Climate Action Planning: An Intersectional Approach to The Urban Equity Dilemma

• In Event: 501 - Regular Session. Resource Use, Conflict, and Environmental Justice

Abstract

One of the most pressing issues facing environmental sociologists today is a consideration of the most effective social mechanisms for combatting global climate change. In this paper, we explore one of the most seemingly promising ways in which U.S. society is addressing climate change in the absence of leadership from the federal government: Municipal Climate Action Plans (CAPs). CAPs describe the set of policies or programs a sub-national entity hopes to implement in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, there is burgeoning evidence to suggest that this important policy tool has thus far neglected issues of social equity. With an eye to urban stratification along axes of race, class and gender, we outline the evolution of CAPS and analyze their most common features. We argue that, as currently formulated, CAPS render the needs of poor communities of color and some working-class women invisible while doing little to ameliorate cavernous wealth divides in U.S. cities. In this sense, CAPS are becoming a site for the reproduction of environmental injustice along raced, classed and gendered lines, missing out on the potential to more successfully address the root causes of climate change.

Authors

• Chandra Russo, University of California-Santa Barbara

• Andrew Pattison, California Lutheran University