By Daryl Sager, energy justice program associate, Fresh Energy

Last Thursday, the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative and Redefining Progress released a report entitled “A Climate of Change: African Americans, Global Warming, and a Just Climate Policy for the U.S.” The report highlights the fact that African Americans are disproportionately affected by climate change and stand to lose more from bad policy and gain more from good policy.

The report analyzes the effect that rising temperatures, pollution, and other symptoms of global warming will have on the African American community. It states that this community will suffer disproportionately from illness, heat deaths, economic loss, and from the cost of wars designed to protect the flow of oil to the United States, as global warming amplifies nearly all existing inequalities.

Here in Minnesota, we cannot look the other way as we continue to develop and push toward better energy policy. We have to remain committed to ensuring that low-income communities and communities of color are protected by any future policy here in the state. Even though the report focuses on African Americans, the effects of global warming will be very similar for Latinos, Indigenous people, and low-income people of all colors.

The report was meant to inform lawmakers of the needs of certain communities as climate change and energy legislation is developed. The report also calls on the environmental movement to diversify staff, leadership, thinking, and agenda. Congressman Edward Markey (D-MA), Chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, said, “The EJCC report is an important contribution to the fight on global warming, because it highlights the urgent need for Congress to stand up for the poor by standing up to polluters.”

A lot of this report rings true here in Minnesota as discussion begins on a cap-and-trade system. The reports also talks about the importance of a polluter-pays fee, tax, or allowance auction, while making sure these funds go to investments in energy efficiency and energy assistance.

Read the full report here:

• Full report: www.rprogress.org/publications/2008/climateofchange.pdf
• Executive Summary: www.rprogress.org/publications/2008/coc_execsum.pdf

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 2:28 pm by Fresh Energy and is filed under Energy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.