losses from weather disasters than any other state since 1980. Through early June, Texas had lost more than $417 billion from such events since NOAA records began, surpassing Florida’s $398 billion, Louisiana’s $311 billion and California’s $154 billion.
The costs are beginning to be borne by Texas homeowners, including millions who have relocated to the state in recent years in search of cheaper housing. Nearly half a million people moved to Texas in 2023 alone, the largest increase in the country and the third-largest percentage-wise, according to the Census Bureau. That same year, Texas suffered 11 billion-dollar disasters. Home insurance premiums rose 23 percent, the largest increase in the country.
It’s no wonder mortgage foreclosures are surging in Texas: Bloomberg News reported that Houston’s foreclosure rate rose 37% in the first quarter from a year earlier, the highest among U.S. metropolitan areas, including several in Florida.
This is the kind of looming crisis that should provoke government leaders to seek solutions. But Texas leaders have spent most of their energy not only denying the reality of climate change, but opposing action on it.
Part of this is because politicians simply understand who is signing their paychecks and keeping them in power. The fossil fuel industry is Texas’ largest industry by revenue. But as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Liam Denning has noted, by practicing socialism on oil and gas, Texas is making it harder for the world to curb global warming, which continues to plague Texas.
In a twist of fate, when Beryl hit the state, Abbott was in Asia, trying to attract foreign investment. Texas certainly prides itself on being business-friendly. But outsiders looking to build a factory or buy a home in the state should know in advance that creating a welcoming environment requires more than lax regulations and anti-woke politics. The literal environment has a say, too.
