SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – San Francisco is the U.S. city that will be hit hardest by global warming, according to a new report by an economic research think tank.
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Living on the coast, it is apparent San Francisco is susceptible to sea level rise. California is also climbing out of a drought and we've seen the heat waves that have rolled through in the past few years. Put them all together and Moody’s Analytics believes San Francisco faces the highest long-term risk from climate change.
Adam Kamins, Director of Regional Economics for Moody's Analytics, explained that even San Francisco's difficulty in handling extreme heat leaves the region at risk.
"Even heat risk — which San Francisco's not a place you'd normally think of as hot by any means — because a lot of the metro area more broadly is just not equipped for high temperatures, if you get a three, four, five degree increase on temperature, the lack of air conditioning prevalence and other mitigation factors that may exist elsewhere in the country do not exist in the Bay Area, so even on that dimension it's vulnerable," he said.
Kamins suggested building inland and at higher elevation instead of next to the shore. "The most vulnerable part of the region is also the part where property values are highest and the real estate is probably most at risk," he told KCBS Radio.
Oakland also made Moody Analytics' top ten list, taking the fifth position as a metro area most susceptible to climate change. Among the top three following San Francisco were New York City and Florida's Cape Coral.
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