Climate Change Impact on the Public Sector
As we have discussed in previous articles in this newsletter, including one in this issue, climate change is on the rise worldwide and is negatively affecting many aspects of human life. The impacts have not excluded the public sector from their scope. From public schools to fire and emergency services, from public transportation to water and electricity delivery, climate change is wreaking havoc on public sector delivery of quality-of-life services. The only question is whether the public sector is ready to handle the damage and, if not, how it can begin to make the kinds of changes that are needed to avert the disasters awaiting it and the citizens who depend on these services.
Broadly speaking, climate change adversely impacts the “built environment.” The built environment includes all aspects of peoples’ lives such as physical buildings, water and electricity distribution systems and transportation.i In light of the severe impacts climate change is having on that environment, some public entities are taking steps to adapt to and protect it. Some are doing this by improving land use planning and EMS preparations. Others are planting trees, installing green roofs, and building more green spaces. Some have implemented more policy driven measures such as stronger building codes and zoning laws that protect the built environment from the increasing impacts of climate change. In many places, however, public entities are behind the curve and their residents are paying the price.
Specific public sector areas impacted by climate change include:
- End of life infrastructure. These problems are made worse by extreme weather events. Coastal area infrastructure is impacted by flooding;ii wildfires damage property and affect air qualify;iii in the plains, extreme rain events can lead to dam failures, bridge washouts and road closures;iv and outdated sewer systems in some areas are overwhelmed by extreme rainfall causing wastewater to flow into local water supplies.v
- Production and distribution of essential services. These services include telecommunications, energy, water, health care, emergency services and transportation. For example, in Houston when Hurricane Harvey hit the area in 2017, some 300,000 customers were without electricity for extended periods of time. The damage to the area also negatively affected emergency services, hospitals, and water treatment plants.
- Threats to quality of life and human health. With aging infrastructure existing in many areas, climate change can worsen these issues by negatively affecting airvi and watervii quality (causing health issues) and lead to evacuations of homes (floods).
Some of the clearest examples of the impact of climate events on the public sector built environment is in public schools. In areas hit hardest by hurricanes and other major climate events, public schools have not fully recovered years after the destruction. In Florida, Hurricane Michael struck the panhandle in 2018. In one county, winds of 160 mph destroyed an elementary school. Five years later, the county is still trying to rebuild with the elementary school not yet finished (expected completion is fall of 2024) and many students still in temporary classrooms. The loss of the elementary school forced the district to reconfigure its schools. Of the 2200 students in the district, some 600 had to be reassigned to a new location, portable schools were added, and meals had to be secured from other locations.viii
In New York, recent floods caused water damage to 300 schools, leaving cafeterias and kitchens unusable. One school was evacuated temporarily.ix In the fall of 2023, high temperatures caused many schools in the Midwest and northeast to close because of severe heat. Many of these schools are older construction and are not equipped for air conditioning.
Pro Publica published the results of its assessment of school facilities in Idaho in which school superintendents pointed to such extreme heat during certain times of the school year (over 100 degrees indoors) that students just put their heads down, making it difficult to teach and learn. Due to funding issues (Idaho state law requires a 2/3 majority vote to pass a bond issue), facilities are rarely updated or renovated to address the problems.x
These examples pose the question of if and how to prepare schools for climate change to prevent learning loss for large numbers of children. According to the dean of the School for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Michigan, “Pretty much anywhere in the United States you’re going to have to be more careful about this and perhaps change how we run our schools in order to accommodate climate change.”xi
A 2022 study performed by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that most K-12 school districts that receive federal disaster recovery grants from FEMA and the Department of Education following presidentially-declared major disasters in the period 2017-2019 had elevated proportions of students from certain socially vulnerable groups “including low income children, minorities, English learners or living with disabilities,” making them especially susceptible to adverse effects of these disasters. The GAO further reported that officials from five such districts described heightened challenges in recovery from the disasters generally falling into four categories: emotional, academic, financial and physical.xii
Another critical example of how climate change is adversely affecting life for citizens that depend on public services is that of fire and EMS readiness. Climate change is impacting fire service delivery in several ways. There are now more frequent weather-related events; longer wildfire seasons, some year around; more emergency declarations with longer recovery periods; greater health, safety and behavioral concerns for fire and EMS personnel; and water supply insecurity. Considering these, it is imperative that public entities rethink these risks by reviewing their community risk assessments under the lens of climate change.xiii
All the needed public sector efforts to alleviate the damage to their built environments cost money. There is some help available to fund these efforts in the form of Community and Planning Development (CPD) formula programs, including Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), HOME Investment Partnership Programs and Section 108 Loan Guarantee Programs which finance resilience activities. These programs’ purpose is to benefit low-and moderate-income persons. The categories of public facilities eligible for the program funds are public facilities, infrastructure improvementsxiv and economic development.xv
[i] https://www.epa.gov/climateimpacts/climate-change-impacts-built-environment.
[ii] https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/11/.
[iii] https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/11/.
[iv] https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/11/.
[v] https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/11/.
[vi] https://www.epa.gov/climateimpacts/climate-change-impacts-air-quality.
[vii] https://www.epa.gov/climateimpacts/climate-change-impacts-freshwater-resources.
[ix] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/29/nyregion/nyc-schools-flooding.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/09/us/schools-climate-change-buildings.html.
[x] https://www.propublica.org/article/idaho-students-educators-show-us-effects-of-underfunded-schools?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=later-linkinbio-propublica&utm_content=later-40241575. Pro Publica conducted a survey of all 115 school district superintendents to perform a school facilities assessment as the state had not carried out such as assessment in 30 years. 91% of the surveyed superintendents responded.
[xi] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/09/us/schools-climate-change-buildings.html.
[xii] https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104606.
[xiii] https://www.usfa.fema.gov/blog/ci-063021.html.
[xiv] Public facilities are defined as community-serving buildings such as recreation centers, schools. libraries and fire and police stations. The HUD Climate and Resilience Implementation Guide is a valuable resource. (https://www.hudexchange.info/resource/6730/climate-resilience-implementation-guide-resilience-education-and-outreach-activities/).