Empowering Communities on the Frontlines of Coronavirus and Climate Change
By Marcela Mulholland, J. Mijin Cha and Julian Brave NoiseCat
Over the past few months, Data for Progress has published a series of blogs on the relationship between the coronavirus pandemic and environmental injustice. Our analyses of Detroit, MI, Albany, GA and The Bronx, NY make clear that the pandemic and pollution are not separate issues, and are instead compounding factors that have created a historic public health crisis that has disproportionately harmed working class communities of color. The cities we looked at make clear that there are underlying environmental, social, and health indicators that make particular people more vulnerable to the virus and that many of these factors also make the same people and communities more vulnerable to the climate crisis. A core responsibility of the government in the era of climate change must be to collect and analyze data, like the statistics we have compiled and analyzed, so that policymakers can better understand the landscape of inequality and need. With this data in hand, lawmakers can design relief and stimulus packages that fit the contours, scope and scale of these converging crises.
Our analysis shows that federal aid allocation can be a matter of life and death for communities living on the hazardous edge of environmental racism and coronavirus pandemic. Take the Bronx, for instance, the borough with most coronavirus infection rates per capita in New York City. There are some Bronx neighborhoods where 20% of children have asthma. Legacies of pollution have become an existential threat. Albany, GA, a predominantly black city, has a per capita infection rate almost equal to that of Wuhan, China. The city is also fighting against an oil and gas pipeline as well as a compressor station that would increase air pollution in the region. (The station is still under construction.) Already, Dougherty County, where Albany is located, is home to 259 hazardous waste facilities, 78 facilities producing and releasing air pollutants as well as dozens of other polluting infrastructure. Eighty percent of hospitalized coronavirus patients in Georgia were Black. And in Detroit, Michigan, some of the worst air quality in the nation has made the predominantly Black residents of this coronavirus hotspot, which is 80% Black, vulnerable to the virus. Unemployment claims filed by the city’s residents account for over half of all unemployment claims filed in the state.
While the coronavirus has laid bare the gaps and shortcomings of our for-profit, employer-based healthcare system, the pandemic has also revealed pernicious inequalities–as well as the inability of many of our federal, state, local and tribal governments to collect data in real time and respond effectively to what’s happening on the ground. If we fail to learn lessons from this crisis, we will be doomed to repeat these mistakes. The following policy approaches could help lawmakers respond to this pandemic and prepare for looming crises like climate change:
Federal, state, and local agencies should create and expand screening and mapping tools to identify which communities bear disproportionate burdens of pollution, poverty and impacts from climate change. The EPA’s current mapping tool is not user friendly, the demographic detail is not separated by race (the classification is “minority”), and the data is presented in a way that is confusing and does not clearly identify communities at risk from pollution, health disparities, or other important socioeconomic indicators. An alternative example of a more effective mapping tool is CalEnviroScreen 3.0, which collects and overlays environmental, health, and socioeconomic information for every census tract in the state. These metrics are scored, with higher scores indicating areas with greater exposure to pollution. While CalEnviroScreen is a strong model, the tool can be improved and, particularly in the wake of the pandemic, could be updated as new research and datasets become available. (How environmental and health indicators are collected and weighted will likely be a key debate here.) Nonetheless, lessons learned from CalEnviroScreen as well as similar tools like the Washington State Environmental Health Disparities Map could help improve the EPA’s nationwide program.
Federal, state, local and tribal policymakers should prioritize and target funding to communities facing disproportionate impacts from climate change and coronavirus according to updated equity mapping. For example, the NY Renews coalition, which led the campaign for the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, a state-level Green New Deal-style piece of legislation, pushed for 40 percent of climate investments to go to frontline communities, a percentage that is roughly proportionate to the share of the population comprised of Black people, Indigenous peoples and people of color. Nationally, 40% of climate investments should go to frontline communities to kick-start a just transition. Data for Progress polling shows that such a policy is also popular.
Employ an equity screen that assesses policies, projects, and programs for disproportionate impacts. This kind of screen is part of New York state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
Require cumulative impact assessments for developments and projects that impact frontline communities.
Target and prioritize investments in programs that have public health and environmental/climate co-benefits.
Ensure community control of investments through various implementation and governance practices that involve stakeholders and community groups in decision-making and oversight of investments.
As part of a survey fielded by Data for Progress in May, we asked voters:
A recent Harvard study found that long-term exposure to air pollution is associated with heightened death rates from coronavirus. Communities of color and American Indian tribes often live with greater exposure to air pollution than white communities, increasing their vulnerability amid the coronavirus pandemic. Would you support or oppose a proposal to prioritize federal aid for hospitals and other essential services used by communities of color and American Indian tribes that are disproportionately impacted by air pollution and the coronavirus?
Overall, voters support this proposal by a 44-percentage-point margin (64-percent support, 20-percent oppose). Support for this proposal is also bipartisan: Democrats back it by a 66-percentage-point margin (77 percent support, 11 percent oppose) and Republicans do so by a 23-percentage-point margin (53 percent support, 30 percent oppose).
We also asked voters about a series of proposals to allocate 40 percent of funding to communities that are disproportionately impacted by climate change, coronavirus, and pollution. We found support among voters for all of these schemes. The most popular was the one framed around climate and environmental investments and which garnered a 35-point margin of support (57 percent support, 22 percent oppose). The second most popular proposal was the one built around a hypothetical tax on carbon, which enjoyed a 32-point margin (57 percent support, 25 percent oppose). Finally, the proposal that specified aid would be allocated to low-income black, Asian, Latino, and Native American communities was supported by a 20-point margin among all voters (48 percent support, 28 percent oppose).
The data clearly shows that communities of color and communities on the frontlines of environmental justice issues are also getting sick and dying at rates higher than the general population during this pandemic. Policymakers must heed what frontline communities have long known to be true: race, class, environmental justice and public health are inextricably connected. Effective advocacy, relief and policy interventions must begin by recognizing and reckoning with this reality.