In this file photo taken on November 9, 2018, a firefighter is silhouetted by a burning home along Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1) during the Woolsey Fire in Malibu, California. Climate change is already hurting the U.S. and global economies and its effects will get worse unless more drastic action is taken to cut carbon emissions, a major US government report warned on Friday, November 23, 2018. (Xinhua/AFP)
WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 (Xinhua) -- A report published Friday has shown that climate change is causing damages to the United States, affecting its infrastructure, ecosystems, health and economy.
The report, released by the United States Global Change Research Program (USCGRP), has confirmed that the human health and safety, the quality of life and the rate of economic growth in communities in the country are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
The responses to climate change have expanded in the last five years, but are inadequate to avoid its substantial damages over the coming decades, according to the report.
Without substantial and sustained global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and regional initiatives to prepare for anticipated changes, climate change is expected to cause growing losses and slow down the economic growth over this century, the report says.
However, the United States announced in the November of 2017 that it would quit the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change as soon as "it is eligible to do so," unless the terms of the international pact became "more favorable" to American people.
The new report is the latest and most detailed confirmation that humans are driving climate change and that Americans are already adapting to and suffering from its effects.
Rising temperatures, extreme heat, drought, wildfire on rangelands and heavy downpours are expected to increasingly challenge the quality and quantity of U.S. crop yields, livestock health, price stability and rural livelihoods, according to the report.
Also, changes in temperature and precipitation are increasing air quality and health risks from wildfire and ground-level ozone pollution.
The latest disaster came to the massive wildfire in California, killing at least 87 with over 500 listed as missing.
Among those disaster are flooding that is expected to compound existing issues with aging infrastructure in the country's northeastern area and drought that threatens oil, gas drilling and power generation which rely on surface water for cooling, the report says.
The report also listed fresh water and food shortage, sea level rise, changes to air quality and the spread of new diseases by insects and pests as risks caused by the climate change.
USGCRP is a program mandated by the U.S. Congress to coordinate federal research and investments in understanding the forces shaping the global environment and their impacts on society.
