The ‘climatic’ brunt of living in a low income neighborhood
In the ongoing conference on 16th March, 2025 at 1:22 climate disparities in low-income neighborhoods are being debated.
Many of the low-income countries do not have access to clean air, water, and living conditions, and, hence, climate change has a greater impact on them. The key representatives expressed their views on how we can make a positive change.
One of the solutions which was propagated was around a more active role of public-private partnership in reducing the impact of climate change. To that extent it was mentioned that to reduce pollution, could we use more electric cars and how these could be made available at reasonable prices.
“We need a market based approach and we need to fund the private sector.”
Fig. 1.1 Bill Posey
NJ-07 mentioned in her speech that the Obama Initiative is outdated and a new initiative needs to be funded. The common ideas that were brought up in the speeches are that low income neighborhoods need to be helped, offered federal credit and spread awareness about the impact of climate change. In an interview by Kevin Mullin it was stated that,” people need to be pushed to make decisions, have an opinion on the topic and work together to come to a solution to this crisis.”
Fig. 1.2 Kevin
Another one of the popular ideas that came up was selling public transport tickets for cheaper so that it is more affordable and reduces air pollution. A lot of money is being lost by poorer nations due to climate change. For example, African nations lose up to 5% of their GDP due to climate related impacts. 40% of the global population lives in areas that are impacted by climate change however, low income communities face a more severe impact as there are heightened health risks due to limited resources and infrastructure.
While the raging debates continue, one thing was very clear, the time to tackle the issue of climate change is now and while there are a host of ideas which can deal with the situation, the key will be in effective implementation so that we do end up creating a better world.