Poster #43 - Examination of Vulnerable Population’s Climate Justice Concerns and Policy Positions

• In Event: Friday Poster Reception

Abstract

The detrimental impacts of climate change on vulnerable groups have been extensively studied, paying great attention to focusing events such as natural disasters.  It has been less studied, however, whether the vulnerable population has different views or concerns on climate justice related issues. This study uses survey data to provide insights on the perspectives of the vulnerable groups on procedural and distributional justice, and their policy positions on climate mitigation and social justice. A random sample of 1,000 non-student adult Iowan residents with half low-income and half medium- and high- income was used, purposely over-representing low-income to better capture the vulnerable population. A vignette experiment was conducted to test the impact of information on future climate risks. Climate justice was measured by three procedural justice items (all members participating in decision-making, consideration of vulnerable groups’ needs, and consideration of racial and ethnicity differences), and three distributional justice items (distribution of costs, benefits, and climate harms). 

We observed, overall, a higher need of considering vulnerable groups’ needs in decision-making and fair distribution of climate mitigation benefits, while concerns over the fair distribution of emission reduction costs and considering minority’s needs to a lesser extent. Although climate risk information does not sway people’s concerns over climate justice, personal experience with natural disasters (flood, heat wave, and snowstorm) do significantly increase the level of justice concerns. A social vulnerability index (SVI) was constructed using CDC’s method, which found that people with high vulnerability were more concerned with climate justice.  But the effect is not consistent across groups, and the heightened concerns of the vulnerable groups are more about issues related to the distribution of climate risks and mitigation costs, not as much for other dimensions. For the full sample, we found higher support for policies that provide financial incentives to climate mitigation, such as energy efficiency, solar energy, and sustainable farming, than policies that advance social justice (such as taxing fossil fuel to offset other taxes, and creating a climate fund to assist low-income families). However, groups with high SVI had significantly higher levels of support for policies that advance social justice than groups with low vulnerability. Findings from this study reveals the vulnerable population’s concerns on climate justice and their policy preferences, which could inform future policymaking to better assist the vulnerable population when faced with climate risks.

Author

• Yu Wang, Iowa State University
  Presenting Author