Global Warming

Global Warming’s Unequal Health Impacts

Global warming will not affect everyone equally. As the Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the United Nations has stated, “[i]t is the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit.”1 The adverse impacts often will fall hardest on people of color and poor people because they are concentrated in areas that will bear the brunt of climate change, and because they are often the least able financially to deal with its impacts. They are also the ones who are least responsible for climate change.

While industrialized countries account for about 80% of the world’s historic carbon dioxide emissions,2 the poorest nations will suffer the most severe consequences of climate change. Africa will suffer decreases in agricultural production and increased water stress that could impact between 70 to 250 million people by 2020. 3 Asia will see increased flooding due to glacier melt, followed by decreased river flows as glaciers recede. As a result, freshwater availability will decrease for Central, South, East, and South-East Asia, potentially affecting more than a billion people by the 2050's. 4 Those living in Latin America will likely see the productivity of important crops decrease, leading to increased risk of hunger. 5 The native peoples of the polar regions will likely continue to see their traditional ways of life disappear as the ice thins and the permafrost melts. 6 And the world’s thousands of small island dwellers may see their homes destroyed by rising oceans, flooding, storm surges, and coastal erosion.7 [See The Facts About Global Warming.]

Domestically, the adverse impacts of climate change will also hit the poor and people of color harder. Global warming is likely to result in a significant increase in the frequency and severity of heat waves, droughts and floods. It will also lead to more unhealthy air and associated asthma and respiratory illnesses, since hotter days lead to more smog. In the U.S., African-Americans are twice as likely to die in a heat wave 8 and three times more likely to die from asthma than whites. 9 African-American children and low-income children also have the highest incidence of asthma in the country. 10

These disproportionate effects will be experienced in California as well. The state already has the worst smog in the country, with 91% of residents living in areas with unhealthy air. 11 It also has the highest number of people with asthma, an estimated 4.9 million people, including one in six children under age 18. 12 Global warming’s impacts also will pose major threats to sectors of the California economy employing large numbers of poor people and people of color -- such as agriculture and tourism– due to crop losses, drought and flooding. 13

The impacts of global warming experienced by minority and poor communities will be exacerbated because these groups are often the most vulnerable and least able to adapt. Lower income communities are more vulnerable to health effects because of existing medical problems and because they have less access to medical care and health insurance. They also more often live in urban areas that experience the "heat-island" effect, and have less money to purchase air-conditioning. 14 Residents in these communities also typically have less access to home and renter’s insurance and less ability to move away from droughts, floods, and fires caused by global warming. They also spend a higher percentage of their income on necessities such as food, gasoline, water, and electricity, 15 which will become scarcer and more expensive with climate change.

Reducing our global warming emissions will not only reduce the risk of dangerous climate change, but also will provide important co-benefits. The California Air Resources Board, for example, estimates that implementing the Scoping Plan for AB 32, California's greenhouse gas reduction law, will result in considerable reductions of particulate matter (soot) and nitrogen oxide emissions, resulting in 780 fewer premature deaths, 11,000 fewer cases of asthma-related and other lower respiratory system problems, and economic savings of $4.4 million by 2020. 16 Actions such as limiting flaring from oil refineries, capturing methane emissions from landfills, reducing unnecessary truck idling, using cleaner burning cars and trucks, building homes near jobs and public transit, and using roofing and pavement materials that reflect more of the sun’s energy back to the atmosphere will also reduce conventional air pollution. Likewise, investments in renewable, clean energy sources and energy efficiency will mean not only reduced greenhouse gas emissions, but also reduced air pollution, fewer worker deaths (the oil, gas and coal industries are among the riskiest of all occupations), lower energy prices, and the creation of millions of new jobs (investments in clean energy can generate two to three times as many jobs per dollar as gas, oil or coal). 17

  1. http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2007/2007-04-06-01.asp (quoting Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.)
  2. http://archive.wri.org/page.cfm?id=1284&z=?
  3. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC 4th) (2007), Working Group (WG) II, Summary for Policymakers at 13, http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-spm.pdf#page=13
  4. Id.
  5. IPCC 4th, Synthesis Report, Summary for Policymakers, at 10-11 (Table SPM.2), http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf#page=10.
  6. Id.
  7. Id.
  8. Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Inc., African Americans and Climate Change: An Unequal Burden (2004) at 21.
  9. Id. at 39
  10. Id.
  11. See "People at Risk for All Pollution," http://www.lungusa.org/associations/states/california/advocacy/fight-for-air-quality/sota-2010/state-of-the-air-report-2010.html.
  12. Data is for 2007, from the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS), a large health survey run by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, see http://www.chis.ucla.edu/.
  13. Shonkoff, et al., Environmental Health and Equity Impacts from Climate Change and Mitigation Policies in California, A Review of Literature (California Climate Change Center, 2009), see http://www.energy.ca.gov/2009publications/CEC-500-2009-038/CEC-500-2009-038-F/PDF.
  14. Id.
  15. Congressional Black Caucus supra note 8, at 84.
  16. California Air Resources Board, Climate Change Scoping Plan, A Framework for Change (Dec. 2008).
  17. Wei, et al., Putting Renewables and Energy Efficiency to Work: How Many Jobs Can the Clean Energy Industry Generate in the US? Energy Policy 38 (2010) 919-931.