COP28 Provides Opportunity for More Equitable Future

World leaders are meeting in Dubai this week to discuss climate change in the COP28 conference. This conference is a crucial opportunity to prioritize the intersection of race, financial security, and climate resilience for communities across the globe.?

The connectedness of race, financial security, and climate resiliency has been the lesson of my life’s work. Over three decades in community development, I’ve explored and sought to address the intersection of race, and poverty, and, increasingly, climate.?

Most recently, since 2015, our team at Detroit Future City has been studying and exploring ways to understand and mitigate the impact of communities isolated from economic prosperity. We’ve come to focus on building resilient places, where residents have their needs met and are free from long-term chronic stress – giving them the ability to withstand and recover from acute shocks, like those posed by climate impacts.

In Detroit, a lack of resiliency makes residents vulnerable to climate impact. Almost ninety percent of Detroiters are people of color; two-thirds have a household income of less than $50,000. Nearly half are renters. This means that climate change isn’t just an economic and climate issue, it’s an equity issue, too. And the same is true in countless cities the world over.??

The reality is that climate change exacerbates and compounds inequity, and vice-versa. However, I believe there are three things we can do to begin fostering resilient futures in Detroit and other communities around the globe. These are as follows:?

We must create an equitable economic environment to grow wealth. Advanced technology and tech-based businesses are among the fastest growing industries here in Detroit, but also the nation. Its these businesses that are focused on renewable energy, smart technology for aging water infrastructure, and clean carbon technology, that can solve our climate dilemma and make millions, even billions doing it. However, unless we are intentional about including black and brown Detroiters in these industries, both as workers and investing in founders, we will continue to foster a future of inequity.?

We need to invest in our infrastructure to set communities up for a more resilient future. Let’s stop reacting to crisis moments, such as flooding and air quality and begin to discuss investments in alternative energy solutions, solar, and green stormwater infrastructure proactively. We must begin to change infrastructure policy that results in stabilization and improved quality of life.?

We need to ensure neighborhoods that are free from blight and deterioration. You should not have to be in a suburb to live in a community surrounded by beautiful gardens and trees. We must build more parks, trails and community spaces regardless of the demographics of those communities.? We can invest in urban forests that create tree canopy that will improve air quality and reduce urban heat island impacts.??

We should invest in neighborhoods not as a social program, but because climate equity and climate economics are interdependent concepts that require investment in order to see the economic returns. This is not only true in Detroit, America’s largest black city, but in every city where inequality is on the rise, and climate inequity will inevitably follow.

This editorial was developed with excerpts from Anika Goss’s speech at the TED Countdown Summit, July 2023.? Click here for the full speech.?

Anika Goss

President & CEO

Detroit Future City