How Wall Street reckoned with climate change in 2023

Extreme weather this year carried life-or-death stakes but also economic risks.

Wildfire smoke bathed New York City's front-line workers in fumes, atmospheric rivers forced hundreds of thousands of California homes into darkness, and hurricane Idalia battered tourism in Florida.

Natural disasters nationwide in 2023 focused attention on the life-or-death stakes of climate change but also underscored a grave risk of a different type: economic distress.

A landmark report released by the federal government last month put a price tag on extreme weather events, saying they impose nearly $150 billion in costs for the United States each year.

Those losses fall disproportionately on low-income and historically marginalized people, worsening inequality, the Fifth National Climate Assessment found.

While the economic consequences of climate change became more clear this year, the response from companies, economic policymakers and private investors was mixed, analysts told ABC News.