Just days after Hurricane Ida destroyed the homes of low-income and Black residents in Louisiana and Mississippi in 2021, a report was released that reveals racial minorities in the United States will bear a disproportionate burden of the negative health and environmental impacts from a warming planet, the Environmental Protection Agency announced. In addition, these communities will experience more deaths from extreme heat and property loss from flooding in the wake of sea-level rise.
If the planet warms just two degrees Celsius, the new report warns, Black people are 40 percent more likely than other groups to live in places where extreme temperatures will cause more deaths. African Americans are also 34 percent more likely to live in areas where childhood asthma cases are likely to be worsened by climate change. Nearly all U.S. counties are suffering economically from extreme heat, with labor-productivity losses expected to cost $500 billion annually by 2050, disproportionately affecting Black and Hispanic workers. Extreme heat will also claim nearly 60,000 lives a year by 2050.