Photo by Robert Ruggiero at Unsplash.com
6.12.20
Four Principles and 10 Investments to Lead Us Out of the Great COVID-19 Depression
Better World Group Staff
California lawmakers and members of the Governor’s state Task Force on Business and Jobs Recovery are discussing what to include in a recovery package to tackle the devastating health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 recession. One proposal on the table urges a focus on climate change preparedness to create green jobs that bring the added bonus of addressing that other existential crisis — climate change.
Better World Group has been a proud partner to lawmakers and the state’s environmental leaders for over 20 years, with a focus on uplifting communities that need environmental protections and job security the most. We are proud that California once again is looking to set a national model for climate change leadership and economic growth.
The current recession has devastated the state’s coffers and California’s ambitious agenda to tackle its many challenges will certainly take a hit. But as we’ve learned from the extraordinary events over the last two weeks, some issues simply cannot be deferred. Climate resiliency is one of them, and the recession offers an impetus to move California toward a green economy that is people-focused and equity-driven. We offer our ideas on guiding principles for a recovery package, followed by 10 green investments that we believe can set us California on the right course out of the COVID-19 economic crisis.
A budget that reflects California’s values
The pandemic magnified the relationship between environmental challenges, the economy and public health. Many of the working class, Black and Latinx communities that are facing disproportionate fatalities and infections are also the same communities that lack clean air, sustainable transportation options and good jobs. The following principles offer a framework for accountability and metrics to ensure that economic recovery efforts uplift those hit hardest by the crisis. A green stimulus effort should:
Invest first where the need is greatest, using data to target investments in places with historical environmental, social, and economic inequities and public health challenges.
Build a green economy for working Californians to create the jobs needed for the future.
Create a broadly accessible pathway to the middle class by ensuring that jobs created offer a living wage, worker protections and opportunities for mobility and prosperity.
Deliver multiple benefits for every dollar invested, with an eye toward projects that pack a punch on California’s most chronic environmental issues while spurring economic growth.
10 Investments for Green, Equitable Prosperity
The proposed priorities for a jobs and recovery plan are focused on investments that create jobs, build green infrastructure and move us toward greater climate resiliency.
Resiliency hubs: Invest in building the resiliency of under-resourced communities that often lack access to solar power, green space, broadband service or refuge from rising temperatures. A resiliency hub builds solar micro-grids that can be coupled with other amenities such as cooling oases, storm water cisterns and high-speed internet to give underserved communities access to climate resiliency infrastructure. Resiliency hubs should be focused in communities ranked in the top 10% of CalEnviroScreen, digitally isolated or highly vulnerable to wildfires.
Clean Water: In the nation’s richest state, millions of Californians, especially Black, Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) lack access to safe, clean, reliable, and affordable water. Let’s build water infrastructure for targeted communities in the San Joaquin Valley, Southeast Los Angeles, and East Coachella Valley to ensure access to clean and affordable drinking water, provide flood protection and habitat restoration benefits, and most importantly, to deliver an essential need for vulnerable communities.
Parks and Open Space: California has an abundance of natural wonders, yet many communities with low household incomes and BIPOC communities lack access to green space. Restoration projects in targeted underserved communities can increase recreational space and bring nature closer to people. Investing in restoration, recreation, and access projects on public lands can put people back to work quickly while saving the state the costs associated with wildfire management.
Electric highways: Build-out the state’s electric vehicle charging infrastructure along the highways used for goods movement that also burden low-income neighborhoods and communities of color with some of the worst pollution and highest childhood asthma rates in the nation. Strong candidates include the 710 Corridor in Southern California and Highway 99 in the Central Valley. These investments will lay the groundwork necessary for all trucks to be zero-emission vehicles by 2045.
Electrify the ports: The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach receive nearly 40 percent of the goods coming into the U.S. The ships and trucks that deliver those goods collectively represent California’s largest source of air pollution. Building the infrastructure to transition the ports to 100 percent electrification will create good-paying jobs, cost-effectively clean-up the air in some of the state’s most polluted communities, and accelerate the growth of our home-grown electric vehicle industry.
Universal Broadband: The stay-at-home pandemic orders revealed the vast digital divide that kept the working poor from working from home and cut-off kids from low income families from learning remotely. There can be no more excuses. It’s time to roll-out free, universal broadband for all Californians, with the highest priority given to low-income and BIPOC communities.
The Salton Sea: California’s largest remaining wetland in the Coachella and Imperial Valleys is an untapped resource to develop geothermal resources and harvest lithium for a clean energy future. These projects, together with habitat restoration and dust suppression projects at the Salton Sea, can improve air quality for nearby communities that face chronic respiratory issues, while creating jobs for a high-poverty area.
Green buildings: BIPOC and low-income Californians can weatherize their homes and increase their energy efficiency through a program that also electrifies gas-powered appliances and improves heating and air conditioning systems. These programs already exist, can be scaled, and can create good-paying jobs that cannot be exported.
Streets for People: California’s cities have made investments to get people out of their cars, but the ongoing pandemic may push commuters to drive once again. Now is the time to ensure that major metro areas have the transportation choices needed to achieve environmental goals, while also providing safe and reliable mobility for people with limited choices to get around. California’s stimulus package can help cities build bike lanes, provide free bus passes to youth and seniors, improve public transportation options and safety, and build a 21st century bus system.
Diversify tech and the green economy: The innovation economy is often out of reach for women and people of color. California can make one of its defining sectors representative of the state’s diversity with start-up assistance for aspiring entrepreneurs. A green stimulus plan must include loans and grants for start-ups whose founders are members of underrepresented populations.
California has long set the pace for our nation on issues from air quality to conservation and cleantech. Let’s use this moment to demonstrate that a commitment to equity and a green economy is the best way to ensure that we remake our economy on a foundation of family-supporting jobs and resilient communities. It’s not enough to recover. We need to make a better society where the health of the planet, and the well-being, education, security, and aspirations of regular working people drive our every investment.