Climate Change, Environmental Justice, and Vulnerability: An Exploratory Spatial Analysis

Wilson, Sacoby; Richard, Roland; Joseph, Lesley; Williams, Edith M.

doi:10.1089/env.2009.0035

Cited by 65 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(5 reference statements)

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“…This method is designed to identify and map cumulative impacts and vulnerability at the neighborhood-level using a comprehensive set of 24 indicator metrics covering hazard proximity and land use, health risk and exposure, and social and health vulnerability. A recent paper by Wilson et al (2010) calculates vulnerability scores at the county level using data on race/ethnicity and socio-economic status, pollution sources and levels, and health. Similarly, the Environmental Justice Strategic Enforcement Assessment Tool (EJSEAT) was designed to enable the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identify communities or areas that are susceptible to experiencing disproportionate environmental and public health burdens and is based on 18 individual variables collected at the census tract level (USEPA 2010).…”

Section: Methods -A Framework For Assessing Environmental Justice Impmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risks of sea level rise to disadvantaged communities in the United States

Martinich

Neumann²,

Ludwig³

et al. 2012

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

102

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Climate change and sea level rise (SLR) pose risks to coastal communities around the world, but societal understanding of the distributional and equity implications of SLR impacts and adaptation actions remains limited. Here, we apply a new analytic tool to identify geographic areas in the contiguous United States that may be more likely to experience disproportionate impacts of SLR, and to determine if and where socially vulnerable populations would bear disproportionate costs of adaptation. We use the Social Vulnerability Index (SoVI) to identify socially vulnerable coastal communities, and combine this with output from a SLR coastal property model that evaluates threats of inundation and the economic efficiency of adaptation approaches to respond to those threats. Results show that under the mid-SLR scenario (66.9 cm by 2100), approximately 1,630,000 people are potentially affected by SLR. Of these, 332,000 (∼20%) are among the most socially vulnerable. The analysis also finds that areas of higher social vulnerability are much more likely to be abandoned than protected in response to SLR. This finding is particularly true in the Gulf region of the United States, where over 99% of the most socially vulnerable people live in areas unlikely to be protected from inundation, in stark contrast to the least socially vulnerable group, where only 8% live in areas unlikely to be protected. Our results demonstrate the importance of considering the equity and environmental justice implications of SLR in climate change policy analysis and coastal adaptation planning.

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Section: Methods -A Framework For Assessing Environmental Justice Impmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risks of sea level rise to disadvantaged communities in the United States

Martinich

Neumann²,

Ludwig³

et al. 2012

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

102

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Although environmental justice activists and researchers have also recently become attentive to impacts stemming from energy generation and climate change, as separate issues (e.g. Adger 2001;Carruthers 2007;Barnett 2009;Wilson et al 2010;Corner et al 2011), little attention has been given to the combined environmental justice eects of energy generation and management, energy policy, and climate change (Walker/Day 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate Change, Energy Policy and Justice: A Systematic Review

Byrne¹,

Portanger²

2014

Analyse &Amp; Kritik

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Energy eciency and energy security are emerging concerns in climate change policy. But there is little acknowledgment of energy justice issues. Marginalised and vulnerable communities may be disproportionately exposed to both climate change impacts (e.g. heat, ooding) and costs associated with energy transitions related to climate change mitigation and adaptation (e.g. particulate exposure from biofuel combustion). Climate change is producing energy-related impacts such as increased cooling costs. In some cases it threatens energy security. Higher electricity costs associated with`climate proong' energy network infrastructure may exacerbate`fuel poverty' itself a form of injustice. In this paper we critically review the literature about multiple interrelations between energy policy, justice and climate change. We identify key issues, illuminate knowledge gaps, and synthesise ndings to develop a conceptual model. We chart a research agenda and highlight policy implications. IntroductionEnergy generation from fossil fuels is a major driver of anthropogenic climate change (Davis et al. 2010). The mining and combustion of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and shale gas produce a range of environmental impacts, including air pollution, groundwater contamination, and greenhouse gas pollutionthe latter contributing to climate change (Jenner/Lamadrid 2013;Campbell et al. 2014). Climate change in turn produces environmental impacts such as increases in extreme weather events, ooding, coastal erosion, drought and heat-waves. These impacts have social consequences, including disease, death and economic disruption (Byrne et al. 2009). Some climate change impacts also involve complex feed-back loops (Hou et al. 2012). For example, climate change can increase average temperatures, resulting in more energy consumption for cooling, in turn driving more fossil fuel use, exacerbating climate change (Dale et al. 2011).Eective climate change responses thus require both mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas production and sequestering carbon) and adaptatione.g. preparing for future climate regimes. There is a spectrum of energy-related mitigation * We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the reviewers in helping to improve this paper. We are indebted to their patience and guidance. We are also grateful to the editors for their understanding in the delays we experienced. While every attempt has been made to ensure the manuscript is correct, any omissions, errors and inaccuracies, remain those of the authors.

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“…Hayward, Miles, Crimmins, and Yang (2000), Wendell, Poston, Jones, and Kraft (2006), Bullard (2008), and Wilson, Richard, Joseph, and Williams (2010) also stress that racial/ethnic minorities bear an unequal health burden resulting from weather and climate extremes, resulting from low socioeconomic status or racial differences relating to housing characteristics, access to healthcare, and differential prevalence of certain predisposing medical conditions. Racial minority status can modify the effect of heat on mortality, with consistently higher deaths among African Americans in several studies (Kaiser et al, 2007;Medina-Ramon, Zanobetti, Cavanagh, & Schwartz, 2006;O'Neill, Zanobetti, & Schwartz, 2003).…”

Section: Vulnerable Populationmentioning

confidence: 99%