Time Is Up: Social Workers Take Your Place at the Climate Table

Introduction

Factors that affect climate change were identified during the nineteenth century by scientists in France, Great Britain, and Sweden; however, it was not until the 1970s that the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) started having concerns about how human activities affect climate. ¹ Today, most climate scientists agree that climate change is caused by a human expansion of the greenhouse effect, ² which is the warming that results when the certain gases in the atmosphere trap heat radiating from Earth toward space. In its Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that there is more than a 95% probability that human activities for the past 50 years have warmed the planet. ³

According to the WMO, 2015–2018 have been the four warmest years on record. ⁴ The Earth's climate has changed throughout history, but most of these climate changes had been caused by small variations in Earth's orbit that change the amount of solar energy our planet receives. ⁵ The current increase in the Earth's climate is significant because most of it is likely the result of human activity since the mid-twentieth century. The findings of the IPCC indicate that human activity (e.g., use of fossil fuel, agricultural practices, and changes in land use) have been the dominant cause of the increasing amount of greenhouse gases emitted in the atmosphere for the past 250 years. ⁶ Within the past 150 years, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased from 280 parts per million to 400 parts per million.

Increasing greenhouse gases emitted in the atmosphere have caused many environmental changes, as evidenced by the number of natural disasters that are destroying national parks and swallowing homes. Since the 1970s, droughts have become more common and the global average sea level has risen at a mean rate of 3.1 mm per year since 1993. ⁷ These findings indicate that unabated climate change could have serious impacts on the environment and food production, political stability, and human health.

Beliefs About Climate Change

Climate change emerged into public consciousness in the 1980s and individuals began to realize that it was an environmental risk between 1989 and 1992. Since then, perceived importance of climate change has fluctuated. In contrast to national policy at the time, Capstick et al. ⁸ found that public opinion strongly favored U.S. participation in Kyoto Protocol in the early 2000s, but then there was a sharp decline in the belief of and concern about the issue until 2010. The Pew Research Center stated that in 2013, before the Paris Agreement was signed, a median of 56% of the population across 23 countries believed that climate change was a major threat to their country. This percentage increased to 63% in 2017 and 67% in 2018. ⁹

In the United States, political views are the central factor shaping individual's views and beliefs about climate change. Liberal Democrats trust climate scientists, believing that scientists provide them with full and accurate information about the issue, ¹⁰ and acknowledge the negative effects of climate change and believe that policies can make a big difference. ¹¹ However, Republicans tend to be more critical of climate scientists and are more likely to judge the proposed solutions as not making much difference in mitigating any effects. ¹² Overall, a majority of Americans appear skeptical of climate scientists, evidenced by only 39% reporting they have “a lot” of trust in information from climate scientists, even though they trust information from climate scientists more than they trust information from other groups. Although Americans are skeptical about the information from climate scientists, nearly half of U.S. adults say that climate change is caused by human activity. ¹³

Climate Justice and Vulnerable Populations

Although factors related to climate change were identified in the nineteenth century, the term climate justice was not used until the twenty-first century. Climate justice ultimately points out that vulnerable populations, such as older adults, children, those with chronic illness, and those in poverty will bear the brunt of climate change. ¹⁴ Socioeconomic disadvantages restrict the capacity of people to avoid negative health impacts of climate change, alleviate those impacts, or cope with them if they cannot be alleviated or avoided, leaving them at greater risk for negative outcomes during these events. For example, the Southwest climate gap speaks to the increasing temperatures in the Southwestern part of the United States, which also tends to exhibit the highest poverty levels and social deprivation. ¹⁵ There is clearly a disproportionate impact of the effects of climate change on poor communities and communities of color. ¹⁶ We saw this firsthand during Hurricane Katrina when the poor and people of color were unable to leave New Orleans due to not having access to the resources necessary to safely evacuate. Individuals who were incarcerated were left to fend for themselves, with 517 missing or killed, in sewage water up to their chest. ¹⁷

Climate change affects human health in three ways—directly, indirectly from environmental and ecosystem changes, and indirectly mediated through societal systems. ¹⁸ A direct effect of climate change on human health includes the mortality and morbidity due to extreme heat events, floods, and other natural disasters. Indirect impacts from environmental and ecosystem changes are shifts in patterns of disease-carrying mosquitoes and ticks or increases in waterborne diseases due to warmer conditions and increased precipitation. Indirect impacts mediated through societal systems include undernutrition and mental illness from altered agricultural production and food insecurity, stress, and violent conflict caused by population displacement, or other environmental stressors, and damage to health care systems by extreme weather events. ¹⁹ Climate change harms human health by worsening existing diseases and impacting daily life among those with the weakest immune systems, who usually have the least capacity to adapt. ²⁰ There is also a disproportionate effect on a global level. Poorer countries are at a greater risk of the consequences of climate change because they have fewer resources to adapt to the changes. In these countries, children are most affected by climate-related diseases such as malaria, undernutrition, and diarrhea. As Hayward notes, although poor countries are least responsible for high greenhouse gas emission, they are the most vulnerable to the negative health effects it produces. ²¹

Natural disasters caused by climate change are also affecting the livelihood and the poverty of the human population. Extreme events, such as floods, droughts, and heat waves, can significantly decrease poor people's assets and further undermine their livelihoods in terms of labor productivity, housing, infrastructure, and social networks. ²² Also, indirect impacts, such as increases in food prices due to climate-related disasters and policies, can also harm poor people in urban and rural areas who are net buyers of food.

Climate change can also threaten human security. Climate change can increase migration from rural areas to urban areas people would have rather avoided. ²³ Human security of populations that are already socially marginalized, depend on social welfare programs, and have limited capital assets, will be progressively undermined as the climate changes. During the extreme weather events, it is common that people will be displaced from their place of residence because natural disasters have made areas temporarily uninhabitable. However, many vulnerable populations are lacking resources to migrate from areas exposed to natural disasters; therefore, their security will be threatened. They will also lack resources to start over in the new area, which could also threaten their security. ²⁴

Renewable Energy

Renewable energy, or energy from naturally replenishing sources, is one of the key factors that could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The major types of renewable energy sources are solar, wind, hydropower, geothermal, and biomass (e.g., wood and wood waste, municipal solid waste, landfill gas and biogas, ethanol, biodiesel). Until the mid-nineteenth century, wood was one of the main sources used to generate energy in the United States for heating, cooking, and light. ²⁵ From the late 1800s until today fossil fuels such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas have been the major sources of energy. The use of renewable energy can reduce the use of fossil fuels, which are major sources of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions. ²⁶

Policy Response to Climate Change

There have been a number of policies formulated for the past few decades that address climate change. However, climate justice focuses on the ethics and morality associated with addressing climate change. As a result, it has been posited that climate justice is a human rights issue. ²⁷ Therefore, it is important that one examines the implications of these policies on the most vulnerable populations.

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

IPCC's first assessment report in 1990 pushed the United Nations (U.N.) into drafting the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1991. The UNFCCC is an international environmental treaty that was signed by 166 nations at the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. ²⁸ The treaty entered into force on March 21, 1994, and as of August 2018, UNFCCC has 198 parties, including the biggest producers of greenhouse gas emissions such as the United States, China, European Union, India, and Russian Federation. ²⁹ The parties have met annually since 1995 in Conferences of the Parties (COP) to satisfy group interests and negotiate specific international treaties, called protocols, to deal with climate change. ³⁰

The UNFCCC did not set any specific national or international targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and did not contain any enforcement mechanisms, but the objectives it had have been foundational in international climate change debates and policies. The objective of the treaty was to “stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.” ³¹ In the absence of specific targets, UNFCCC was not what a lot of environmentalists expected it to be, but it was an important step in establishing foundational guidelines for negotiations over national reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Kyoto Protocol

At the first COP, parties decided that developed countries had not adequately lowered the greenhouse gas emissions and further discussion during later COP's led to the Kyoto Protocol. ³² The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on December 11, 1997, and was entered into force on February 16, 2005, after being ratified by 127 countries. ³³ Even though many countries ratified the treaty, the United States is one of the few countries that has not joined the Kyoto Protocol. ³⁴ As of today, a total of 192 parties have signed and ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which commits its parties by setting internationally binding emission reduction targets. ³⁵ The groups' interest regarding the Kyoto Protocol hoped that by 2012, developed countries would have reduced their collective greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% from 1990 levels. As learned from UNFCCC, Kyoto protocol actually set specific targets for countries to observe the changes in the greenhouse gas emissions.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s when the Kyoto Protocol was implemented, there was a lot of tension in the world. In 1997, the U.S. Senate stated that the United States should not enter into an agreement that did not include comparable emission commitments to developing countries or that would hurt the economy of the United States. ³⁶ The Clinton Administration proceeded and signed the protocol, but it was never submitted to Senate and in 2001, President George W. Bush declared that the United States would not join the agreement.

Paris Agreement

One of the most recent policies on climate change is the Paris Agreement that opened for signature in April 2016. ³⁷ The agreement entered force on November 4, 2016, when 55 countries ratified the agreement. As of today, 185 parties have signed and ratified the Paris Agreement. ³⁸ The group's interests for this agreement are “to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future.” ³⁹ The agreement builds on the UNFCC and hopes to fix mistakes that were made with the Kyoto Protocol. The central focus of the agreement is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change. The Paris Agreement requires all parties to outline their nationally determined contributions, which are the efforts every country is going to make to reduce national emissions and how they are adapting to the impacts of climate change. ⁴⁰

United Nations Response

In 2015, the U.N. released 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to be achieved by 2030. Of the 17 SDGs, 7 have some focus on the environment (i.e., Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation; Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy; Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities; Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production; Goal 13: Climate Action; Goal 14: Life Below Water; Goal 15: Life on Land), highlighting the global relevance of climate change. ⁴¹

Social Work Response

In 2016, the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW) released its 12 Grand Challenges for Social Work. These Grand Challenges highlighted social work's role in climate change by challenging the profession to “create social responses to a changing environment.” ⁴² The AASWSW specifically outlines three policy recommendations: (1) adopt and implement evidence-based approaches to disaster risk reduction, (2) develop policies targeting environmentally induced migration and population displacement, and (3) strengthen equity-oriented urban resilience policies and proactively engage marginalized communities in adaptation planning. ⁴³

The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) also supports measures aimed at addressing climate change. Specifically, the NASW supports the following:

policies that reduce environmental threats to vulnerable and disenfranchised populations—including people who are poor, people of color, women, and children—who are disproportionately at risk;

Furthermore, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) included environmental justice-related topics in two competencies with the release of the 2015 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS). Competency 3 is devoted to environmental justice: Advance Human Rights and Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice. In addition, environmental justice is also included in Competency 5: Engage in Policy Practice. ⁴⁵ This suggests that social work programs in the United States should incorporate content on environmental justice across the curriculum, especially as it relates to advocacy and policy.

Despite the recent attention given to climate change by social work organizations, such as the NASW, CSWE, AASWSW, and International Federation of Social Workers, there is still relatively little research devoted to this topic in social work. For example, Mason et al. conducted a systematic review examining existing social work research from 1985 and concluded that only 12.5% (n = 14) of the 112 included articles focused specifically on climate change. Furthermore, 68.2% (n = 15) of these studies focused either on consequences or coping, whereas only 27.3% (n = 6) focused on a formal response or intervention (note that studies may cover more than one area; therefore, these percentages are based on the 22 areas covered rather than the 14 articles). ⁴⁶ The second author conducted a similar search of the literature using Web of Science. This produced an initial result of 52 articles of which 7 were deleted after examination of titles and abstracts, resulting in a final number of 45 articles on climate change and social work from 2008 to 2019. Similar to findings reported by Mason et al., a majority of these articles focused on the consequences and/or coping strategies after a natural disaster caused by climate change rather than practical solutions and/or strategies for prevention or intervention. As Mason et al. stated, “Although post-disaster research is important and should continue, new social work research is needed that partners vulnerable communities in advance of disasters to reduce the likelihood of negative consequences and bolster long-term adaptive capacity.” ⁴⁷

Conclusion

Climate change is an important and irrefutable issue based on scientific evidence. According to the Fourth National Climate Assessment Report, temperatures will continue to rise, precipitation patterns will change, droughts and heat waves will become even more common, hurricanes will become more intense, sea levels will keep rising, and the Arctic will likely become ice-free, ⁴⁸ resulting in a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable populations. Poor people are more susceptible to experiencing negative effects associated with natural disasters as a result of climate change and often lack the resources to migrate or evacuate during natural disasters, as was seen with Hurricane Katrina.

The U.N. has issued multiple protocols mandating that all countries slow down the climate change process. Although the United States has historically been seen as a world leader when dealing with climate change, President Trump's statement of intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement leaves one to wonder where the United States stands on the issue of climate change. The use of renewable energy can lower the use of gases that produce most of the greenhouse gas emissions in the United States; however, it seems as if climate change and the use of renewable energy are just chess pieces to be used in the political arena. Climate change is not a partisan issue—it is a scientific fact that necessitates action rather than political infighting. Social workers are uniquely situated to be involved, with their training in social policy, legislative advocacy, and community organizing, in combating the negative effects of climate change and the inherent social justice issues associated with this issue. However, as Hickman and Lehmann recommended, they must be trained on topics such as disaster-specific trauma, bereavement, and resource disruption. ⁴⁹ Based on our most recent literature search, most of the training of social workers is occurring outside of the United States in countries such as Australia and New Zealand. This leads one to question why the United States is lagging behind in training those most appropriate to address the unique needs of individuals and communities? Is this the result of privilege and ethnocentrism on the part of the United States as we are more likely to contribute to the problem of climate change, but less likely to bear the brunt of the consequences of climate change? This is an area that deserves further attention and action on behalf of social work educators, leaders, and practitioners.

Recommendations

Social workers have been committed to issues of social justice since the profession's inception. However, social workers may be missing their opportunity to be at the table when it comes to climate change. We argue that the lack of attention on climate change has nothing to do with lack of empathy or awareness, but rather a lack of training. Although some social work programs may offer electives related to environmental justice, these are not required courses. Even though the CSWE has included environmental justice in its 2015 EPAS, suggesting it should be infused across the social work curriculum, social work students are largely unexposed to how they can claim their seat at the table. As a result, we recommended the following: (1) environmental justice-related issues be intentionally incorporated, as is cultural competency, ethics, and assessment/evaluation, across the social work curriculum; and (2) social workers begin to examine proactive rather than reactive approaches to addressing climate change.