Pollack Adam B, Santamaria-Aguilar Sara, Maduwantha Pravin, Helgeson Casey, Wahl Thomas, Keller Klaus
Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 03755.
Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2025 Jan 14;122(2):e2418711121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2418711121. Epub 2025 Jan 7.
Many climate policies adopt improving equity as a key objective. A key challenge is that policies often conceive of equity in terms of individuals but introduce strategies that focus on spatially coarse administrative areas. For example, the Justice40 Initiative in the United States requires 518 diverse federal programs to prioritize funds for "disadvantaged" census tracts. This strategy is largely untested and contrasts with the federal government's definition of equity as the "consistent and systematic fair, just and impartial treatment of all individuals (Executive Office of the President, Federal Register, 2021)." How well does the Justice40 approach improve equity in climate adaptation outcomes across ? We analyze this question using a case study of a municipality that faces repetitive flooding and struggles to effectively manage these risks due to limited resources and public investment. We find that the way the Federal Emergency Management Agency implements the Justice40 Initiative can be an obstacle to promoting equity in household flood-risk outcomes. For example, in this case study, ensuring the majority of benefits accrue in "Justice40 Communities" does not reduce risk for the most burdened households, does not reduce risk-burden inequality, and produces net costs. In contrast, we design simple funding rules based on household risk burden that cost-effectively target the most burdened households, reduce risk-burden inequality, and accrue large net benefits. Our findings suggest that "disadvantaged community" indicators defined at coarse spatial scales face the risk of poorly capturing many climate risks and can be ineffective for meeting equity promises about climate-related investments.
许多气候政策将促进公平作为关键目标。一个关键挑战在于，政策往往从个体角度来构想公平，但所引入的策略却聚焦于空间尺度较为粗略的行政区。例如，美国的“正义40倡议”要求518个不同的联邦项目将资金优先用于“弱势”普查区。这一策略在很大程度上未经检验，并且与联邦政府将公平定义为“对所有个体进行一致、系统、公平、公正和不偏不倚的对待”（总统行政办公室，《联邦公报》，2021年）形成对比。“正义40”方法在多大程度上改善了气候适应结果方面的公平性呢？我们通过对一个面临反复洪水且因资源和公共投资有限而难以有效管理这些风险的城市进行案例研究来分析这个问题。我们发现，联邦紧急事务管理局实施“正义40倡议”的方式可能成为促进家庭洪水风险结果公平性的障碍。例如，在这个案例研究中，确保大部分收益归于“正义40社区”并不会降低负担最重家庭的风险，不会减少风险负担不平等，并且会产生净成本。相比之下，我们基于家庭风险负担设计了简单的资金分配规则，这些规则能够经济高效地针对负担最重的家庭，减少风险负担不平等，并产生大量净收益。我们的研究结果表明，在粗略空间尺度上定义的“弱势社区”指标面临着无法很好地捕捉许多气候风险的风险，并且在兑现有关气候相关投资的公平承诺方面可能无效。
