Private equity profits from climate disaster clean-up – while investing in fossil fuels

The aftermath of Hurricane Ian in September last year. In recent years, some private equity firms have become major greenhouse gas polluters. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Private equity firms are increasingly profiting from cleaning up climate disasters in the US, while failing to better protect workers and often also investing in the fossil fuels that are causing the climate emergency, new research has found.

The demand for skilled disaster restoration or resilience workers, who are mostly immigrants and refugees from Latin America and Asia, is soaring as greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels heat the planet, provoking more destructive storms, floods and wildfires.