RESUMO
Carbon pricing has been criticized by environmental justice advocates on the grounds that it fails to reduce emissions significantly, fails to reduce the disproportionate impacts of hazardous co-pollutants on people of color and low-income communities, hits low-income households harder than wealthier households, and commodifies nature. Designing carbon pricing policy to address these concerns can yield outcomes that are both more effective and more equitable.
RESUMO
Proximity to industrial facilities can have positive employment effects as well as negative pollution exposure impacts on surrounding communities. Although racial disparities in exposure to industrial air pollution in the United States are well documented, there has been little empirical investigation of whether these disparities are mirrored by employment benefits. We use facility-level data from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission EEO-1 database to assess the extent to which the racial and ethnic distribution of industrial employment corresponds to the distribution of exposure to air toxics emitted by the same facilities. The share of pollution risk accruing to minority groups generally exceeds their share of employment and exceeds their share of higher paying jobs by a wide margin. We find no evidence that facilities that create higher pollution risk for surrounding communities provide more jobs in aggregate.
Assuntos
Poluição do Ar , Emprego , Poluição Ambiental , Disparidades nos Níveis de Saúde , Instalações Industriais e de Manufatura/estatística & dados numéricos , Grupos Raciais , Características de Residência , Humanos , Grupos Minoritários , Classe Social , Estados UnidosRESUMO
In a Perspective, James Boyce and Michael Ash discuss Lara Cushing and colleagues' research study on the implications of California's policy on carbon trading.