Streetsblog USA this morning published my essay, Instead of Subsidizing the ‘Super-Drivers,’ We Should Soak Them: Piling subsidies on subsidies, even if well-meaning, fails to rein in the full cost of driving. I’ve cross-posted it here to allow comments and add tables and graphics.
— C.K., Jan. 29, 2024
One-tenth of American motorists, we’ve just learned, consume more than a third of U.S. gasoline.
This lead-footed cohort, dubbed “superusers” in a recent analysis, burn almost as much fuel — and, thus, spew nearly as much carbon dioxide — as all auto drivers in China. Or, reformulated, the most motor-dependent one-tenth of U.S. drivers burn the same amount of gasoline and thus generate the same carbon emissions as all motorists in the European Union and Brazil combined.
The analysis, by Seattle-based Coltura, casts a hard light on America’s transportation culture. Unfortunately the firm’s policy prescription — new subsidies to entice superusers into buying climate-friendlier electric vehicles — is a mere Band Aid, and an ineffectual one to boot.
What Coltura’s Analysis Shows
The most startling revelation from the Coltura analysis is the rank inefficiency of the superusers’ rides. You would think that anyone driving 110 miles a day — the purported average for the 21 million superusers identified in the report — would rush to the nearest used-car lot and drive off in a high-mileage vehicle. But you would be wrong. Coltura’s traveling tenth eke out a measly 19.5 miles a gallon, on average. That’s a whopping 18 percent worse than ordinary drivers’ average.
The toll on superusers’ household budgets is immense: an average $530 monthly tab at the pump, according to Coltura. Upping their mpg to merely the same 24 mph average as other motorists would save them $97 a month. Those savings would hit $175 if the superusers clambered further up the mpg ladder and outdid the norm by the same percentage (18 percent) they now lag it. Annualized, that’s a cool two thou per vehicle.
Summing Agriculture and Blue Collar, and apportioning Other among the eight prior categories, only 24% of superusers are doing physical work that might require a large vehicle.
What’s that, you say, superusers are lugging drywall and cement mix and portable generators all over the county and can’t do with a more modest ride? Nonsense. According to Coltura, only 19.1 percent of superusers are blue-collar workers. Throw in another 0.7 percent who work in agriculture, and at most 20 percent routinely haul mountains of stuff requiring a pickup or SUV. The rest are professional/legal (16 percent), business/finance (15 percent), office/administration (10 percent) and other non-physical workers. Even if we prorate the 17 percent of superusers classified as “others,” at most 24 percent of Coltura’s traveling tenth qualify as Grainger’s “the ones who get it done” who might need a kick-ass vehicle with which to do it.
By crunching these figures from Coltura, we calculated that superusers’ average gas mileage is just 19.5 mpg. The U.S. 2021 light-duty fleet average of 22.4 mpg (per FHWA “Highway Statistics,” Table vm1) computes to 23.9 without superusers.
If you really want your head to explode, check out Coltura’s list of superusers’ 20 most popular vehicles. The Chevy Silverado is the choice of 7.4 percent of superusers, followed closely by Ford’s F-150 (6.4 percent). You have to drop down to #12 on the list to find the first vehicle that’s not an SUV or pickup. All told, no more than a handful of the top 20 are sedans.
Their Solution … And Ours
What to do? Ordinarily, one wouldn’t need to care that close to 20 million Americans are too Foxed-up or broke to dump their vampiric, oversized vehicles or off-ramp their road-warrior routines. After all, superusers have chosen to bust their budgets and warp their daily lives, right? Except, duh, the climate we all inhabit is breaking under their emissions — not to mention the myriad other damages from driving 110 miles a day: crashes, traffic, “local” air pollution. As I said up front, society has an interest in enticing them, somehow, into less-inefficient vehicles.
Coltura’s solution is to tie electric-vehicle incentives, messaging and perhaps even provision of charging infrastructure, to drivers’ current gasoline consumption. Validated superusers, based on sworn statements of odometer readings and vehicle make and model (hence, mpg) would qualify for extra rebates, financing and other inducements beyond those offered in the Biden Inflation Reduction Act. These would weaken the glue — economic, ideological or otherwise — that binds superusers to their gas-guzzlers even though it’s worth asking: Why do we need to subsidize someone into buying an EV when switching to a battery-powered car or truck would at once zero out the $6,000 that the average superuser shells out annually on gasoline?
At first blush, Coltura’s approach has a ring of reasonableness. But vagueness suffuses it, not just in the Coltura report, but in its lead authors’ 2022 podcast interview with climate-energy pundit David Roberts. In fact, on closer examination the whole idea comes off as a pig in a poke, with its administrative apparatus, the gaming, the appeals, the interminable wrangling to fashion the “right” incentives and eligibility. Not to mention the inevitable special pleading of “disadvantaged” motorists who almost qualify as superusers but not quite. And the jockeying in states or Congress to pay for the incentives and the bureaucracy.
What makes this prospect especially dispiriting is the existence of an alternative policy instrument that, compared to Coltura’s “targeted” but cumbersome intervention, could do far more to cut gasoline consumption — not just by superusers but by all U.S. motorists: concerted increases in U.S. motor fuel taxes.
Gasoline taxes can be raised in two ways: by boosting the U.S. excise tax, which has been stuck at 18.4 cents a gallon since Oct. 1, 1993 (losing half its heft to inflation since then); or by instituting a carbon tax, which would raise the prices of all fossil fuels including petroleum products.
Resistance to auto dependence was more radical three decades ago, as in this 1993 Village Voice broadside by journalist Daniel Lazare.
The impact on usage would be small in the short run, but it would rise over time, as households switched to higher-mpg vehicles, cities and suburbs up-zoned, and cultural norms adapted to costlier driving. EV’s would be elevated, of course, but vehicle electrification would be only one of many means of getting off gasoline.
My regression analyses of U.S. gasoline demand — a subject I’ve studied for decades — suggest that a $1 increase in the price at the pump would trigger only a 3- to 4-percent drop in usage overnight, but triple that impact within a decade — roughly the same decrease as eliminating one-third of U.S. superusers’ consumption. But that’s just a start. My 1960-2015 data don’t reflect changing societal currents, nor do they capture digital tech’s potential to match people with nearby jobs or connect parallel travelers to enable work and play with fewer miles driven.
“Making other arrangements” in the face of climate chaos is how the social critic James Howard Kunstler once referred to this social reconfiguration. Sadly, as the caterwauling against New York’s congestion pricing program by entrenched interests from New Jersey politicians to teachers’ union bosses attests, the American ethos today would rather cling to dysfunction than attempt change.
This isn’t to make light of either the jarring changes that superuser motorists will face from robust fuel taxes, or the political difficulty of enacting them. (The website of my Carbon Tax Center is replete with potential antidotes to both, even as it acknowledges the difficulties.)
Nevertheless, these hurdles shouldn’t deter livable streets advocates from advocating much higher fuel taxation. Piling subsidies on subsidies, even if well-meaning, only makes our system more complex and opaque. If we don’t advocate for full-cost pricing that tells the truth about motorization, who will?
“…Protecting nature makes our business more resilient…”
For companies with land, water, food, fiber, or commodity exposure, the supply chain may be the most practical place to turn nature from a risk into an operating asset.
Your supply chain already has a nature strategy. It may be undocumented. It may live in procurement files, supplier contracts, commodity maps, and one spreadsheet nobody opens without coffee. But it exists.
If your business depends on farms, forests, water, soil, packaging, rubber, timber, fibers, minerals, or food ingredients, nature is part of your operating system. The question is whether you manage that system with intent, or discover it during a disruption, audit, or difficult board question.
That is why more companies are asking how to find Nature-Based Solutions in Your Supply Chain. Do not begin by shopping for offsets. Begin by asking where nature already affects cost, continuity, emissions, regulatory exposure, and supplier resilience.
What Nature-Based Solutions in Your Supply Chain Means
The European Commission defines nature-based solutions as approaches inspired and supported by nature that are cost-effective, deliver environmental, social, and economic benefits, and help build resilience. They should also benefit biodiversity and support ecosystem services.
In supply-chain terms, that becomes practical. Nature-based solutions in your supply chain can include agroforestry in cocoa, coffee, rubber, or palm supply chains. They can include soil health programs for food ingredients, watershed restoration near water-intensive operations, mangrove restoration linked to coastal sourcing regions, and avoided deforestation in forest-linked commodities.
The key test is business relevance. If your procurement team relies on a landscape, watershed, crop, or supplier base, that is where opportunity may sit. The best projects do not hover outside the business like a framed certificate. They plug into the system that already produces your revenue.
Why the Boardroom Should Care
For many companies, the largest climate and nature exposure sits outside direct operations. The GHG Protocol Scope 3 Standard gives companies a method to account for and report value-chain emissions across sectors. Purchased goods, land use, transport, supplier energy, and product use can make direct emissions look like the visible tip of a very large iceberg.
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures notes that many nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities arise upstream and downstream. That is why nature-based supply chain investments matter to boards. You are managing supply security, audit readiness, investor confidence, and regulatory preparedness.
For companies exposed to EU markets, this also connects to rules and expectations such as CSRD, CSDDD, EUDR, and SBTi FLAG.
Step One: Map Where You Touch Land, Water, and Living Systems
Finding Nature-Based Solutions in Your Supply Chain starts with mapping, not marketing.
Begin with procurement and Scope 3 data. Which categories carry high spend, high emissions, or high sourcing risk? Which suppliers depend on agriculture, forestry, mining, water-intensive processing, or land conversion? Which regions face water stress, heat, flood risk, soil degradation, deforestation, or biodiversity pressure?
The Science Based Targets Network uses a clear process for companies: assess, prioritize, set targets, act, and track. That sequence keeps companies from treating nature as a mood board. You identify where the business has exposure, then decide where intervention can create measurable value.
Step Two: Look for Operational Value Before Carbon Value
This is the center of CCC’s Dual-Value Model. A nature-based supply chain investment should do useful work for the business before anyone counts the carbon.
Agroforestry may improve farmer resilience, shade crops, protect soil, and reduce pressure on forests. Watershed restoration may reduce water risk for beverage, textile, or manufacturing sites. Soil health programs may improve the stability of agricultural inputs.
Carbon and sustainability value can still be created. In some cases, the project may support Scope 3 insetting. In others, it may generate verified carbon credits. Sometimes the main value may be resilience, readiness, and better supplier data.
The IPCC has found that ecosystem-based adaptation can reduce climate risks to people, biodiversity, and ecosystem services, with multiple co-benefits, while also warning that effectiveness declines as warming increases. That is a sober argument for acting early.
Step Three: Separate Insetting, Offsetting, and Resilience
Nature-based solutions in your supply chain are not automatically carbon credits. They are not automatically Scope 3 reductions either.
An insetting opportunity usually sits inside or close to your value chain. It may support Scope 3 reporting if the accounting rules, project boundaries, supplier connection, and data quality are strong enough.
An offsetting opportunity usually involves verified credits outside your value chain. High-quality credits can still play a role for residual emissions, but they should not distract from direct reductions or credible value-chain work.
A resilience opportunity may deliver business value even if you cannot claim a Scope 3 reduction immediately. That may include water security, supplier capacity, land restoration, biodiversity protection, or regulatory readiness.
Gold Standard’s Scope 3 value-chain guidance focuses on reporting emissions reductions from interventions in purchased goods and services. Verra’s Scope 3 Standard Program is being developed to certify value-chain interventions and issue units for companies’ emissions accounting. The direction is clear: stronger evidence, tighter boundaries, and more disciplined claims.
Step Four: Design for Audit-Readiness From the Beginning
Weak data is where promising nature projects go to become expensive anecdotes.
Before public claims are made, you need to know the baseline. What would have happened without the project? Who owns or manages the land? Which suppliers are involved? How will outcomes be measured? How will leakage, permanence, and double counting be addressed?
The GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard gives companies methods to quantify, report, and track land emissions, CO2 removals, and related metrics. This matters because land projects are rarely neat. Farms change practices. Suppliers shift volumes. Weather changes outcomes.
What Recent Corporate Examples Show
Recent case studies show that supply-chain nature work is becoming more serious, and more scrutinized.
Reuters has reported on insetting to reduce emissions within supply chains, including examples linked to Reckitt, Danone, Nestlé, Earthworm Foundation, and Nature-based Insights. The same article highlights familiar problems: measurement, double counting, supplier incentives, and credibility.
Reuters has also reported on companies using the Science Based Targets Network process to examine nature impacts. GSK, Holcim, and Kering were among the first companies with validated science-based targets for nature.
The Financial Times has covered the promise and difficulty of soil carbon in corporate supply chains, including a PepsiCo example in India where yields reportedly increased while greenhouse gas emissions fell. The lesson is that carbon, soil, biodiversity, farmer economics, and measurement need to be handled together.
A Practical Screening Checklist
A supply-chain nature-based solution deserves deeper review when you can answer yes to most of these questions:
- Does it sit in or near a material supply-chain hotspot?
- Does it address a real business risk?
- Can you connect it to supplier behavior, land management, or sourcing practices?
- Can the outcomes be measured?
- Are the claim boundaries clear?
- Does it support Scope 3 strategy, SBTi FLAG, CSRD, CSDDD, EUDR, or investor reporting needs?
- Are permanence, leakage, land rights, and community issues addressed?
Build the Asset, Then Make the Claim
Finding Nature-Based Solutions in Your Supply Chain is about identifying where your business already depends on living systems, then designing interventions that make those systems more resilient, measurable, and commercially useful.
For companies with material Scope 3 exposure, the right project can support supplier resilience, emissions strategy, regulatory readiness, and credible climate communication. The wrong project can become a glossy story with a weak audit trail.
Carbon Credit Capital helps companies design nature-based carbon and sustainability assets that embed directly into corporate supply chains. Through CCC’s Dual-Value Model, you can assess where sustainability investment may support operational resilience, Scope 3 insetting eligibility, regulatory readiness, and high-quality carbon or sustainability value.
Schedule your consultation with the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital to explore how nature-based supply chain investments can support your next stage of climate strategy.
Sources
- European Commission: Nature-based solutions
- GHG Protocol: Corporate Value Chain Scope 3 Standard
- TNFD: Guidance on value chains
- European Commission: Corporate Sustainability Reporting
- European Commission: Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence
- European Commission: Regulation on Deforestation-free Products
- SBTi: Forest, Land and Agriculture FLAG
- Science Based Targets Network: Take Action
- IPCC AR6 WGII Summary for Policymakers
- Gold Standard: Scope 3 Value Chain Interventions Guidance
- Verra: Scope 3 Standard Program
- GHG Protocol: Land Sector and Removals Standard
- Reuters: Can insetting stack the cards towards more sustainable supply chains?
- Reuters: Three companies put their impacts on nature under a microscope
- Financial Times: The dubious climate gains of turning soil into a carbon sink
Americans are paying more for insurance, electricity, taxes, and home repairs every year. What many people may not realize is that climate change is already one of the drivers behind those rising costs.
For many households, climate change is no longer just an environmental issue. It is becoming a cost-of-living issue. While climate impacts like melting glaciers and shrinking polar ice can feel distant from everyday life, the financial effects are already showing up in monthly budgets across the country.
Today, a larger share of household income is consumed by fixed costs such as housing, insurance, utilities, and healthcare. (3) Climate change and climate inaction are adding pressure to many of those expenses through higher disaster recovery costs, rising energy demand, infrastructure repairs, and increased insurance risk.
The goal of this article is to help connect climate change to the everyday financial realities people already experience. Regardless of where someone stands on climate policy, it is important to recognize that climate change is already increasing costs for households, businesses, and taxpayers across the United States.
More conservative estimates indicate that the average household has experienced an increase of about $400 per year from observed climate change, while less conservative estimates suggest an increase of $900.(1) Those in more disaster-prone regions of the country face disproportionate costs, with some households experiencing climate-related costs averaging $1,300 per year.(1) Another study found that climate adaptation costs driven by climate change have already consumed over 3% of personal income in the U.S. since 2015.(9) By the end of the century, housing units could spend an additional $5,600 on adaptation costs.(1)
Whether we realize it or not, Americans are already paying for climate change through higher insurance premiums, energy costs, taxes, and infrastructure repairs. These growing expenses are often referred to as climate adaptation costs.
Without meaningful climate action, these costs are expected to continue rising. Choosing not to invest in climate action is also choosing to spend more on climate adaptation.
Here are a few ways climate change is already increasing the cost of living:
- Higher insurance costs from more frequent and severe storms
- Higher energy use during longer and hotter summers
- Higher electricity rates tied to storm recovery and grid upgrades
- Higher government spending and taxpayer-funded disaster recovery costs
The real debate is not whether climate change costs money. Americans are already paying for it. The question is where we want those costs to go. Should we invest more in climate action to help reduce future climate adaptation costs, or continue paying growing recovery and adaptation expenses in everyday life?
How Climate Change Is Increasing Insurance Costs
There is one industry that closely tracks the financial impact of natural disasters: insurance. Insurance companies are focused on assessing risk, estimating damages, and collecting enough revenue to cover losses and remain financially stable.
Comparing the 20-year periods 1980–1999 and 2000–2019, climate-related disasters increased 83% globally from 3,656 events to 6,681 events. The average time between billion-dollar disasters dropped from 82 days during the 1980s to 16 days during the last 10 years, and in 2025 the average time between disasters fell to just 10 days. (6)
According to the reinsurance firm Munich Re, total economic losses from natural disasters in 2024 exceeded $320 billion globally, nearly 40% higher than the decade-long annual average. Average annual inflation-adjusted costs more than quadrupled from $22.6 billion per year in the 1980s to $102 billion per year in the 2010s. Costs increased further to an average of $153.2 billion annually during 2020–2024, representing another 50% increase over the 2010s. (6)
In the United States, billion-dollar weather and climate disasters have also increased significantly. The average number of billion-dollar disasters per year has grown from roughly three annually during the 1980s to 19 annually over the last decade. In 2023 and 2024, the U.S. recorded 28 and 27 billion-dollar disasters respectively, both setting new records. (6)
The growing impact of climate change is one reason insurance costs continue to rise. “There are two things that drive insurance loss costs, which is the frequency of events and how much they cost,” said Robert Passmore, assistant vice president of personal lines at the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America. “So, as these events become more frequent, that’s definitely going to have an impact.” (8)
After adjusting for inflation, insurance costs have steadily increased over time. From 2000 to 2020, insurance costs consistently grew faster than the Consumer Price Index due to rising rebuilding costs and weather-related losses.(3) Between 2020 and 2023 alone, the average home insurance premium increased from $75 to $360 due to climate change impacts, with disaster-prone regions experiencing especially steep increases.(1) Since 2015, homeowners in some regions affected by more extreme weather have seen home insurance costs increased by nearly 57%.(1) Some insurers have also limited or stopped offering coverage in high-risk areas.(7)
For many families, rising insurance costs are no longer occasional financial burdens. They are becoming recurring monthly expenses tied directly to growing climate risk.
How Rising Temperatures Increase Household Energy Costs
The financial impacts of climate change extend beyond insurance. Rising temperatures are also changing how much energy Americans use and how utilities plan for future electricity demand.
Between 1950 and 2010, per capita electricity use increased 10-fold, though usage has flattened or slightly declined since 2012 due to more efficient appliances and LED lighting. (3) A significant share of increased energy demand comes from cooling needs associated with higher temperatures.
Over the last 20 years, the United States has experienced increasing Cooling Degree Days (CDD) and decreasing Heating Degree Days (HDD). Nearly all counties have become warmer over the past three decades, with some areas experiencing several hundred additional cooling degree days, equivalent to roughly one additional degree of warmth on most days. (1) This trend reflects a warming climate where air conditioning demand is increasing while heating demand generally declines. (4)
As temperatures continue rising, households are expected to spend more on cooling than they save on heating. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that by 2050, national Heating Degree Days will be 11% lower while Cooling Degree Days will be 28% higher than 2021 levels. Cooling demand is projected to rise 2.5 times faster than heating demand declines. (5)
These projections come from energy and infrastructure experts planning for future electricity demand and grid capacity needs. Utilities and grid operators are already preparing for higher peak summer electricity loads caused by rising temperatures. (5)
Longer and hotter summers also affect how homes and buildings are designed. Buildings constructed for past climate conditions may require upgrades such as larger air conditioning systems, stronger insulation, and improved ventilation to remain comfortable and energy efficient in the future. (10)
For many households, this means higher monthly utility bills and potentially higher long-term home improvement costs as temperatures continue to rise.
How Climate Change Affects Electricity Rates
On an inflation-adjusted basis, average U.S. residential electricity rates are slightly lower today than they were 50 years ago. (2) However, climate-related damage to utility infrastructure is creating new upward pressure on electricity costs.
Electric utilities rely heavily on above-ground poles, wires, transformers, and substations that can be damaged by hurricanes, storms, floods, and wildfires. Repairing and upgrading this infrastructure often requires substantial investment.
As a result, utilities are increasing electricity rates in response to wildfire and hurricane events to fund infrastructure repairs and future mitigation efforts. (1) The average cumulative increase in per-household electricity expenditures due to climate-related price changes is approximately $30. (1)
While this increase may appear modest today, utility costs are expected to rise further as climate-related infrastructure damage becomes more frequent and severe.
How Climate Disasters Increase Government Spending and Taxes
Extreme weather events also damage public infrastructure, including roads, schools, bridges, airports, water systems, and emergency services infrastructure. Recovery and rebuilding costs are often funded through taxpayer dollars at the federal, state, and local levels.
The average annual government cost tied to climate-related disaster recovery is estimated at nearly $142 per household. (1) States that frequently experience hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, or flooding can face even higher public recovery costs.
These expenses affect taxpayers whether they personally experience a disaster or not. Climate-related recovery spending can increase pressure on public budgets, emergency management systems, and infrastructure funding nationwide.
Reducing Climate Costs Through Climate Action
While this article focuses on the growing financial costs associated with climate change, the issue is not only about money for many people. It is also about recognizing our environmental impact and taking responsibility for reducing it in order to help preserve a healthy planet for future generations.
While individuals alone cannot solve climate change, collective action can help reduce future climate adaptation costs over time.
For those interested in taking action, there are three important steps:
- Estimate your carbon footprint to better understand the emissions connected to your lifestyle and activities.
- Create a plan to gradually reduce emissions through energy efficiency, cleaner technologies, and more sustainable choices.
- Address remaining emissions by supporting verified carbon reduction projects through carbon credits.
Carbon credits are one of the most cost-effective tools available for climate action because they help fund projects that generate verified emission reductions at scale. Supporting global emission reduction efforts can help reduce the long-term impacts and costs associated with climate change.
Visit Terrapass to learn more about carbon footprints, carbon credits, and climate action solutions.
The post How Climate Change Is Raising the Cost of Living appeared first on Terrapass.
A carbon credit purchase is not a transaction that closes at issuance. The credit may be retired, the certificate filed, and the reporting box ticked. But on the ground, in the forest, in the field, and in the community, the work continues. It endures for years. In many cases, for decades.
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