Cities are the “front lines” of climate change—and they are preparing extraordinary actions to reduce carbon production and adapt to the unavoidable effects of global warming, such as rising sea levels.
But, in our experience, few urban civic task forces, government “sustainability officers,” or community groups have reckoned with the way that responding to climate change involves decisions that affect the low-income and minority households and neighborhoods in their communities. Typically, the climate change “dialogue” proceeds without significant participation by low-income communities of color and the organizations that support them. Social equity is not “top of mind” in the climate-change planning that occurs. And grassroots organizations are only in early stages of understanding climate change and its potential effects.
Fortunately, this is beginning to change. A new report, “The Climate Gap,” by the University of Southern California Program for Environment and Regional Equity, shines a bright light on this issue: "Heat waves, wild fires and floods are making headlines more often. What hasn’t made headlines—yet—is the climate gap: the disproportionate and unequal impact the climate crisis has on people of color and the poor. Unless something is done, the consequences of America’s climate crisis will harm all Americans—especially those who are least able to anticipate, cope with, resist and recover from the worst consequences.” Another useful report about the differentiated impacts is “A Climate of Change--African Americans, Global Warming and a Just Climate Policy for the U.S.” And three promising national initiatives are underway: Environmental Justice and Climate Change, Climate Equity Alliance, and Environmental Equity and Community Opportunity.
But “climate justice” is undeniably a very young field. It is early in the process of taking concepts and turning them into innovations and practices that proliferate. It is fragmented, lacks technical expertise, and is not well organized to influence national and state policies. Still, we can discern a core set of initial ideas:
- Mitigate financial harm that comes to low-income communities of color from the implementation of mitigation strategies, many of which will lead to increased prices for energy.
- Invest resources in low-income communities for implementation of mitigation strategies such as building energy retrofitting.
- Use mitigation and adaptation strategies to create “good” jobs that low-income people can obtain.
- Focus adaptation strategies (for issues like disaster resistance; heat stress; economic dislocation; and increased disease susceptibility) on the most vulnerable communities -- which are usually low-income communties of color.
- Involve low-income communities of color in the decision making.
And there's a laundry list of actions that communities can use to implement these principles, including:
- Improving low-income neighborhood access to transit systems.
- Subsidizing the cost of energy retrofitting low-income homes and apartments.
- Using Real Time Pricing and other "demand management" tools to help low-income families reduce their electricity costs.
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Connecting low-income youth in schools to careers in clean technology.
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Using urban agriculture to supplement local diets and food budgets.
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Prioritizing low-income communities for adaptation-related infrastructure improvements.
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Using green infrastructure in low-income neighborhoods to mitigate storm water runoff and urban heat islands.
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Using building retrofits to create economic development opportunities for contractors in low-income communities.
Most of the focus of climate change activism has been on international, national, and city policies. But climate justice also focuses on the neighborhood, when place, climate change, and equity intersect. The climate justice challenge over the coming decades will be to evolve both the public policies and the neighborhood-level institutions and capacities that can implement practice and spawn innovations at this intersection. |
