Read this sensible piece published in the esteemed Economist Magazine about the possible effects of climate change. A key point that the piece focuses on is that poor counties in the U.S may become poorer because of increased heat and climate risk. In a standard compensating differentials model, this will lower home prices there. Read my 2014 Istanbul Keynote. Yes, home owners in places that do not play good defense against climate change will suffer an asset price loss as the aggregate demand for such homes declines (the supply of such durable capital is inelastic). But, poor people often do not own homes. Poor people in affected places will enjoy a rent decrease. This is the general equilibrium point that the Economist Magazine ignores! If poor renters gain greater utility from a growth in private consumption (due to falling rents) than the utility they lose from a greater probability of suffering and loss of life then they could made better off from this dynamic shift. Yes, I am assuming the poor's income prospects do not decline because of the climate shift. If they receive a fixed nominal government transfer, then my story holds. If they work as farmers (whose output will decline in the new heat), then my assumption is wrong.
Before you laugh, ask yourself the following question; why do so many poor people continue to live in Detroit? Glaeser and Gyourko answer this in their 2005 JPE paper (durable housing and low demand yields low rents).
Before you say that I'm suggesting that we quarantine the poor in increasingly risky places, read my 2017 paper on durable capital and climate risk. If you want to protect the poor against place based shocks, we need less durable capital! If Detroit has no homes and we don't allow tent cities there, then even the poor will move away.
UPDATE: One of my loyal readers is arguing that "some poor people own houses" in the Deep South. Of course he is right, but most poor people in the South are renters. Zillow says that the median home in Louisiana is valued at $205,000. Note that my blog post discusses "poor people", not lower middle income people. Conditional that you are poor, you are most likely to be a renter.
I do think it is an interesting research question to study which percentiles of the income distribution (not Hsiang's counties) will bear the asset value loss associated with climate change quality of life impacts. Studying "counties" does not begin to address this issue because we need to know which people own which homes by county.