Chapter 8. Bending the Curve and Closing the Gap: Climate Justice and Public Health

Findings • Climate change will cause unprecedented harm to human populations, with the greatest burden falling on children, the elderly, those with underlying illnesses, and the poor, particularly poor women. • Climate Change will disproportionately affect low income countries, especially their coastal cities, and will also disproportionately affect poorer people within wealthier countries. • Technological and policy solutions to climate change must be combined with policy changes and innovative approaches to changing social attitudes and behavior. • Technology can work to address climate change only if people in countries that produce most of the greenhouse gases also shift to low-carbon behavior patterns. • Many of the necessary changes to reduce greenhouse gases will also result in improvements to public health and greater social justice. • Reducing industrial carbon emissions can bring co-benefits of reduced air pollution, while better public transportation and increased urban density can improve mobility and promote physical activity in communities. • Using revenue from the sale of carbon credits or from a carbon tax to fund greenhouse gas reduction programs in disadvantaged communities is a way of maximizing climate, health, and social justice benefits. • Shifts in production away from cattle and an emphasis on production of plant proteins will dramatically reduce methane production from agriculture while reducing deforestation and air and water pollution and increasing the availability of healthier food. • Climate education and participatory climate action in underserved urban communities contributes to producing healthier, more equitable, climate-friendly cities. Social and multimedia networking can tie local efforts together at larger regional and global scales to create meaningful reductions in greenhouse gases. • Greater connectivity among civil society organizations, religious organizations, scientists and universities, at local and global scales, can enhance the adoption of new technologies, and develop new capacities for climate action and social innovation. Introduction Today. . . . we have to realize that a true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. —Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter ORIGINAL RESEARCH REPORT Chapter 8. Bending the Curve and Closing the Gap: Climate Justice and Public Health Fonna Forman* , Gina Solomon† , Rachel Morello-Frosch‡ and Keith Pezzoli§ Climate change is projected to cause widespread and serious harm to public health and the environment upon which life depends, unraveling many of the health and social gains of the last century. The burden of harm will fall disproportionately on the poorest communities, both in the U.S. and globally, raising urgent issues of “climate justice”. In contrast, strategies for climate action, including those of an institutional, and cultural nature, have the potential to improve quality of life for everyone. This chapter examines the social dimensions of building carbon neutral societies, with an emphasis on producing behavioral shifts, among both the most and the least advantaged populations. In support of Bending the Curve solutions 2 and 3, the case studies offered in this chapter rely not only on innovations in technology and policy, but innovations in attitudinal and behavioral change as well, focused on coordinated public communication and education (Solution 2), as well as new platforms for collaborating, where leaders across sectors can convene to tackle concrete problems (Solution 3). * Department of Political Science, UC San Diego, US † Department of Medicine, UC San Francisco; California EPA, US ‡ Department of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, UC Berkeley, US § Urban Studies and Planning Program and Department of Communication, UC San Diego, US Corresponding author: Fonna Forman () Art. 22, page 2 of 17 Forman et al: Chapter 8. Bending the Curve and Closing the Gap Climate change is projected to cause widespread and serious harm to public health and the environment upon which life depends, unraveling many of the health and social gains of the last century. Unprecedented heat waves, drought, extreme storms, poor air quality, floods and wildfires are all linked to climate change. These conditions pose potentially serious health impacts including heat stress, dehydration, injuries, allergy, exacerbations of asthma and cardiac disease, hunger, social, psychological and economic strife. The health effects of climate change are already occurring, and are predicted to become devastating by mid-century if significant greenhouse gas reductions do not occur. The burden of harm will fall disproportionately on the poorest communities, both in the U.S. and globally, raising urgent issues of “climate justice”. In contrast, strategies for climate action, including those of an institutional, and cultural nature, have the potential to improve quality of life for everyone. Climate change is driven by interacting factors, including: harmful technologies, short-sighted public and economic policy, unsustainable land use patterns, and destructive human behaviors. Climate justice entails giving special attention to correcting patterns of disproportionate responsibilities and harms. The top 1 billion residents of the planet are accountable for the bulk of greenhouse gas emissions. In contrast, the billions of people living in poverty globally are the ones most affected by these emissions. This double disparity represents a “climate gap” between rich and poor, which must be closed if we hope to bend the curve of climate change. Wealthy countries, regions, and industries must bear primary responsibility for mitigating the harms and urgently mobilizing a lowcarbon global economy. This chapter examines the social dimensions of building carbon neutral societies, with an emphasis on producing behavioral shifts, among both the most and the least advantaged populations. In support of Bending the Curve solutions 2 and 3, the case studies offered in this chapter rely not only on innovations in technology and policy, but innovations in attitudinal and behavioral change as well, focused on coordinated public communication and education (Solution 2), as well as new platforms for collaborating, where leaders across sectors can convene to tackle concrete problems (Solution 3). A focus on behavior is both an ethical and a practical matter: all the best technologies and policy in the world, all the best top-down intentions and investment, will not make a dent until people are educated and ready to adopt new technologies, and adapt their practices to new policies. This chapter also recommends rethinking the way we design our built environment and its relationship to broader ecological environments, and assessing the ethical responsibility for developing low-carbon, green economies in the poorest regions of the world. We highlight actionable strategies already underway in urban, agricultural and rural settings in California and globally, to demonstrate that it is possible to mitigate carbon emissions while maximizing public health and social equity. Adopting effective strategies, however, requires a widespread and pervasive cultural shift in our attitudes about a lower carbon lifestyle, especially in developed and rapidly developing economies. Some people worry that a lowcarbon lifestyle will lead to lower quality of life, but the opposite is true, at least for most people. A high-carbon lifestyle, in addition to consuming a large portion of the earth’s resources, is ultimately unhealthy and inequitable. A high-carbon lifestyle is associated with obesity, metabolic syndrome, respiratory disease, and cancer, eve