US Climate Policy Structure is Flawed: Global climate change is a present and ongoing critical issue that we face today. Although some people question its existence, climate change is a fact supported by scientists around the world.¹ The effects of climate change are becoming increasingly felt as both regional weather patterns and global temperatures become more extreme.  Minority and low-income communities are among those disproportionately affected by the effects of climate change, making the need for effective climate policy not only an environmental issue, but also a social issue: “The poorest and marginalized populations (such as indigenous peoples) are least responsible for past greenhouse gas emissions (benefits), most vulnerable to climate change (costs), and possess least resources to adapt to extreme climate events and rising temperatures”.² People that belong to a certain social category such as gender or ethnicity have an “increase in the likelihood of facing discrimination which – together with inequalities in terms of health, wealth and access to opportunities – increase people’s vulnerability and reduce their capacity to adjust to changing circumstances” caused by climate change. However, passing legislation to help ease the effects of climate change and the resulting social injustices, is not easy. Sometimes climate policies worsen social injustices as they limit the few resources available to minority or low-income people. For example, a poor, rural farmworker who uses fossil fuels to work their farm equipment may have to halt production if a climate policy restricting the use of fossil fuels is passed. Although this would be great for the climate, it puts low-income and minority people at a disadvantage as they may rely on cheap fossil fuels to make a living, and can’t afford electric, eco-friendly options. In the US, much of this inequality is driven by a flawed policy making structure. Policy makers often focus on completing the objective of passing legislation and often overlook or don’t completely understand the widespread impact the policy may have.

Disparities Caused by Climate Policy Reduce Voter Support: As briefly mentioned before, “Societies are currently struggling with a twofold global crisis. On the one hand, humanity surpassed such ecological limits as climate change, the biodiversity extinction rate and the nitrogen cycle for human uses a decade ago. On the other hand, poverty, inequality and discrimination are widespread and have been exacerbated by such events as the crisis in 2008. Environmental deterioration and socioeconomic problems are the two main challenges of the century”.³ Thus, climate policy that takes into account social justice is becoming increasingly important in order to combat these issues. With the right structure and enforcement, climate policies can bring positive social improvements by stopping the combustion of fossil fuels and preventing the sequential negative health impacts as well as by addressing fuel poverty in marginalized communities, to name a couple examples. However, if the impact it may have on certain social groups is not taken into account, climate policy can end up working against social improvement. For example, studies done in Denmark found that an environmental tax on carbon dioxide and transportation fuels, without compensation, resulted in a “higher cost burden for rural than urban households”.⁴ Due to this type of cost disparity that climate policy may cause, researchers conducted an experiment in Germany to see if public support for climate policy would change if voters were informed how the proposed changes would affect people of varying social groups. Researchers surveyed 2,233 participants of varying ages and incomes on their support for climate policy. Participants in a control group weren’t told of any potential negative impacts the climate policy may have on certain social groups. In contrast, participants in the experimental group were informed of possible negative social effects of the proposed climate policy. The researchers noted that, on average, participants in the experimental group were less supportive of climate policy than participants in the control group, and inferred that hearing about potential negative effects of the policy is likely to decrease public support (Figure 2).⁵ The results of this study demonstrate the importance in maintaining a balance between climate and social justice, because without one or the other, inequality and environmental degradation will continue. To maintain this balance, the current climate policy structure in the US must be adjusted to take into consideration possible negative outcomes that could result in disproportionate effects on certain groups.

Limited Passage of Climate Policy: As seen in the German study, negative implications of climate policy for social groups can reduce voter support for climate policy, and even divide citizens on the matter. This division can lead to a feedback that makes it more difficult to pass much-needed climate legislation, as government officials become divided over the perception that climate legislation is tainted by the idea that it causes social inequality: “Avoiding negative social impacts has thus become a critical issue: if these policies are perceived as unfair or socially harmful, they no doubt stand a greater chance of being attacked, repealed and revoked. This remains a deep concern in developed and developing contexts alike—including major emitting countries such as the United States, Brazil, India, France, and others—where pre-existing issues such as structural inequality and the emergence of right-wing populism have primed the political landscape against climate policy action”.⁷

More conservative officials typically support the continued use of fossil fuels, so climate policies that aren’t designed well and worsen social problems are used to to support the reductions in fossil fuel regulations and limit the passage of more climate policies. In addition to this division, people have gotten used to their current ways of living and want to keep it that way. This “status quo bias” makes it hard for any change to occur, especially change brought on by the passage of climate policies, because people don’t want to lose or change what they have, even if the change may be a better alternative.⁸

Without climate policies that regulate fossil fuels, however, greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide, will continue to increase and environmental degradation will occur on a much larger scale which will greatly change the environment around us as temperatures increase and weather patterns become more severe. In fact, greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 increased by 12% since 2010 and increased by 54% since 1990, so adjusting the current climate policy structure to account for social impacts is of utmost importance in effectively combating climate change.⁹ The structure for climate policy needs to include the input of local communities that may be affected by its passage so government officials can have a better understanding on how their decisions can impact people in ways they can’t see.

Possible Improvements to the Climate Policy Structure: The current climate policy structure in the United States focuses only on the policy itself, with little to no consideration of the potential adverse affects it may have (Figure 3). If the current policy structure was changed to include the input of community members as well as use existing knowledge from past studies to analyze ways to improve the policy by maximizing social co-benefits and minimizing adverse side affects, climate and social justice would work hand-in-hand rather than against each other.¹¹ Some changes to the climate policy structure are already underway as multiple cities across the US aim to include social justice as part of their plans: “58 of the 100 largest cities in the US had an approved climate action plan as of June 2021” where they are “increasingly incorporating justice into their climate action plans and developing policy tools to integrate justice and equity concerns into their climate mitigation policies.”¹² For example, 40 of these 58 cities discuss how having a “Justice Partnership” with members of vulnerable communities and/or their representative environmental or social justice advocacy groups can greatly aid in incorporating social justice in climate policy by being included as part of the planning and implementation process.

Although involving community members in the policy-planning process and developing climate action plans are steps in the right direction, more must be done to mitigate climate change while there is still time. Younger generations now bear the brunt of the weight of climate change and its impacts, and are using their resources to advocate for an effective global response (Figure 4). Despite these efforts, much of the older generation, who will not be around to deal with the effects of climate change, is still in power and preventing change from happening as quickly as it needs to be. However, the small changes happening with regards to climate policy and the inclusion of social justice, give hope that progress can still be made in the midst of adversity.