EQUITABLE ADAPTATION TO EXTREME HEAT IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE.

AuthorHeger, Monica

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I. CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS OF HEAT ARE ALREADY BEING FELT DISPROPORTIONATELY AND THOSE DISPARITIES ARE TIED TO DISCRIMINATORY LAND USE POLICIES A. Heat Kills B. A Warming Climate is Further Exacerbated by the Urban Heat Island Effect C. Heat Disparities and Demographics D. Heat Disparities in U.S. Cities Can be Linked to Land Use Policies that Were and Still Are Often Discriminatory 1. Housing Policies 2. Transportation Policies 3. Access to Parks and Open Space II. EQUITABLY ADAPTING TO A HOTTER WORLD A. What is Equitable Adaptation? B. Understanding the Impacts of Discriminatory Land Use Policies is Critical for Equitable Adaptation III. APPLYING AN EQUITABLE ADAPTATION STRATEGY FOR HEAT IMPACTS TO LOS ANGELES A. Los Angeles' Existing Plans to Adapt to Heat B. Recommendations to Adapt More Equitably 1. Target Green and Cooling Infrastructure in Hotter Neighborhoods that were Disproportionately Impacted by Discriminatory Housing Policies 2. Reckon with Freeway Construction's Racist Past and Prioritize Transit 3. Reduce Park and Open Space Access Disparities While Preventing Displacement CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION

The world's five hottest years have all occurred since 2015, with 2020 going down as the second hottest year recorded since the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) first started recording global temperatures 141 years ago. (1) Future years will only be hotter: in February 2020, NOAA estimated that there is a 99 percent chance that the years 2019 to 2028 will be the ten hottest years to date. (2) If we continue on this trajectory, global temperatures are forecasted to increase more than 4 degrees Celsius by 2100. There is no question about it; our world is getting hotter.

In a blistering report published in October, the UN Office on Disaster Risk Reduction said a "staggering" increase in climate-related disasters over the last 20 years has been largely due to industrialized countries' failures to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. (3) The UN researchers found that in the last 20 years, there have been 6,681 climate disasters--a more than 80 percent increase from the 20 years prior. (4) Extreme temperatures have caused 13 percent of all known disaster-related deaths, including a 2003 heatwave in Europe that killed more than 70,000 people and a 2010 heatwave in Russia that killed an estimated 55,000 people. (5) Two 2019 summer heatwaves in France killed more than 1,400 people, and a 2015 heat wave in India and Pakistan killed 2,248 and 1,229, respectively. What's more, these numbers are nearly certain to be an undercount because data on human impacts are only available for one-third of all the extreme temperature events. (6)

Climate change is upon us, and while it is necessary for the world to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the most severe climate change impacts, adaptation measures are also needed.

In this comment, I explore equitable strategies for adapting to heat and how they can be applied to Los Angeles. Like many climate change impacts, the effects of higher temperatures will not be borne equally. Cities are doubly impacted by both climate change and the urban heat island effect, which makes cities hotter than the surrounding rural areas. Even within a city, heat impacts are unevenly distributed, and researchers have recently been tracing heat disparities within cities to historic discriminatory housing and land use policies. (7)

Although higher temperatures can lead to increased wildfires and more strain on the electrical grid, (8) the consequences of higher temperatures are not always visible. Therefore, identifying the populations most at risk is critically important.

The impacts of heat are already upon us and so, while mitigation against further temperature rise is incredibly important, strategies for adapting to our new, hotter world are needed now. Given the disproportionate impacts of heat that are already being felt in our cities, equitable adaptation strategies are needed.

In Part I, I lay out the scope of the problem, discussing heat predictions in the face of climate change. I illustrate why hotter temperatures are a problem, including by showing how heat impacts learning, exacerbates underlying health conditions, increases the chances of premature birth, and increases mortality. In addition, I discuss the unequal impacts of heat. I also look at how those disparities can be traced to discriminatory land use policies. In this Part, I focus on Los Angeles. It is the nation's ninth most diverse large city, and it is already heating up due to climate change. (9)

In Part II, I lay out the existing frameworks of equitable adaptation. Equitable adaptation is necessary when thinking about the heat impacts of climate change because they are felt disproportionately, and those disproportionate impacts can be directly traced to racially discriminatory land use policies.

Finally, in Part III, I discuss how equitable adaptation to heat can be applied to Los Angeles. Residents living in neighborhoods that were historically redlined already experience temperatures that are two degrees hotter than the citywide average temperature. Those neighborhoods, which are still predominantly Black and Latinx, also have higher levels of air pollution due, in part, to their proximity to freeways. Air pollution and heat create a positive feedback loop, amplifying the health impacts of both. Equitable adaptation strategies that look at the problem holistically are necessary to adequately address how prior discriminatory land use policies continue to impact residents today. At the same time, it is important to recognize and plan for the fact that the very strategies known to be effective to adapt to hotter climates are often the same ones that can lead to displacement and gentrification.

Understanding the legacies of discriminatory land use policies is essential for developing equitable climate change adaptation policies. While I explore several equitable frameworks and how they can be applied specifically to Los Angeles, I think the frameworks will have broader applicability to cities throughout the U.S.

  1. CLIMATE CHANGE IMPACTS OF HEAT ARE ALREADY BEING FELT DISPROPORTIONATELY AND THOSE DISPARITIES ARE TIED TO DISCRIMINATORY LAND USE POLICIES

    1. Heat Kills

      Heat is already the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, with more than 3,400 deaths reported between 1999 and 2003. Moreover, according to projections, annual heat-related deaths in the U.S. could increase five to seven times by the 2090s. (10)

      "Of all the climate change exposures we study, heat is the No. 1 killer," Rupa Basu, chief of air and climate epidemiology for the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. (11)

      By the end of the century, without a reduction in emissions, downtown L.A.'s number of extreme heat days will rise from six to fifty-four per year according to researchers at UCLA, who have developed a model to forecast temperature changes in Los Angeles. (12) The researchers found that inland areas in L.A. could experience between sixty and ninety additional days per year of temperatures above 95 degrees, "effectively adding a new season of extreme heat." (13)

      Heat has numerous indirect health impacts aside from the direct impacts of heat exhaustion or heat stroke, including the exacerbation of existing health conditions like heart disease and asthma. Extreme heat has been associated with preterm birth and low birthweight. (14) Heat worsens the impact of ozone pollution by speeding up the chemical reaction of two precursor chemicals emitted from car exhaust and other sources. Thus, heat and air pollution work together to aggravate underlying respiratory and cardiovascular problems. (15)

      Heat can negatively impact peoples' abilities to work and kids' abilities to learn in school. And, these impacts are not felt equally: when it is hotter, Black and Latinx kids' school test performances suffer compared to their white counterparts. (16)

      These issues are not something to worry about in the future; they are upon us now. In California, heat-related emergency room visits increased 35 percent between 2005 to 2015, with disproportionate increases among Black, Asian Americans, and Latinx residents. (17)

    2. A Warming Climate is Further Exacerbated by the Urban Heat Island Effect

      Cities in particular are vulnerable to higher temperatures because of the urban heat island effect. The urban heat island effect results in daytime city temperatures that are 1 to 4 degrees Celsius higher than the areas outside the city and nighttime temperatures that can be 10 degrees Celsius warmer. Five key factors cause the phenomenon. (18) The primary cause is that cities are less efficient than surrounding rural areas at cycling out hot air. (19) Smooth city buildings and pavement slow air turbulence, which keeps hot air trapped at the ground. In addition, fewer trees and vegetation in cities reduce shade and evaporative cooling. Additionally, dark buildings and pavement absorb heat, which especially impacts night-time temperatures. Buildings, industrial activities, and cars also release heat. (20)

      Urban heat goes hand in hand with poor air quality. Heat is a key ingredient in ozone, speeding up the photochemical reaction between the nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds that car exhaust emits into the atmosphere. Ozone pollution, like heat, can cause both acute respiratory and cardiovascular issues, and also amplify existing health problems. (21) As the world heats up due to climate change, these problems are compounded.

    3. Heat Disparities and Demographics

      Understanding who is at risk for increased heat is necessary for determining effective heat adaptation policies. For instance, cooling centers will not be effective if they are inaccessible to those who need them. Understanding how certain...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT