Climate Equity for Local Government
Cities, towns and metro regions across the United States and around the globe are engaging in climate action planning. In recent years, the focus of planning has shifted among mitigation, adaptation, and sustainability goals. Best practices now integrate equity. Communities are recognizing that historically marginalized communities often experience the worst impacts from climate change impacts while also not sharing in the benefits from transitioning to a low-carbon economy. These may include Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), the elderly, children, physically and mentally disabled individuals, people experiencing homelessness, pregnant women, immigrants and seasonal workers. Local leaders are increasingly aware that many impacts of climate change reflect the results of systemic discrimination, and they are exploring methods of integrating equity into climate planning while taking advantage of opportunities to address longstanding disparities.
LGEAN's Climate Equity Initiative is a hub of resources and programming for local governments to address the needs and priorities of their most vulnerable populations, including cross-cutting considerations, such as stakeholder engagement, public health, maladaptation and just transition.
Stay tuned for these upcoming programs.
Webinars
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Podcasts
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- Climate Resolve. Convenes communities, organizations and policymakers to champion equitable climate solutions for both mitigation and adaptation. Areas of focus include urban cooling, transportation, conservation, climate science, communities, wildfire and smart growth.
- The Greenlining Institute. Develops and advocates for policy solutions to advance racial equity across multiple public and private sectors. Environmental equity program includes a focus on climate resilience and makes available multiple publications and other resources.
- Climate Change and Social Vulnerability in the United States: A Focus on Six Impacts (EPA, 2021). Evaluates climate change risks to socially vulnerable groups, including low income, minority, no high school diploma and senior citizens. Climate impacts include air quality (health), extreme temperature (health and labor), coastal flooding (traffic and property) and inland flooding (property), analyzed at both a national and regional level.
- Community-Based Climate Adaptation Planning: Case Study of Oakland, California (The Pacific Institute, 2012). Identifies more than 50 strategies for building community resilience and adapting to climate-change impacts such as extreme heat, flooding, wildfires and poor air quality, as well as rising food, water and electricity prices.
- Community-Driven Climate Resilience Planning: A Framework (Movement Strategy Center, 2020). Framework for cities to reorganize resources, foster meaningful relationships and develop placed-based innovations that support all people to thrive despite climate disruption.
- Equitable and Resilient Infrastructure Investments This report explores equitable and infrastructure investments for natural hazard mitigation and resilience, focusing on: partnerships for equitable infrastructure development; systemic change toward resilient and equitable infrastructure investment; and adaptations in finance and financial analysis.
- Guide to Equitable, Community-Driven Climate Preparedness Planning (Urban Sustainability Directors Network, 2017). Guidance, targeted to local governments, on designing and implementing a more inclusive, equitable planning process.
- Making Equity Real in Climate Adaptation and Community Policies and Programs: A Guidebook (The Greenlining Institute, 2019). Recommendations on how to operationalize social equity in the goals, process, implementation and analysis of policies and grant programs focused on climate adaptation. Includes examples from existing policies and grant programs to illustrate what the recommendations look like in practice.
- Mapping Resilience: A Blueprint for Thriving in the Face of Climate Disasters (Asian Pacific Environmental Network, 2019). In-depth review of existing frameworks related to community vulnerability to climate impacts that identifies both strengths and gaps in the field.
- Status of Tribes and Climate Change (Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals, 2021). Uplifts and honor the voices of Indigenous peoples across the U.S. to increase understanding of Tribal lifeways, cultures, and worldviews, the climate change impacts Tribes are experiencing, the solutions they are implementing and ways that all of us can support Tribes in adapting to our changing world.
- Stakeholder Engagement Guide for Nature-Based Solutions (2022). United Nations CEO Water Mandate and Pacific Institute resource that includes recommendations and considerations for improving and maintaining stakeholder engagement across the various NBS project stages to promote equity and collaboration.
- American Society of Adaptation Professions (ASAP) JEDI Resources Library. A living library of resources to support equitable and just adaptation action, separated into adaptation-specific and general JEDI resources.
- George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. Resources for government agencies, civic organizations, professional associations and companies to apply social science research to improve their public engagement initiatives on climate change.
- Georgetown Climate Center Adaptation Clearinghouse: Equitable Adaptation Legal & Policy Toolkit. Highlights best and emerging practice examples of how cities are addressing disproportionate socioeconomic risk to climate impacts and engaging overburdened communities. Covers community-driven engagement processes, governance and budgeting, legal and policy tools and programs, economic resilience, affordable housing, anti-displacement and gentrification, disaster preparedness, public health and more.
- EJScreen (EPA). Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool, combining environmental and demographic indicators in maps and reports.
- EnviroAtlas (EPA). Interactive tool that decision-makers can use to inform policy and planning in the places where people live, learn, work and play. Provides geospatial data, easy-to-use tools, and other resources related to ecosystem services, their chemical and non-chemical stressors and human health.
- Community Resilience Estimates (CRE) (U.S. Census Bureau). Interactive tool and datasets providing neighborhood-level information on risk to disaster impacts. The CRE Equity supplement provides quick access to data on a variety of topics concerning social vulnerability and equity.
- Populations at Risk (Headwater Economics). Generates reports with socioeconomic information about populations more likely to experience adverse social, health, or economic outcomes due to factors like race, age, gender, and poverty status.
- Neighborhoods at Risk (Headwater Economics). Displays census tracts with greater vulnerability to climate change, particularly where people may experience unequal impacts from hurricanes, flooding, and extreme heat.
- Los Angeles County Climate Vulnerability Assessment (2021).
- Oakland 2030 Equitable Climate Action Plan (ECAP) (2020).
- American Public Health Association (APHA). Climate Change and Health Playbook and Incorporating Principles of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Climate Adaptation Planning.
- American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, The Effects of Co-Exposure to Extremes of Heat and Particulate Air Pollution on Mortality in California: Implications for Climate Change.
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) Framework, Climate-Ready States & Cities Initiative, Heat and Health Tracker and Climate and Health Program.
- National Indian Health Board (NIHB). Climate Ready Tribes.
- Urban climate-health governance: Charting the role of public health in large global city adaptation plans (Mary C. Sheerhan, et. al, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 2022).
- U.S. Global Change Research Program, The Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health in the United States: A Scientific Assessment. (Chapter 9: Populations of Concern).
- U.S. Health & Human Services Department, Office of Climate Change and Health Equity (OCCHE). Climate and Health Outlook. Public information series that connects weather forecasts to health resources that public health officials can use to save lives and reduce illness and health risks associated with climate-related hazards like extreme heat, wildfires, hurricanes, droughts, and vector-borne diseases that impact human health. HHS recently established a new Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) within OCCHE to better protect the health of disadvantaged communities and vulnerable populations on the frontlines of pollution and other environmental health issues.
- Global Change Climate and Health Assessment. Chapters characterize the strength of the scientific evidence for the impact climate change will have on a variety of public health threats, including poor air quality and temperature-related illness and death.
See more resources on the Senior Citizens page. |
Unhoused/People Experiencing Homelessness
- Annual Homeless Assessment Reports (AHAR). U.S. Housing & Urban Development reports that provide nationwide estimates of homelessness, including information about the demographic characteristics of homeless persons, service use patterns and the capacity to house homeless persons.
- Disaster Housing Recovery Coalition. More than 860 local, state, and national organizations dedicated to ensuring the federal response to disaster recovery prioritizes the housing needs of the lowest income people in impacted areas. Led by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Offers multiple programs, publications and other resources.
- The Global Climate-Homelessness Network. Provides policy, service and research direction as they relate to the implications of climate change for global homelessness.
- A response framework for addressing the risks of climate change for homeless populations. Article recommending steps, such as prevention-oriented planning and crisis response methods, that local officials can take to support homeless populations affected by climate change-related impacts.
- Children's Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment. Resources on the various health-related climate change impacts to children, including fact sheets, reports and analyses.
- The Future of Children, Children and Climate Change. Outlines the likely consequences of climate change on child health and wellbeing and identifies policies that could mitigate negative impacts.
- Climate Change and Youth Mental Health. Report that explores the impacts of climate change on youth, particularly related to youth mental health challenges and depression.
- Climate Change and Children's Health and Well-Being in the United States. EPA report examining how five major climate-related hazards will affect children's health and quantifying these risks.
- Living with Disability and Disasters (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2014). Key findings from global survey of persons living with disabilities on how they cope with disasters and illustrates why they die, or are injured, in disproportionate numbers in disasters.
- Analytical study on the promotion and protection of the Rights of persons with disabilities in the context of climate change (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2020). Check out easy-to-read version here (A/HRC/46/46).
- SustainedAbility. Disability Led network working with grassroots movements and organizations on Disability and climate justice.
- The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies. Disability-led organization with a focused mission of equity for people with disabilities and people with access and functional needs throughout all planning, programs, services and procedures before, during and after disasters and emergencies.
- World Institute on Disability. Assists local governments in improving emergency and disaster plans by including and supporting knowledgeable people with disabilities and others with access and functional needs as key partners. Publications include Disability and Disaster Readiness Initiative – Policy Overview & Recommendations (2019).
- Biden Administration Mobilizes to Protect Workers and Communities from Extreme Heat (Fact Sheet, 2021). Announcement of coordinated, interagency effort to respond to extreme heat, involving the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and Agriculture; the Environmental Protection Agency; and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Includes the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) launch of a rulemaking process to develop a workplace heat standard, enforcement initiative on heat-related hazards and a National Emphasis Program on heat inspections.
- Heat Illness Prevention Campaign (U.S. Department of Labor). Educates employers and workers on the dangers of working in the heat through training sessions, outreach events, informational sessions, publications, social media messaging and media appearances.
- Heaty Safety Tool App (Centers for Disease Control/The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health). Resource for planning outdoor work activities based on how hot it feels throughout the day. Features real-time heat index and hourly forecasts, specific to the user's location, as well as occupational safety and health recommendations from OSHA and NIOSH.
- Signs and symptoms and first aid information for heat-related illnesses
- Too Hot to Work (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2021). Assessment of the threats climate change poses to outdoor workers, including a set of recommendations.
- Worker health and safety and climate change in the Americas: issues and research needs (Max Kiefer, et. al, 2016). Report that summarizes and discusses current knowledge on the impact that climate change can have on occupational safety and health.
See more resources on the Outdoor Workers page.
- Check out financing resources here.
