Click the link to download the report from the Colorado Fiscal Institute website (Pegah Jalali):
January 30, 2026
Introduction
Between 2025 and 2050, our analysis finds that climate change could impose roughly $33 billion to $37 billion in additional costs and resilience needs across Colorado’s health, infrastructure, wildfire, flooding, and winter recreation impacts. The largest quantified drivers are extreme heat, which could lead to about 1,800 to 1,900 additional heat-related deaths, or about $24 billion to $25 billion in losses, and infrastructure pressures totaling about $8.3 billion to $8.7 billion in added costs and upgrades as roads, bridges, stormwater systems, and building cooling demand are pushed beyond historical design conditions. Wildfire smoke and property impacts add another $1.3 billion, with additional resilience needs on the order of $2.3 billion. These figures do not capture every hazard or indirect loss, but they make one point clear: Planning and investment now can save lives and avoid much larger costs later.
Executive Summary (2025 TO 2050)
Colorado is already experiencing the effects of a warming climate: hotter summers, longer wildfire seasons, more smoke exposure, and mounting pressure on critical infrastructure and water-dependent industries. These changes are not abstract. They influence public health, household costs, and the reliability of roads, bridges, and stormwater systems, while increasing the risk of disruptive, high-loss events.
Across the impacts we quantify, total projected costs from 2025 to 2050 are on the order of $50 billion to $54 billion, of which $36 billion to $37 billion represents additional costs directly attributable to climate change, plus defined resilience investments.
This executive summary highlights projected climate-related damages and resilience needs from 2025 to 2050. It is intended for policymakers, community leaders, and reporters who need a clear, comparable set of numbers to understand the scale of the challenge. Results are shown under two global emissions pathways that bracket plausible futures: a medium-high pathway (SSP3-7.0) and a high-end emissions pathway (SSP5-8.5).
Among Colorado’s health, infrastructure, wildfire, flooding, and winter recreation impacts, the largest quantified drivers are extreme heat, which could lead to about 1,800 to 1,900 additional heat-related deaths, or about $24 billion to $25 billion in losses, and infrastructure pressures totaling about $8.3 billion to $8.7 billion in added costs and upgrades as roads, bridges, stormwater systems, and building cooling demand are pushed beyond historical design conditions. Wildfire smoke and property impacts add another $1.3 billion, with additional resilience needs on the order of $2.3 billion. These figures do not capture every hazard or indirect loss, but they make one point clear: Planning and investment now can save lives and avoid much larger costs later.
How we estimated impacts: For each sector, we combine Colorado-specific historical records with downscaled climate projections to quantify how key hazards change over time. We then estimate climate-attributable impacts by comparing projected outcomes to a counterfactual that holds climate hazards at 1995 to 2014 baseline levels while allowing underlying trends to continue. Where relevant, we also estimate defined resilience investments, such as bridge upgrades, stormwater improvements, wildfire mitigation, and snowmaking, that can reduce future losses. All monetary values are reported in 2024 dollars.
Because not every climate impact can be modeled with available data, these estimates should be viewed as conservative. They cover major, quantifiable pathways but do not include every hazard, indirect economic spillover, or nonfatal health effect.