Catastrophic flooding earlier this week in Libya killed at least 10,000 people, with more than 30,000 people displaced, after Storm Daniel pummeled the coast and two dams broke in quick succession.
Nearly a quarter of Derna, a coastal city in the eastern corner of Libya, was destroyed in the flooding, with entire blocks of buildings now missing and washed out to sea.
Death counts range, reaching estimates as high as 20,000, a number that came from the mayor of Derna. The Libyan Red Crescent put the number slightly lower at more than 11,000, as reported by the Associated Press.
Tropical storms or hurricanes in the Mediterranean are often referred to as “medicanes,” and while these weather events don’t reach speeds fast enough to qualify as official hurricanes, they can be quite destructive. Storms like Daniel are considered rare, and are expected to remain rare, but higher sea surface temperatures fueled by climate change can supercharge medicanes and make them more forceful, according to Kerry Emanuel, a professor emeritus of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“We expect, actually, to see fewer medicanes in the future, but we expect to see more of the stronger variety of medicanes,” said Emanuel.
Mario Miglietta, a meteorologist with the Italian National Research Council, also pointed out that a unique weather phenomenon called atmospheric blocking might have had a big influence on the path of the storm. A mass of warm air trapped the storm in place, as it gathered energy and intensified.
Storm Daniel is not unprecedented, as Ianos, the storm that hit Greece three years ago also intensified quickly before making landfall. But Miglietta said it’s an area to examine as atmospheric conditions change amidst a warmer climate.
“[Atmospheric blocking] was the reason why the cyclone persisted over the same region of the Mediterranean Sea for so long, which is unusual,” said Miglietta.
Another important factor: the crumbling infrastructure in Derna, which led to the failure of two dams known as the Al-Bilad and Abu Mansour Dams. The 50-year-old dams were in need of severe repairs, according to a 2022 study from a researcher at Omar Al-Mukhtar University in Bayda, Libya. The study cited the area as highly prone to flooding, and specifically referred to the need for continued dam maintenance.
But the current political situation in the country left little room for planning. Libya has only recently emerged from a civil war, which started in 2014 and ended in 2020, and is still governed by two official administrations. One is located in the west in Tripoli and has been recognized by the United Nations; the other is in the east in Tobruk, which governs over Derna. A number of militias also exercise power over areas of the country, complicating the question of recovery.
This made shoring up infrastructure a difficult task, according to Daniel Aldrich, professor of political science and public policy at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
“In Libya, it wasn’t that they were just thinking about, Okay, what happens if there’s a major sort of rains after a long drought because of climate change,” he told Grist. “They’re also worried about other things, for example: Are there armed parties out there, we need to defend ourselves against? How do we handle the possibility of collapse when there’s no clear government going on? These are all major problems they’re facing.”
A new study by an international team of 29 scientists from eight countries provides the third update to the planetary boundaries framework. The update shows how human activities are increasingly impacting our planet, thus augmenting the risk of triggering drastic changes in Earth’s overall conditions.
The nine planetary boundaries represent the limits within which humans can continue to thrive and develop.
“The planetary boundaries framework draws upon Earth system science,” the study said. “It identifies nine processes that are critical for maintaining the stability and resilience of Earth system as a whole. All are presently heavily perturbed by human activities. The framework aims to delineate and quantify levels of anthropogenic perturbation that, if respected, would allow Earth to remain in a ‘Holocene-like’ interglacial state. In such a state, global environmental functions and life-support systems remain similar to those experienced over the past ~10,000 years rather than changing into a state without analog in human history.”
The study found that two-thirds of the boundaries had already been breached, indicating the planet is entering dangerous, uncharted territory.
“This planetary boundaries framework update finds that six of the nine boundaries are transgressed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity. Ocean acidification is close to being breached, while aerosol loading regionally exceeds the boundary. Stratospheric ozone levels have slightly recovered,” the study said.
“A world that develops within science defined boundaries is the only way to navigate our current situation with rising, potentially catastrophic risks, at the planetary scale. We already recognize this on climate, where the Paris agreement has adopted the climate planetary boundary of holding the 1.5°C limit. Similarly, the world has accepted the planetary boundary on biodiversity, when decided at the 2022 Montreal-Kunming COP15, to halt and reverse biodiversity loss on land and in the ocean,” said Johan Rockström, who is director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, as well as the original proposer, in 2009, of the planetary boundaries framework, the University of Copenhagen reported.
It is essential that interactions within Earth’s system are maintained and respected so that they do not deviate much from those that have been in control of planetary conditions for the past several millenia. Otherwise, drastic changes could cause a decrease in the ability of the planet to support modern human civilizations.
“Our study shows that humans are appropriating the equivalent of ~30 % of the energy that was available to support biodiversity before the Industrial Revolution,” said Katherine Richardson, leader of the study, a professor at Globe Institute and leader of University of Copenhagen’s Sustainability Science Center, as reported by University of Copenhagen. “Surely, the removal of so much of the energy that otherwise would have been available to nature must be a driver of biodiversity loss. Therefore, we propose the adoption of Human Appropriation of Net Primary Production (HANPP), i.e., biomass use, as one of two metrics when assessing human impacts on biodiversity.”
The nine planetary boundaries — climate change, stratospheric ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol loading, ocean acidification, freshwater use, land system change, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, chemical pollution and biodiversity loss — are environmental components that regulate the livability and stability of our planet for humans. Human activities have caused the breaching of safe levels that are affecting these components.
The planetary boundaries framework uses the most recent scientific knowledge of Earth’s system functioning to determine a “safe operating space” for humans and proposes limits to human activities’ impact on the planet’s essential processes.
In the study, measurements for all nine boundaries were presented. It was found that not only had six of them been transgressed, transgression was increasing for all of the boundaries except the degradation of Earth’s ozone layer.
“Crossing six boundaries in itself does not necessarily imply a disaster will ensue but it is a clear warning signal. We can regard it as we do our own blood pressure. A BP over 120/80 is not a guarantee of a heart attack but it increases the risk of one. Therefore, we try to bring it down. For our own — and our children’s — sakes we need to reduce the pressure on these six planetary boundaries,” Richardson said, as University of Copenhagen reported.
The researchers concluded that there needs to be more focus on interactions between boundaries.
“The Planetary Boundaries science provides a ‘guide for action’ if we truly want to secure prosperity and equity for all on Earth, and this goes well beyond climate only, requiring novel Earth system modeling and analysis, and systematic efforts to protect, recover and rebuild planetary resilience,” Rockström said.
The study, “Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries,” was published in the journal Science Advances.
“Hopefully, this new study will serve as a wake-up call for many and increase focus in the international community on the necessity of limiting our impacts on the planet in order to preserve and protect the Earth conditions that allow advanced human societies to flourish,” Richardson said.
After years of protests by students, New York University has announced plans to divest from fossil fuels.
Chair of NYU’s Board of Trustees William R. Berkley stated the university’s commitment in August in a letter to student activist organization Sunrise NYU.
“New York University commits to avoid any direct investments in any company whose primary business is the exploration or extraction of fossil fuels, including all forms of coal, oil, and natural gas, and not to renew or seek out any dedicated private funds whose primary aim is to invest in the exploration or extraction of fossil fuels,” Berkley wrote, as reported by The Guardian.
One of the largest private universities in the country, NYU has an endowment of more than $5 billion. In the letter, Berkley highlighted other measures the university has taken to respond to the climate crisis, including its pledge to get to net zero by 2040 and goals for the reduction of food-related emissions.
In 2014, four percent — $139 million — of NYU’s endowment was invested in fossil fuels, according to university disclosures at the time. However, Berkley wrote the university does not have “direct ownership of public securities” in any fossil fuel companies now.
NYU spokesperson Joseph Tirella said the university’s divestment will apply to the biggest 200 fossil fuel companies.
“Sunrise NYU just won divestment at New York University! This is a huge win for climate justice!” Sunrise NYU wrote on X. “Congratulations to every student organizer who made this happen.”
The first time students launched a divestment campaign at NYU was in 2004, Common Dreams reported.
In 2015, the NYU Senate passed a resolution encouraging the endowment to divest, but it was rejected by the Board of Trustees.
Berkley’s recent letter followed a meeting in February between Sunrise NYU and the investments committee of the board of trustees, reported The Guardian.
“The board was very pleased with the tenor of its conversations with the students and the letter arose from those exchanges,” Tirella said, as The Guardian reported. “The University is glad to know the students were also pleased by the outcome of those conversations and by the letter.”
Berkley’s tune has changed since an open letter he penned in 2016 said the board did not agree that divestment would cut dependency on fossil fuels, and that the decision would be “disingenuous,” since they would still be being used on campus.
“It would be hard to make those arguments today,” said recent NYU graduate Dylan Wahbe, who is the co-founder of Sunrise NYU, as reported by The Guardian. “The global climate movement has done a great job at educating the world.”
There have been calls from activists to remove some of NYU’s board members, like CEO of BlackRock Larry Fink. BlackRock’s investments in fossil fuels have been publicly scrutinized.
According to Stand.earth, 1,596 institutions worldwide have divested from fossil fuels, 15.8 percent of which are educational institutions.
Some of the educational institutions in the U.S. that have already divested are Columbia University, Brown University, the University of Southern California, Boston University, Georgetown University, Middlebury College and Yale University, Inside Higher Ed reported.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced $1.13 billion in competitive grants for tree planting projects around the country. The tree planting initiatives are meant to provide more relief from extreme heat, curb climate change and provide more green space in communities.
The funding, granted through the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry Program and made possible from Inflation Reduction Act investments, will be distributed across 385 selected grant proposals in all 50 states as well as Washington, DC and multiple U.S. Territories and Tribal Nations.
“These investments arrive as cities across the country experience record-breaking heatwaves that have grave impacts on public health, energy consumption, and overall well-being,” Vilsack said in a statement. “Thanks to President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, we are supporting communities in becoming more resilient to climate change and combating extreme heat with the cooling effects of increased urban tree canopy, while also supporting employment opportunities and professional training that will strengthen local economies.”
The selected projects address planting and maintaining trees and were selected from a total of 842 applications.
By planting more trees in communities, the goal is to mitigate the extreme heat that many areas have experienced this summer. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, urban forests are an average of 2.9 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than areas with no tree cover.
“We believe we can create more resilient communities in terms of the impacts of climate,” Vilsack said, as reported by The Associated Press. “We think we can mitigate extreme heat incidents and events in many of the cities.”
There are both pros and cons to planting trees in the face of climate change. One study found that increasing tree cover to 30% in a city could prevent hundreds of heat-related deaths in the summer months. The New York State Department of Environmental Conversation noted that exposure to trees can alleviate stress, improve mood and lower blood pressure. Further, Yale Climate Connections reported that exposure to trees can also promote more movement and may result in improved immune system functioning and lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
But a recent report found that government and corporate climate pledges are overly optimistic on tree planting, and these efforts must complement other initiatives to curb climate change and its impacts.
Still, the winning proposals are expected to increase green space in communities, ultimately providing more access to nature and offering some relief from extreme heat.
“Today’s landmark funding from the U.S. Forest Service will increase urban access to nature, improve air quality, keep city streets cool during sweltering summers, tackle the climate crisis, and create safer, healthier communities in every corner of America,” John Podesta, senior advisor to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation, said in a statement. “That makes a huge difference for the grandmother who doesn’t have air conditioning, or the kid who has asthma, or the parent who works outside for ten hours a day. This investment will create not just greener cities — it will create healthier and more equitable cities.”
This story is part of Record High, a Grist series examining extreme heat and its impact on how — and where — we live.
Security guards and tourism guides at the Parthenon in Athens made headlines this summer when they went on strike during the scorching afternoons of a July heat wave that reached up to 113 degrees Fahrenheit in Greece.
“The extreme weather conditions continue to plague the country, despite this the Ministry of Culture did not take drastic measures — as it should have — to protect workers and visitors,” said the Panhellenic Union of Employees for the Guarding of Antiquities in a press release. The union stated that multiple people were seen fainting and suffering from heatstroke at the Acropolis, the complex of monuments that includes the Parthenon, prompting them to strike.
In fact, when the guards and guides refused to work during the hottest hours of the day, they essentially revived an old tradition in warm Mediterranean countries: the siesta.
A siesta consists of a midday break that usually includes a large meal and a nap and is most common in Southern European countries like Greece, Spain, and Italy. The siesta used to be sacred, but modern times have seen the decline of the practice.
“The siesta is as old as humanity, and in fact, it goes beyond humanity. And you can see a lot of other species just simply being sensible with hot weather,” said Dr. Simon Quilty, a physician and researcher at Australian National University in Canberra. Quilty is lead author on a paper that examines cultural responses to extreme heat.
Quilty also pointed out that the siesta has faced pushback in recent years, notably in 2016, when the Spanish prime minister proposed banning the practice.
A street vendor of art prints takes a nap outside the Museo Del Prado in Madrid on August 6 as the country braced for the third heat wave of the summer. Oscar Del Pozo / AFP
“There’s a strong push back on that cultural institution,” said Quilty. “That reflects our values and our values over the last 15 to 20 years, and certainly over the last 50 years, [which] has increasingly become about money and material gain. And that is the culture that is destroying the environment.”
The word “siesta” evolved from the Latin phrase sexta hora, which means the sixth hour after dawn, a time when the sun is high and it’s best to take a break from extreme heat with a hearty meal and a nap.
Even places that have not typically practiced the midday break are now looking to it after unflinching heat. In Germany, a famously efficient country, a public health group suggested that employers and workers get comfortable with the idea of preventing heat-related illnesses, including taking a siesta.
It could also be an effective option to avoid extreme heat in the United States, according to José María Martín Olalla, a professor of physics at the University of Seville in Spain.
“Practicing siesta in the United States is meaningful in the sense that you will be avoiding exposure to the central [hottest] hours of the day,” said Olalla.
But there are numerous cultural differences between Spain and the U.S., especially when it comes to the workday. Olalla pointed out that the labor cycle differs immensely and so do mealtimes. Siestas function not only as a rest for what used to be mostly manual labor, but also exist as a designated time for a large family meal.
“For instance, in Spain, lunch is usually the main meal of the day,” said Olalla. “In [the] United States, lunch is kind of a smaller meal.”
The siesta is ubiquitous with the culture in Spain, even as urbanization has meant changes for how people take siestas. Siestas have recently declined in popularity: “Not every single Spaniard is practicing siesta,” said Olalla. Still, he said that extreme heat caused by climate change could spur a revival.
Temperatures globally are expected to keep rising, and so are heat deaths, according to a study from researchers at Texas A&M University. Researchers found that deaths could top 200,000 annually by the end of the century, a fivefold increase. A siesta could help curb some of those effects, particularly for outdoor workers, according to Mayra Reiter, program director of occupational safety and health at Farmworker Justice, an advocacy organization based in Washington D.C.
“Whether it’s a siesta or a cooldown break, workers need regular rest periods when they are working in the heat,” said Reiter. “Because otherwise, they face higher risk of accidents on the job, kidney damage from dehydration and overheating, and heatstroke, which can be deadly.”
People taking their riverbank siestas at Pirineos Sur International Festival of Cultures in Sallent de Gallego, Huesca, Spain.
Nano Calvo / VWPics / Universal Images Group via Getty Images
In the U.S., employers are already experimenting with different solutions to extreme heat. In the wake of the hottest summer on record, companies are deploying ice-filled vests, sweat stickers, and paid cooling breaks to offset the hotter temperatures that workers are exposed to. In the agriculture industry, which often requires hours of labor-intensive work to plant, grow, and harvest crops, farmworkers are harvesting plants at night to avoid high daytime temperatures.
Dr. Brenda Jacklitsch, a health scientist and heat expert at the National Institutes for Occupational Safety and Health, an agency within the Centers for Disease Control, backs the idea of a siesta for outdoor workers, especially those who are more exposed to extreme heat.
Construction workers are also at risk for mortality due to heat, and one mother of a construction worker who died last summer in Texas is suing his employer for $1 million. The mother believes the company could have providfed more safeguards against the heat and prevented his death.
“Hotter times of the day very often are, you know, middle of the afternoon, when the sun is right overhead,” said Jacklitsch. “And so being able to schedule some of the maybe most intense or the hardest work tasks for maybe the early morning hours or possibly even later in the evening or after it starts to cool down might be appropriate.”
One of the main ways that siestas could benefit outdoor workers is by helping regulate the core body temperature of workers. Siestas can help by reducing both internal and external sources of heat, according to Nathan Morris, an environmental physiologist and professor at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.
The idea of working with, and not against, extreme heat might run counter to the culture of the United States, but Quilty brings up that Indigenous traditions and cultures in tropical regions have always understood the danger of extreme heat.
“People just simply understand that it’s dangerous to be in the hot weather,” he said.
One of Quilty’s co-authors is Norman Frank Jurrurla, a Warumungu elder, who wrote about how traditional Indigenous practices are responsive to the environment. Siesta is one example of these environmentally sensitive practices; another is to pay attention to emerging drought conditions and shift to where more consistent water sources are.
One constraint of the study, though, is using historical data, which is limited in its reach, especially as climate change is pushing the world to temperatures too hot to survive.
It could be good to revive the tradition in the U.S., says Olalla, where overwork and sleep loss are regular parts of American culture that degrade people’s overall health.
“It’s pretty clear from our standard knowledge that siesta is good,” said Olalla.
So good that despite recent declines in Spaniards practicing siesta, Olalla still makes it a regular part of his schedule.
“By the way, your email finds me practicing siesta,” said Olalla in a video interview, in a testament to siesta’s enduring power.
Gloria Huerta remembers the day she spent hours hopping between Chevy Bolts, messing with SIM cards and software while following instructions sent by a German tech firm. She was trying to fix a glitch that kept members of Miocar, the car-share program she helps lead, from unlocking the cars before the service’s formal launch. Troubles like these would make it difficult for her organization to fulfill its mission of providing equitable access to electric vehicles in rural California.
Much has changed since that frustrating day four years ago. Back then, it wasn’t unusual for Huerta, who is now the nonprofit’s chief operating officer, to spend hours driving across the state’s San Joaquin Valley servicing vehicles and solving members’ problems. Today, Miocar has a dedicated team to service its fleet of three Nissan Leafs and 34 Bolts spread across 10 locations (it plans to add more cars and locations by the end of the year) while offering guidance to anyone interested in establishing a community-based car share.
Zero-emissions vehicles are essential to achieving global climate goals. But climate policy experts warn that a one-to-one shift from gas to electric cars could exacerbate other forms of social injustice. Such a change could, for example, fuel environmentaldegradation and worker exploitation in the Global South, where most of the metals needed for batteries are mined. Here at home, people with low incomes struggle to afford EVs, even with ample incentives. Others are often unfamiliar with technology that’s typically targeted at the affluent. Those who can afford the cars often have precious few places to plug them in.
“I think it’s great that we’re moving towards zero-emissions vehicles,” Huerta said, “but the communities that are continuously left behind are still being left behind.”
To avoid such potholes, a growing number of programs like Miocar are forging an equitable path to zero-emissions transportation by making battery-powered cars accessible to everyone. (Huerta says Miocar is a play on “the Spanglish of the San Joaquin Valley” that tags the Spanish word for “mine” to the word “car.”) Such efforts have emerged in locations as diverse as Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and Los Angeles, bolstered in part by state and local assistance. Earlier this year, for example, the Washington state Department of Transportation awarded $2.8 million to spur EV car-share efforts in low-income communities statewide.
Beyond enabling a just transition and reducing the number of vehicles — and resources — needed to electrify transportation, electric car sharing represents a shift away from an economy of ownership to one of access, allowing people to embrace environmentally conscious mobility without the burden of buying a car.
What sets community-based nonprofits like Miocar apart from international for-profits like ZipCar is its focus on offering zero emissions vehicles to income-qualified users at reduced rates — often just $4 to $10 an hour. Cars are reserved online, charged up, and can be used for as long as 24 or even 48 hours, depending on the program. For some folks, it’s an easy way of running an errand, taking a pet to the vet, or simply getting somewhere beyond the bus line. For others, it’s an opportunity to get comfortable with an EV before buying one of their own.
Los Angeles is among the cities that have brought electric vehicle car sharing to frontline communities. The service provides dozens of cars and a network of chargers throughout the city.
Mark Ralston / AFP via Getty Images
With most of Miocar’s users having never so much as sat in an EV before signing up, some are uncertain, even intimidated, at first. Huerta says the most common concern is that the battery might die. But Miocar, like other EV car shares, ensures its cars are charged, and provides dedicated parking spaces with chargers. People are expected to plug in when they drop off. If they forget, there’s a warning, and repeated offenses result in small fines. To further alleviate the anxiety of exhausting the battery, Miocar employees, when orienting newcomers to the program, explain how to plan a trip and find chargers that accept the free charge cards provided with each vehicle.
Once they start driving, users tend to love the vehicles for their ease, quiet, and comfort. “I’ve had conversations with a few that are like, ‘Oh my God, I never knew how much I would enjoy driving this,’” Herta said. When that happens, Miocar connects users to organizations that can explain the tax credits and other incentives that defray the cost of buying an EV, which can go for an average of $61,488 new.
Of course, when people rely on car-share programs instead of purchasing a vehicle of their own, traffic and street congestion drops. In 2016, researchers at the University of California-Berkeley Transportation Sustainability Research Center found that for every car-share vehicle deployed, 7 to 11 others were taken off the road or never put there in the first place. Such findings have been repeatedly supported as these programs have grown.
That said, not everyone can ditch their car. A personal vehicle isn’t so much a luxury as a necessity in rural areas, Huerta said. That’s why Miocar’s mission is guided by the question, “How are we going to be able to do this in an equitable manner where everyone is able to get the same access to resources?”
These programs bridge an essential gap. Low-income communities are not only supermarket and pharmacy deserts; they’re charging deserts, too. Although there is a great need for equitable charging infrastructure, Susan Buchan, the executive director of Good2Go, Boston’s EV car share, said building chargers in frontline communities solves just half the problem. The communities need easy and affordable access to electric vehicles to make the chargers more than just harbingers of green gentrification.
“I’ve heard folks say that it’s kind of a slap in the face to watch somebody pull up in a Tesla, charge, and take off,” she said.
Still, bringing equity-focused car shares online can be a bumpy road. Beyond the technical hassles and occasional vehicle recalls, the economic challenges are formidable. “For public-backed car sharing, one of the biggest barriers is funding,” said Lauren McCarthy, a program director at the nonprofit Shared Use Mobility Center. “They’re not usually profitable operations.” Buchan concurred: “Achieving your mission makes you have a more negative balance sheet in this gig.”
Typically, public funding is available only during the pilot and lasts just a few years. That’s why McCarthy — who oversees a state-backed program in California that provides voucher funding to support shared-mobility initiatives — and the Shared Use Mobility Center offer a year of assistance after initial funding ends to help programs achieve financial sustainability.
Insuring the vehicles is a major hurdle on that path: “Our number one line item,” Buchan said. Despite requiring that drivers be over 21 and possess a clean driving record, Massachusetts places car shares like Good2Go in the highest risk category, driving up premiums. Other states, including California and Minnesota, have more relaxed policies, but McCarthy considers insurance requirements an obstacle to the expansion of shared mobility.
Outreach can be another challenge. In 2021, when Good2Go launched, it struggled with enrollment. The program revamped its efforts the following year, organizing catered events at affordable housing complexes to give residents an opportunity to drive their cars. Membership jumped 300 percent to 160 people, ensuring its fleet of six vehicles gets ample use. Buchan expects the growth to continue as long as the program can continue providing enough vehicles to meet demand.
As more programs like these appear, grow, and become self-sustaining, they have the potential to shift the default means of mobility. “The premise of private car ownership doesn’t need to define our society,” McCarthy said. “There should be multiple options available to you.” In a world of shared transportation, picking up a community-owned car would be one of these options, as would busing, walking, or grabbing a bike or scooter from the sidewalk. As long as our cities are designed to support these programs, an equitable future for clean mobility would look like one in which access takes priority over ownership, and in which we share to show how much we care.
Though the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, is best known for disaster response, it has emerged as perhaps the federal government’s most robust resource for preparing the country for the effects of a warming world. The agency has pumped billions of dollars into climate adaptation projects over the past few years, helping states and cities relocate flood-prone homes and harden infrastructure against wildfires. But the agency’s infrastructure programs have drawn criticism for disproportionately funneling money toward larger, wealthier, and whiter communities, leaving smaller and poorer jurisdictions without the money they need to adapt to worsening climate-driven disasters.
There are two big reasons for this funding gap. The first is that FEMA doles out adaptation money through competitive grant programs, which means that a local government needs significant funding and staff to put together an application that stands a chance of attracting federal dollars. The second is that federal law requires the agency to fund only those adaptation projects that pass what it calls a “benefit-cost analysis.” In other words, a city must prove that its proposed project prevents more damage than it costs to build. Big infrastructure projects like sea walls and stormwater pipes are much more likely to pencil out in dense cities with high property values than in smaller, low-income towns.
“We know we have work to do in this area,” said David Maurstad, a senior FEMA official, when he acknowledged the funding gap during congressional testimony on the subject last year.
This week, FEMA finally moved toward narrowing that gap. The agency announced a new loan program that will give states a total of $500 million to dole out to local governments in the form of low-interest loans for small-scale adaptation projects. This way, not only can local officials representing small towns, minor cities, and tribes skip the extensive application process associated with federal grants, but they also don’t have to justify their projects in cost-benefit terms.
“There’s large infrastructure projects that communities need to fund in order to adapt to the changing climate, but there’s often many small projects that need to get done as well,” said Victoria Salinas, FEMA’s associate administrator for resilience, in a press conference announcing the program on Tuesday. “The burden of getting a smaller project done that actually has a major impact on reducing human suffering is very high.”
The agency is piloting the program by sending $50 million in “seed capital” to seven states — Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, and Virginia — as well as Washington, D.C. The states will get about $6 million each, and they’ll be able to loan that money out to smaller governments at interest rates of less than 1 percent. (The benchmark interest rate for mortgage and credit card lending in the U.S. is currently around 5.5 percent.) The local governments can use that money to buy out homes that are in the path of fire or flood, elevate streets, or repair water infrastructure. States will decide how long local governments will have to pay the loans back.
In Washington, D.C., officials are planning to loan money to pay for storm drain upgrades in a public housing complex that has faced frequent flooding. The District of Columbia has already received money to upgrade a stormwater pump station through FEMA’s other climate adaptation initiative, the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, but the new loan will help officials pursue projects that wouldn’t qualify for that grant money.
Because states themselves will be running the loan programs, rather than the federal government, borrowers won’t have to worry about following the extensive federal spending guidelines that often hamper adaptation projects, or about passing a strict cost-benefit analysis. Experts have criticized federal benefit-cost regulations for placing too much emphasis on property values and neglecting to consider intangible assets like community cohesion and cultural heritage.
Furthermore, the program is a “revolving” loan fund, meaning states can reuse FEMA’s seed capital over and over again. If a state gives a city a loan of $1 million and the city pays the loan back after five years, the state will then have just over $1 million to lend out somewhere else. The program doesn’t have an expiration date, which Salinas said makes it “a more durable source of financing” than the agency’s other grant programs. The loan interest rates are far lower than cities tend to pay for standard municipal bonds, so the risk of default is low.
Anna Weber, an adaptation policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the program could help fill the gaps in FEMA’s still-nascent effort to finance climate adaptation.
“The underlying way that we distribute funding for hazard mitigation currently serves to drive resources to places that already have resources,” she said. “There’s a lot of potential for this program to slot into this patchwork of funding in a way that fills in some gaps.”
Editor’s note: The Natural Resources Defense Council is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.
