Credit reports and scores control access to public goods people need. Yet, in the midst of a global pandemic and economic collapse, remaking the nation’s credit reporting system is not the top concern.
Written testimony of Demos President K. Sabeel Rahman before the US House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law
Gulf Coast communities face the same environmental and racial injustices they faced during Hurricane Katrina—except now with the overlapping crises of COVID-19, economic collapse, and uprisings for Black Lives. Policy change must undo this injustice.
The policy platform outlines actions that address environmental justice, just recovery from disasters, equity accounting in climate policy, and energy democracy.
The COVID-19 pandemic is an environmental justice crisis—it has exposed inequalities that have persisted in places across the country with decades of pollution.
The future of our planet demands that we recognize our historic inequities and prioritize those who have been most impacted by climate change throughout history.
While Demos celebrates the legislation’s strong mandate on emissions reductions, the governor’s exclusion of community investment mandates and labor standards prolongs the fight for climate justice in New York and nationwide.
Demos strongly supports the Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA) that will protect and strengthen climate-impacted Latinx communities by reducing climate pollution and targeting clean energy investment based on principles of equity and racial justice.
On Friday, February 15, Lew Daly, Senior Policy Analyst at Demos, testified in support of New York State’s Climate and Community Protection Act. Following is Daly’s statement on the bill:
New York State’s Climate and Community Protection Act (CCPA) is a bold and necessary climate action policy for the people of New York. It will establish the strongest mandate for economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reductions in the country, requiring a 50 percent reduction by 2030 and set a timeline for achieving a 100 percent renewable energy economy by 2050.
Climate change poses an existential challenge to the planet. But the effects of climate change have fallen disproportionately on communities of color and working families. And the reality is that climate change has been accelerated by a coalition of corporations, donors, and policymakers who have adopted a willful blindness toward these dangers to our communities and our planet.
The Green New Deal is a vision for comprehensive national policy that addresses climate change at the scale and scope we need, creates living-wage jobs, and addresses racial and economic inequity by investing in communities.
In disasters, vulnerable communities face an environmental apartheid, absorbing the disproportionate burden of the impact. In recovery, they face discrimination.
The causes and effects of climate change are interwoven with racial, economic, and political inequity. Groups are building bridges across movements to address these intertwined, wicked problems.
A point that climate change reports often fail to note is climate change will disproportionately harm people of color. People of color are overrepresented in the southern states, in the poorest counties, and among outdoor workers.