This podcast episode accompanies the Student Note by Isabel Tahir: Addressing the United States Climate Crisis and Climate Displacement

Transcript

Speakers: Taylor Graham, Isabel Tahir

0:00  

For many in the United States, mention of climate change conjures images of remote Pacific islands disappearing under rising sea levels, or have international communities forced to leave their homes in the face of exacerbated climate change disasters. While these realities are true, there is danger in having this narrow view as it positions climate change as something that happens to other people in distant corners of the globe, but not to us, not to the United States. In other words, this narrow view of climate change otherizes the issue. Welcome to the California Law Review podcast, our goal is to provide an accessible and thought provoking overview of the scholarship we publish. Today, we will be discussing addressing the United States climate crisis and climate displacement, a transition from authorization of climate change to a focus on domestic solutions. This is a student note written by Berkeley Law student Isabel to hear published in Issue 2 of volume 110, in April of 2022. Isabel, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today about your note,

1:05  

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to speak with you and to share more about this piece.

1:10  

So to begin with, can you summarize what it is you argue in this piece?

1:14  

Yeah, so this note argues that associating climate change with people outside the United States creates an authorization of climate change that eventually evades the responsibility that we have to look internally and address the domestic climate impact that we're facing. And the importance of addressing the domestic climate impact internally, is very important, because the effects of climate change in the United States often disproportionately harm poor communities, rural and immigrant communities, as well as communities of color.

1:51  

Thank you, Isabel. And you touched on this a little bit in your previous answer, but why was it that you wrote this piece? And what do you hope it will accomplish?

1:58  

I wrote this piece because I feel a great sense of responsibility, I feel a tremendous amount of both hope and despair. In the current situation we face with climate change. And, you know, I have to admit that in addressing climate change and climate crisis, this topic can be very depressing at times in termins of, "oh, here we go again," you know, we're talking about this one more time. But I just I feel the sense of ensuring that the topic remains central to our conversations into our daily lives. And it's a reminder that we still have time to address this and that we still have time to repair a lot of the harm that we have caused. And, you know, as depressing as it may seem, we cannot lose track of the imperative of the reality that we're facing. And I hope that the piece is a starting point for people to look internally and to begin to see how much climate change is present here.

3:02  

Yeah, that's something I definitely took from your piece. I too, struggle with that – how long we've been talking about this issue and how little has been done and trying to find hope. And I appreciated your piece as a call to action and also as offering some potential solutions. So can you tell us a little bit about the concept of authorization; what that means and how it fits into the context of climate change?

3:24  

Yeah, so the concept of authorization is rooted in a sociological casting of a group differentiating us versus them. It's almost like a polarizing of groups. And this casting is based on the distinction, that it operates primarily as a power structure. The focus is on things like race, gender, class, and other additional characteristics. And drawing from the sociological roots of authorization, and within the us versus them dichotomy, the note – I use the concept of authorizing based on on this framework, and on the aspect of differences. And in the context of climate change, us is the United States and them is this distant place, this distant communities where climate change is currently happening. It's it's almost the focus is on different experiences faced by by climate crisis victims, globally distant from this from this place. So it's, it's in other words, it's happening there to them. It's not happening here to us. We otherize the issue.

4:45  

Yeah. And your peace talks about kind of some of the perils of doing this of thinking of climate change is something that happens abroad, as something that doesn't happen here in the United States. And I'm wondering if you could, you could tell us a little bit more about what those perils are.

4:59  

Well, this distinction of us versus them is dangerous for me for two main reasons. First, in the context of global citizens, including climate refugees, that distinction exacerbates climate injustice by constructing them as barbarians, almost threatening the sovereignty of civilized nations who are not facing climate change, when in reality, we are facing climate change. And it also reinforces racial distinction between us, and them: citizens and foreigner, and friend and enemy. And I quote a lot of this in my paper, and I talk more extensively about this danger. And then the second part of this is that when academic literature covers climate change in the United States, it covers the issue as if it's occurring abroad, and it perpetuates the idea that the United States and its residents are exempt from this global issue, when that's just not the case, and advances an idea of American exceptionalism rooted in the belief that other countries have challenges and calamities, but we do not. Like you know, there's poverty somewhere else, but not here, to draw that kind of parallel. And when it comes to climate crisis, that's just very far from the truth. And it influences a deflection of responsibility.

6:34  

So your piece notes that while much of the academic literature and media portrayals in the US focus on the international impacts of climate change, the climate crisis is taking place here as well. Could you paint us a picture of what that climate crisis looks like here in the United States?

6:48  

Yeah, I'll do my best because this, the note gives a regional overview of what climate change looks like now, and I'll just briefly give some examples. I mean, we're in California. I don't know if you're a native of California, or if you're just here with me because of law school. But since 2017, an array of wildfires have drastically devastated entire cities, and paralyze entire communities, entire neighborhoods. And the fires and their devastating impacts are a combination of many things, including poor forest management, inefficient utility, infrastructure and climate change. And California, unfortunately, is not the only state facing wildfires. Regions like Oregon, Nevada and Arizona, are also frequently confronting wildfires. And in Arizona, for example, 10 of the largest wildfires in the state's history have occurred in the last 8 years. And again, I'm not saying the climate change produced wildfires, but climate change exacerbates wildfires for sure. And climate crisis on the East Coast, for example, is starkly different from the way that we view it in California. In states like New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, climate crisis is a mix of both hurricanes and extreme rainfall. And unlike the increase in wildfires, climate change has not necessarily produced more hurricanes. But the hurricanes that have emerged in the last few years are far more severe. And in the south, I'm just moving along the United States to give a more comprehensive picture. In the south, similar climate crisis events as those experienced by the East Coast – states like North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, parts of Texas and Georgia – face a high risk of hurricanes. A combination of extreme heat, water stress is also present in those southern states like Arkansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and then the northern part of Alabama as well. Humidity and storms in places like New Orleans will profoundly impact communities, and New Orleans is a place that has already been greatly devastated. And water stress and short supply will contribute to droughts experienced in places like Florida, Georgia and Alabama. I can go on but to answer your question. That's, that's what we're looking at, based on the research that I did, and on some of the things that I noted in the article.

9:28  

I grew up in in Colorado, actually before coming here to California for school, and I can definitely attest to those wildfires. But I think your piece does a wonderful job of showing how diverse the effects of climate change are here in the United States. And that certainly is one of the challenges with recognizing it as a threat and also addressing it. And one of the other pieces your your your your note talks about are is the fact that as effects of climate change ramp up, more and more people will be displaced and forced to relocate from their homes. Could you give us a sense of what that looks like here in the US?

10:00  

Yeah, so the displacement of people due to climate crisis is very narrowly understood in the US. And it's very narrowly covered. Hence, the importance of I think, why I wrote this piece. And the focus on climate displacement remains very limited. But I did, I was able to find a lot of really important information that touches on whether displacement currently is and under projected displacement. So for example, internal migration and planned relocation due to climate crisis disasters have already commenced. The indigenous Canal and the Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw peoples for some of the first who are forced to migrate. In particular, Alaska Native villages have been among the first communities to experience the acute stress of rising temperatures, and with some travel communities appeals for relocation assistance, dating back to more than 15 years. So this this, these appeals for a location have been ongoing for more than a decade. And in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, displacement became very visible, and a population shift became just inevitable. The displacement of New Orleans residents, particularly black Americans, resulted in a shift across the south. And Houston, Texas, for example, receive an estimated 250,000 refugees, more than anywhere else in the country. And approximately 150,000 of these "climate grants" – and I put that in quotations – remain in Houston one year later, and then the rest eventually resettled in other locations of Texas, and many people didn't go back to New Orleans after that happened. And by the year 2050, and beyond climate displacement in the United States will be even more visible. I read a New York Times article while doing this note, the United States is a nation in the cusp of transformation, that across the United States, some 162 million people – that's nearly one in two – will most likely experience a decline in the quality of their environment, and then more heat and less water. This transformation means that by 2017 93 million Americans could really face with drastically severe conditions and will be forced to relocate and live in places entirely different from the ones they once lived in.

12:35  

Yeah, and your your pieces discussion of the communities that are already having to relocate and the future relocations that will happen as a result of climate change highlights how, when it comes to responding to this crisis, the US disaster relief and relocation policies are largely inadequate. Could you tell us a bit more about how these policies failed to address this growing challenge and particularly how they fail to provide meaningful support to disadvantaged communities?

13:00  

Yeah, the issue with the issue with the United States is that a lot of the climate crisis and natural disaster support obviously comes after natural disasters have taken place and the existing support is often focused on disaster relief. Right. So after again after it has it has taken place. The problem it with this is that it becomes a reactive approach instead of a proactive or like, you know, happening before before it takes place. And the lack of pre planning guidelines that limits mitigation efforts to climate change, exacerbate the kind of support, or not exacerbate but limit limit the kind of support that people get, and exacerbates the kind of harm that they experience after the natural disasters have happened. In the United States, disaster relief and emergency assistance is governed by the Stafford Act, which gives FEMA the tasks to coordinate assistance of emergency relief. And FEMA assistance is focused on supporting local disaster center communities that have been affected by natural disasters. The support comes in the form of rebuilding infrastructure for the most part, and providing emergency housing which is obviously very needed when people have lost their homes right after a natural disaster. And it's also focused on offering financial assistance. And while that may seem great, okay, infrastructure, we obviously need to rebuild. We obviously need to provide people with emergency housing right away, and we need to provide people with financial assistance. The array of climate induced events, is just doesn't allow FEMA to partake in the kind of support communities need across the board. And FEMA is focused on providing support to victims is also most notably focused on victims of flooding. And the agency administers does, the agency does take part in a program in a managed retreat program. And through this program, they work with local officials, and they may request funding to buy our homes, or entire neighborhoods that are prone to hazardous or repetitive flooding. And again, like these, these, so this is FEMA's kind of approach. That's one of them, and I'll talk about her then I'll talk about the other ones. But for example, just focusing on FEMA, the amount of funding that we would need to ensure that people who have faced natural disasters in need infrastructure, housing and financial systems, it's a lot. It's a lot of money, right. And apart from the money, the level of coordination among local, county, state and the federal government, it's just it would create a process that would be really hard for people to eventually get that get the support that they need, in a fast way. And then I'll move on to the heart the heart program, the support provided by HUD is comprised of mortgage insurance program, and a community grant program. And in the mortgage insurance program, HUD offers mortgage insurance to protect lenders against the risk of default or on mortgages that qualified disaster for qualified disaster victims. For homes located in designated disaster areas, insurance mortgages, may use the finance to purchase or reconstruct one family home that will be principal residence of the home owner. And although these programs exist and provide some kind of support for disaster victims, these programs are focused on the financial assistance of people who have mortgages, not everybody owns their home, as you may know. The problem with this is that in many instances, communities affected by climate change are not homeowners. And so they may not benefit or they may not qualify from some of these programs, and the assistance to renters and non homeowners, it's then not provided. And this leaves thousands of people with no help or support. So it's again, it's very inadequate. I mean, I will say that we're glad something is there. But it's clearly inadequate. And then to support to receive support via the small business program that I had mentioned, this is focused on businesses and private individuals, and it comes in the form of loans. So this support is not direct financial support. And, and instead, it offers low interest long term loans to affected individuals who cannot qualify for credit elsewhere. And again, this leaves a lot of communities just not included and leaves them with no support and No, no no lack of or leave them with lack of of benefiting from this kind of program. So that's, that's currently what is offered in the US. And I do hope that we move as climate change and the climate crisis progresses that we move away from a reactive approach to a proactive approach to a mitigation approach.

18:29  

So to address the lack of adequate policy addressing climate change induced internal displacement, your paper calls for the implementation of the UN's framework of internally displaced people. Can you tell us why implementation of the IDP framework is a good place to start and why it is so important to consider equity and environmental justice in addressing this problem?

18:47  

Well, a lot of nations a lot of countries like the United States are obviously sovereign nations or sovereign countries. They are not necessarily regulated by international law. But I do focus on the paper on the note that international law does have an influence in the way in which we can address climate change. So as the United States addresses climate displacement in the years to come, the United States Internally Displaced People framework can be used and modified as a new policy comes into place or as something gets gets better implemented as a new better system is established. And the IDP framework gives clear guiding principles as to who will be considered an internally displaced person both because of natural disasters and because of human made disasters. Additionally, the displacement of people due to such disasters includes really a diversity of displacement scenarios. I'll just mentioned some here that I think are really important, and I think what's important with this is that it allows us to classify climate crisis in the United States. So the internal displacement is due to the sudden onset disasters such as flooding, the slow onset environmental degradation caused by rising sea level or droughts, the coastal inundation as experienced by the small island states, the high risk zones deemed too dangerous for human habitation because of environmental dangers, qnd the unrest, seriously disturbing public order triggered by climate-related decrees, and essential resources due to climate change. So the classification, the guiding principles that the Internal Displaced Persons framework gives, allows us to classify climate change in different categories. And we're gonna need this level again, we're gonna need this level of classification, this level of coordination, when we really begin to see the displacement of people across the United States, like who benefits from which program, under what category and such. And so I do think that even though international law does not, is not the rule of law in the United States, as we know, it does influence the way in which we can establish programs that will hopefully allow us to better protect people and to better serve people. And to touch on the environmental justice prong of your question. A lot of people who are currently experiencing climate crisis – and I draw this parallel in the notes – globally, are often poor communities, and it's often the global south. What's interesting is that even though those communities are facing climate change, they have the least, or maybe the least to do with the exacerbation of climate change. Similarly, in the United States, a lot of the communities who are or will face climate change are not necessarily communities that have the resources or that exacerbated this problem. But they will face those consequences. And we have the opportunity to establish a program that will support people in an equitable way, why not do it with the central focus being environmental justice at the core of when we have the chance to do it? Or I will say when we have the chance to do it right from the from the get go. And I think that we would eliminate inefficiencies in the program from a policy perspective in equities, for example, and definitely, hopefully the funding will be distributed in a more eloquent way for communities that will be impacted. So I do think that incorporating EJ will be central to these kinds of programs and will hopefully, allow us to be to establish his programs in a better way.

23:03  

Well, first of all, thank you so much for bringing attention to this topic, and for speaking with us today.

23:06  

Thank you for having me, I do want to make a point, before we end this. I think we all have the opportunity to create change in the way that we want to see the planet be habitable for future generations. So whomever is listening, I really, I just come from a place of we we can all contribute to something greater than ourselves. And we have an incredible opportunity to change the way we're doing things. So I hope that you read at least the introduction to the piece or that you listen to the first, I don't know 10 minutes of these forecasts and that you engage in conversations that will hopefully help you see climate crisis happening here in your own backyard. Thank you.

23:59  

Thank you. We hope that you've enjoyed this episode of The California Law Review podcast. If you would like to read Isabel's note, you can find it in volume 110 Issue 2 of the California law review at Californialawreview.org. For updates on new episodes and articles, please follow us on Twitter. You can find a list of editors who worked on this volume of the podcast in the show notes. Thank you and we'll see you in the next episode.