Minnesota Climate Adaptation and Resilience Cost Study
Minnesota’s Pollution Control Agency published the “Minnesota Climate Adaptation and Resilience Cost Study” in March 2026, in compliance with the 2024 Minnesota Session Law, Ch. 116, Article 2, Sec. 33 to “carry out a study on climate adaptation and resilience costs.” The study analyzes the cost of inaction, cost of adaptation, and residual risks under three potential climate change scenarios (intermediate, high, and very high emissions). The study then organizes the costs into categories:
- Health and Wellbeing, which includes access to air conditioning, worker protections, and urban trees;
- Agriculture and Livestock, which includes crops, field drainage and retention ponds, and barn cooling;
- Transportation and Electricity Infrastructure, which includes road upgrades, transmission and distribution upgrades, and rail upgrades;
- Buildings, which includes floodproofing and wildfire hardening and suppression; and
- Ecosystems, which include forest invasives management and aquatic restoration.
The study first presents predictions of future climate hazards in the state out to the year 2099 to determine an accurate level of necessary adaptation investment. It then translates these hazards into impacts, and finally, identifies adaptation activities (and their associated costs) that will result in Minnesota adjusting to future climate impacts. This accounting includes the cost of inaction (the monetized impacts of climate hazards), the cost of adaptation (how much it will cost to adjust to climate hazards), and the residual risks (the risks that remain after implementing adaptation actions). The study quantifies successful adaptation measures as returning the state to “baseline” or present-day conditions (referenced to the 1995 - 2014 average). Notably, the costs not estimated in the study include the cost of: acquiring funding, planning, partnership development, change in cost overtime, and indirect costs and benefits.
Through this study, the MPCA found that “the annual quantified costs of inaction are six to 15 times the quantified adaptation costs for the categories analyzed in this study.” However, the study also acknowledges that their conservative estimations likely underestimate the costs of inaction and adaptation, indicating that these figures may be higher. Beyond underscoring the necessity of the implementation of adaptation measures, the study identifies future needs, such as developing a plan for adaptation financing, a process for testing adaptation actions, and an adaptation plan built around the study.
Publication Date: March 2026
Related Organizations:
- Minnesota Pollution Control Agency
Resource Category:
Resource Types:
- Assessment
- Scenario planning
States Affected:
