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In an internal FEMA memorandum obtained and first reported by Grist, the Trump administration announced its plans to dismantle that program — the biggest climate adaptation initiative the federal government has ever funded — even as disasters incur hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damages across the United States.

“BRIC was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program,” a FEMA spokesperson told Grist. “It was more concerned with climate change than helping Americans effected by natural disasters.”

BRIC generally shoulders 75 percent of the cost of a given resilience project, and up to 90 percent of the cost of projects in disadvantaged communities. The program’s emphasis on equity is what may have marked it for demolition — the Trump administration has been systematically dismantling Biden-era efforts to infuse equity into governmental programs and direct more climate spending toward underrepresented groups.

The decision comes as at least seven people were killed this week as tornadoes and catastrophic flooding descended on the central United States in what meteorologists called a once in a generation event.

The world is fast approaching temperature levels where insurers will no longer be able to offer cover for many climate risks, said Günther Thallinger, on the board of Allianz SE, one of the world’s biggest insurance companies.

The argument set out by Thallinger in a LinkedIn post begins with the increasingly severe damage being caused by the climate crisis: “Heat and water destroy capital. Flooded homes lose value. Overheated cities become uninhabitable. Entire asset classes are degrading in real time.”

“We are fast approaching temperature levels – 1.5C, 2C, 3C – where insurers will no longer be able to offer coverage for many of these risks,” he said. “The math breaks down: the premiums required exceed what people or companies can pay. This is already happening. Entire regions are becoming uninsurable.”

“This applies not only to housing, but to infrastructure, transportation, agriculture, and industry,” he said. “The economic value of entire regions – coastal, arid, wildfire-prone – will begin to vanish from financial ledgers. Markets will reprice, rapidly and brutally. This is what a climate-driven market failure looks like.”

https://archive.ph/gc27x