Inequitable Outcomes of Climate Emergencies Demonstrate the Need for Changes in Practice and Policy

Overview

With climate-driven public health emergencies on the rise, it is important to understand how essential and valuable community perspectives and lived experiences are for creating just laws and policies. Protecting public health means working to the benefit of everyone especially communities vulnerable to climate-related harms that adversely impact health and well-being. This first piece focuses on the concrete harms that result from the development of laws, policies, and practices produced without meaningful efforts to engage with communities, highlighting some of the real-world impacts of inequitable practices with respect to drought, wildfires, flooding, and extreme heat. The examples provided are starting points for thinking through how things have gone wrong, where change may be needed, and opportunities for successful collaboration.