Collective Land, Race, and State Funding for Climate Disasters in Colombia

• In Event: The Politics of Natural Resources and Climate Management in Latin America

Abstract

How does race determine who bears the cost of natural disasters and who receives the benefits of government subsidies in their aftermath? Even as climate change has increased concerns about the frequency and intensity of disasters, who suffers their effects and who receives assistance are not yet fully understood. In this paper, we study whether the presence of Afro-Colombian communities can explain differences in the local allocation of national funds to respond to natural disasters. We use a mixed-method approach that combines the analysis of a novel dataset of natural disasters occurring from 1998 to 2021 in Colombia with interviews of disaster managers and Afro-Colombian community leaders. Our results are twofold: municipalities with Afro-Colombian collective land have been most affected by climate disasters, and the national government has systematically distributed fewer monies to those areas. Results hold controlling for political alliances, natural and geographical characteristics, and fixed and random effects. We conclude that further research should be done on who bears the costs of climate justice and who gets the benefits of both climate inaction and action.

Author

• Isabella Alcaniz, University of Maryland, College Park