>> building a better bay area. moving forward. finding solutions. this is abc7 news. ♪ kristen: i'm kristen sze. you are watching "getting answers." every day we talk with experts about issues important to the bay area and get answers today safrancisco standard and covered how the city doled out more than $25 million in taxpayer money last year to dozens of charities. the state actually -- charities the state actually blocked from getting funding. more on the investigation. also as the storms keep coming, what's the economic impact short and long-term? a moody's economists will be joining us in a couple of minutes to take a look at the tool and implications. first, the big weather headline

today -- california's extreme drought has been virtually eliminated after all of the storms we have seen so far this month. the bay area gains. reporter: let's take you back to christmas day, right before we entered several weeks of rainy weather. on that day, 40% of the state was either an extreme or exceptional drought -- in extreme or exceptional drought. watch what happened today. which -- we have wiped away all of the extreme drought across california and made huge gains in the bay area. prior to today, most of the bay area was under severe or extreme droughts, fast-forward to today, and inches of rainfall, you can see most of the bay area is in moderate drought. the second lowest drug category, and we still have --l have more

rain on the way. it starts every year october 1, and everybody is well above average up to this point in the season. in fact, oakland is less than an inch away from eclipsing their annual rainfall total, about 18.5 inches. that is how much rain we have seen. i think oakland will get there over the weekend with more rain on the way. the reservoirs, filling as well. here are the six biggest reservoirs that we have across the state, look at the second biggest one, lake orville, nearly halfway full. 49% total capacity. don page, 70% capacity. we will see the levels rise a bit over the next week as more rain is in the forecast. our sierra snowpack is doing absolutely wonderful. statewide, the average, 227% right now. in fact, our snowpack is at 104% for the april 1 date, which is typically

when we see the peak depth of our snowfall, and more snow is coming over the next couple of days. kristen: although storms are making -- although storms are making an economic impact -- all the storms are making an economic impact regionally and globally. joining us to discuss this, the overlooked aspect of storms if you will, a moody's and elitist climate economist -- thanks for your time. we see a big economic cost to our from cyclones and atmospheric rivers, right? >> from cyclones, wildfires, droughts, what we have seen over the past year or two years is all of these can happen simultaneously. so the bay area can be affected by drought, also by flooding and wildfires, all of the perils can

happen at the same time. especially over the course of time, weather events have become more costly. so there have been 18 weather-related or climate related disasters in 2022 that exceeded over a million dollars lost, just in the last year. 341 whether and climate disasters since 1980, the total amount of the cost of those disasters exceeds $2.4 trillion. kristen: let's go ahead and show these costs and of -- in a visual way on your website. i want to explain to folks that you are able to show overtime whether it is floods or wildfires, hurricanes, all that, the world is sustaining more and more natural catastrophes. do you expect that cost, which you already put at 2 million for the last year or something, to keep rising over time? >> absolutely. historically, this cost has risen, natural disasters, by

3.5% per annum, it is a compounding growth rate. if we project out to that is what my colleagues and i did, we put out a report called the economic cost of climate inaction last fall, and what we found is that the size of our economy could be 9% lower in 2100 if we take no action whatsoever. that is because as the temperature will continue to rise, say, if we do nothing, there will be increasingly severe weather events that will become more costly over time. kristen: explained to us how the severe weather events add up to loss. there's a simple -- the simple we can see loss, but it is more than that, it is whole industries that have to re-plan andtalk abo that. >> absolutely. if you look at the physical risk channel, that means natural

also chronic p risk, things like sealevel rise, changes in agricultural precipitation patterns, heat stress, which reduces the productivity of the workforce, there is of various factors, some acute, some chronic, that would occur, as temperatures continue to rise. and those have a cost associated with them, and they affect the country in a disproportionate fashion. if we were to decarbonize -- if we were to decarbonize, there would be shifts, as the economy reorients itself. i want to the sting wish between physical risk, what happens if we do nothing, versus transition risk. if we decarbonize, what does that mean for our economy? kristen: can we talk about, here in california, we are very much dependent on the success of the tech sector.

also if you want to talk about the agriculture in central valley, the wine production in the north bay, napa valley, how do those get factored in cost wise, as we continue to see these trends of more disastrous catastrophes and climate change? >> i think that southern california, that is going to be more exposed to things like heat stress, then in northern california, a lot of the natural disasters are going to be the primary channel that is going to impact activities. we saw north of san francisco over the past two years entire vineyards getting wiped out by wildfires. it really is those acute events i would focus on for northern california, then southern california, the chronic events become very severe and pronounced. it is 9% decline

and it is going to be something similar on par with that, a little bit less than that, but and that 5% to 8% range for california -- in that 5% to 8% range for california. mitigating the includes the geographic location, as vulnerable as bay area an san francisco art to natural disasters, it is less compared with florida with hurricane risk, etc., but it is still 5% to 8% impact by 2100. that is quite substantial. the risk of inaction are very high. kristen: what about tourism? obviously california is big draw for tourists. it seems like we might be a loser here in california, from the tourism standpoint, if things continue this way. other winners, too -- are there winners, too? >> tourism

geographically. there are cold countries that gain more tourists countries that lose tourists. in some nations most at that would be the caribbean or along the equator. where it becomes very hot, and as a result, say jamaica is having less tourists visit more people are doing tourism in the u.s., and they called country like sweden might welcome more tourists --a cold country like sweden might welcome more tourists. i think the u.s. is fairly neutral in this arena. because it is further north than the equator. there would be tourism related to impacts on particular industries like wildfires, if they rip through napa valley. monterey.

that would impact the agricultural sector, especially for wine, a lot of wine tourism would be affected by that. it is the natural disasters you would want to focus on for the bay area. kristen: moody's analytics provides this type of information, and it is used risk mitigation, investments. why do you think the public needs this information? kristen: -- >> i think we put out a report that shows the cost of climate inaction. in order for that to have any impact, it has to impact the citizens of the country, because they have to tangibly understand what that means. what does that mean for my life, if the global temperature goes up by three degrees celsius by 2100? without that link, then there is no policy to do carbonize --

decarbonize. it is important for the public to grasp this issue because without it there would be no public support for actions to kind of mitigate the effects of climate change. kristen: so by putting a price tag on these types of disasters that we are getting more of, it may spur climate action, is where this is going, yes? >> absolutely. because if we do any kind of cost-benefit analysis, we need to understand what we are losing, if we do nothing. and if we take action, what is the cost of that action? we can figure out whether or not we should act and if so by how much. that's why it's very important, we think, to put out a report that quantifies, what other transition costs? what's it going to cost to decarbonize? and what are we saving? in our report, we do find

that modest mitigation is actually in our best long-term economic interest. so something that can help us decarbonize overtime. the carbon tax, investment incentives, such as those that were passed in the inflation reduction act last year. these types of policies, if they are implement it modestly, and you deal with the potential displacement of individuals in not so fortunate areas, coal mining, etc., that can ensure that the cl imate doesn't affect the u.s. economy by more than it needs to. kristen: thank you so much, i think folks can check out the full report that you referred to on the moody's website. thank you so much. >> my pleasure. thank you very much. kristen: stay with

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kristen: bonnie $5 million in taxpayer money -- $25 million in taxpayer money misused. the san francisco standard has a new article exposing the city of san francisco for doling out money to delinquent charities that have been blocked from receiving state funding. joining us live now with much more on this is the senior reporter for the standard. thank you for joining us to talk about the story. >> pleasure to be with you. kristen: i saw your reported notes that san francisco paid $25 million last june to charities that had already had their nonprofit status revoked, suspended, were labeled delinquent by the das office. what exactly does that mean? >> basically, when the attorney

general's office as a nonprofit that has been suspended, revoked, or tagged as delinquent, that means these organizations are now barred from receiving money that is designated for nonprofits, spending that money, they have restrictions on them when it comes to retaining staff, and actually soliciting contributions from private donors. kristen: so they are not supposed to get money, i don't know if that delinquent label has to -- we hear the word and think they did something terrible, could it be something as simple as just that paperwork that needs to be refiled? or is it something serious like you defrauded people? >> absolutely, there are levels to noncompliance, revoked or suspended is absolutely the worst. delinquent can mean a lot of different things. it could be you ms. pain -- mispaying a fee, filling out paperwork wrong. there are 139 nonprofits in san francisco that fit those three categories. the 100 32 of them that are delinquent --

132 of them are delinquent. some have multiple issues on different fronts. when you add up the money that's gone to these organizations, you mention the $25 million paid at the beginning of the fiscal year, which would've been last july, that number has now ballooned to $90 million roughly. the city has $300 million worth of contracts going forward with these out of compliance nonprofits. kristen: so the checks keep going out. om theanranciscodata with comptrollers office that shows where exactly that money went. let's take a look. walk us through who got what. >> right now, bas you've got nonprofits that usually focus in dealing with major crises like homelessness and housing, drug addiction, education, health care, and these organizations have gotten -- some of them hundreds of thousands, others get tens of millions. we wanted to focus our first

story on the city departments and a lack of oversight they have had and the negligence they've shown in just doing a basic check of compliance. the department instead of giving away the most money include the homelessness and support housing department which gave almost $88 million or has contracts worth that much, you've got the department of public health with more than $50 million. you've got the human services agency with tens of millions. the list goes on. there's 18 total departments that have apparently not been doing their due diligence. kristen: you mentioned due diligence and oversight. is that how the city explained it to you? i assume you asked how they could let this happen. >> there's a range of reactions. i will say the city attorney's office and controllers office were not pleased with this, and they say that they are going to aggressively make sure that they get these nonprofits into compliance, or obviously we

shouldn't be giving taxpayer money to them. when i talk to the mayor's office, they said they are going to look at the guidance given by those two previous agencies i mentioned and see what is there. some have said, this major deal, some have paperwork issues. by law, they are not supposed to get taxpayer money does in unit for nonprofit -- designated for nonprofit. you can say it's not a big deal but they were very clear that none of these organizations are legally allowed to get money or spend that money. kristen: does the city lose out in some other ways? could they be penalized for giving up the money when the ag said no? >> we are still waiting on comment from the ag's office whether there could be penalties. it can levy criminal penalties against organizations that do this. when it comes to the city, i think that comes back to whether we feel like the city is

doing a good job with our taxpayer money, we have seen homelessness networks, issues with drug addiction overdoses get worse over recent years. housing is obviously a major crisis. education is viewed as performing poorly by city residents. so when it comes to the city side, based on the reports we have gotten so far and continue to report, people are going to have to make their own judgments on whether or not san francisco's really actually making the best use of our taxpayer dollars. kristen: the first part your serious, looking at how the city is spending her money, taxpayer money, i appreciate you coming on to share that with us. we are looking forward to the rest. you can check out more of the san francisco standard's other original reporting on their website, sfstandard.com. we

kristen: with the new year come

many resolutions and getting our finances in order are near or at the top of our to do list. earlier, we spoke to former nfl player turned financial educator brandon copeland, who shared some very useful tips. welcome, how's it going, brandon? >> doing well. how are you doing? >> should would be calling a professor copeland? you teach a class at penn. >> i'm not going to dock you any points, but i've got seniority now. [laughter] professor cook. call me whatever you want. >> this is not only your career journey but now embracing what you are doing, how did you decide that this was something that was really important to you, helping people get their finances together? >> i knew personally my own trajectory with money, i came into the nfl, and so many people want to so start talking to me about investments and 401(k)'s, iras, all these things, i was like, what changed about me yesterday as a poster today? i remember --

as opposed to today? i remember facing challenges in my life with anxiety, buying my first home, a 100 and some page closing disclosure and i had no idea what was going on, something was backwards there and i wanted to make sure i could help educate people and deliver this information in a digestible way, so people were welcomed to the conversation around money instead of afraid to talk about it. >> i'm so glad you are teaching this class and we are talking about this today because i have long thought that in high schools they should teach that is a mandatory course for graduation, but they don't. and i feel like -- give us the biggest tips, what are the pitfalls you see, and how do we avoid them? >> one you we should be teaching this as because it is the one constant decision -- as young as possible because it is the one constant decision between us regardless of the career path you choose, money is going to matter.

the first thing i try to tell people, one of the biggest hurdles to getting yourself to where want to be financially is debt. if you have a bunch of different data out there, one of the first steps towards getting rid of that debt is refinancing, bundling all of those into one single loan, if possible, then just checking to see if you qualify for any loan forgiveness programs and ultimately just getting as aggressive as possible paying down that debt, using as much savings and as much money as you can, so you can aggressively pay down that debt. before that, you probably want to start a budget. a lot of us are spending nowadays on things we don't really want, we are just trying to keep up with the people in the locker room, so to speak. trust me, i know about that. you want to make sure that all the purchases you are making are actually tied to your financial goals and your why. 65% of americans don't know how much money they spent last month, so if that's the case,

how can you ever reach your financial goals if you have no idea where you are starting? i want you to calculate how much money it cost you to costs you to live every single month, then if you are not where you want to be, and you are trying to reach those different goals of financial freedom, you need to figure out ways to create surpluses of money. that might be just $20 to start. ultimately finding ways to either cut expenses or creating a site hustle -- side hustle can provide you extra income so you can put that towards some of your dreams and goals. i always say you want to create the life that you want, and so, i personally know that anything is possible, and i am always going to preach that to as many people as i possibly can. >> thank you for this. this is exciting, as we start the new year. really great information. kristen: what's your website where people can go and learn more information? >> they can go to life101.io, and if all else fails, hit the

lotto and split it with your boy. [laughter] >> all right. thank you so much, number 51, professor, congratulations and thank you for your tips. kristen: working on that lotto part. for you non-football fans, copeland played for the baltimore ravens, tennessee titans, detroit lions, new york jets, and new england patriots, and atlanta falcons. definitely not your typical financial expert resume. but soft. -- good stuff.

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kristen: thank you so much for joining us for "getting answers." we will be here every weekday at

3:00 answering questions from around the bay area. "world news tonight" with david muir is next. tonight, several breaking stories as we come on the air. a special counsel now appointed to investigate classified documents found at president biden's former office and at his home. also breaking tonight, the tornado touching down. the watches and warnings tonight across several states. and the breaking headline from hollywood. lisa mare presley rushed to the hospital. first tonight, a special counsel will now investigate those classified documents found at president biden's former office and home, and what the president said today about the documents found in his garage, where he keeps his corvette. and who is the special counsel, robert hur, appointed by attorney general merrick garland? and unprecedented times now, two special counsels, one investigating the president, the other investigating the former president. both cases involving classified documents. an