Climate Justice in the States: Promoting Equity in Dealing with Climate Change

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By J. Mijin Cha
Policy Specialist
Progressive States Network

Too often, the impact that policies and measures have on low-income and marginalized communities is considered only as an afterthought, if at all. Climate change policies are no exception.

While everyone will be impacted by the effect of climate change, the impacts will be distributed unequally. For example, temperatures are expected to increase across the country resulting in higher cooling costs, which more greatly affects poorer households. But the impacts go beyond just increased cooling costs. Higher temperatures will have a greater effect on those with poorer health and lack of access to hospitals and health care. People of color and low-income communities face more health care disparities, including less routine care and unequal access to quality care. As a result, these communities will doubly suffer from the effects of climate change.

While there is no doubt that aggressive, comprehensive action must be taken, the impact these policies have on lower-income communities and communities of color must be considered from the beginning, especially in a time of recession when family budgets are most strained. This Dispatch lays out the issues facing climate change policies and how states can implement smart, equitable changes.

Stopping "Cap and Dump"

The disproportionate burden on low income communities and communities of color is continued by bad climate change policies. If not properly created, implemented, and enforced, cap and trade policies can result in poor communities and communities of color being exposed to a grossly disproportionate level of pollution. The idea behind cap and trade is that emissions levels for a particular industry are capped. Emissions allowances are then distributed amongst the industry. These allowances can then be traded between companies to compensate for exceeding emissions limits.

Dumping in Poor Communities: Without proper policing, a cap and trade system can become a "cap and dump" system where companies, especially those in disadvantaged communities, make no changes in their behavior and instead just buy emissions credits to cover their bad behavior. In the end, communities that cannot afford to keep polluting industries out become toxic dumping grounds.

In a declaration against cap and trade schemes, environmental justice advocates point out that many current cap and trade schemes are undemocratic, "because it allows entrenched polluters, market designers, and commodity traders to determine whether and where to reduce greenhouse gases and co-pollutant emissions without allowing impacted communities or governments to participate in those decisions."

Carbon Taxes as a Better Alternative: Many economists, including conservative ones, argue that an across-the-board tax on carbon to encourage emission cutbacks from all sources would not only be fairer, but would be economically more effective for overall both stopping climate change and economic efficiency.