This post was written by Chione Flegal, a PolicyLink Senior Associate working to ensure public investments promote social, economic, and environmental equality.
We hear about climate change all the time now. The Olympics have gone green. Car commercials tout their MPG rating the way they used to tout heated seats. And even a Texas oilman is going on TV to promote clean energy.
But don’t be fooled. Just because “being green” has entered the mainstream doesn’t mean that climate change affects us all equally — or that the 
costs and benefits of addressing climate change will be shared fairly. In fact, while we all lose if climate change advances unabated, some of us risk losing a whole lot more. Similarly, how we address climate change has the potential to create clear winners and losers.
A recent report published by the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative (EJCC) notes that African Americans have 19 percent lower carbon emissions per capita than Anglos. This is striking considering that African Americans already spend an estimated 25% greater share of their income on energy than the national average. Unfortunately, while African Americans may contribute less to climate change, African Americans, and other people of color and low-income people will bear the lion’s share of the costs associated with a warming planet. Increased exposure to toxic air pollutants, economic hardships related to rising fuel costs, and heat-related deaths are just the beginning of the many climate hardships that these communities will face.
In fact, these communities are ALREADY experiencing many of these problems. One study found that 80 percent of Latinos and 65 percent of African Americans live in areas that fail to meet federal EPA air quality standards, as compared to 57 percent of whites. Not surprisingly this has huge health impacts. According to researchers, Latinos, African Americans and Asians in California’s South Coast Air District, have a lifetime cancer risk from exposure to ambient air toxics, that is nearly 50 percent higher than the cancer risk for Anglos.
The solutions we use to address climate change will profoundly impact people of color and low-income communities. In fact, in many ways, these communities will serve as a measure of how effective our solutions really are. As we continue to debate the question of how to address climate change, we must reframe our thinking. Fundamentally, climate change is not simply another environmental problem. Climate change is an equity problem. Only by viewing it in these terms can we develop climate policy that serves us all.
For more information on climate change as an equity issue, please see the new PolicyLink report, “Understanding Climate Change: An Equitable Framework”
