What are the impacts of climate change and how will it affect the Latino community?

The IPCC has identified five key vulnerabilities or reasons to be concerned about continued global climate change. They include increased risk to unique and threatened ecosystems (with the potential for large-scale species extinction); increased frequency of extreme weather events (such as heat waves, storms, floods, and droughts); the potential for disproportionate impacts on certain groups or regions (such as the poor, the elderly, or people in low-lying areas); the potential for aggregate impacts to lead to a rapid escalation of costs and damages, especially if warming continues past a relatively moderate threshold; and the risk of large-scale effects, such as a significant rise in sea level due to the melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.

Scientists have examined a range of scenarios to estimate the extent of climate change likely to occur by the end of this century—that is, by 2100. The results suggest that even under relatively optimistic assumptions about the path of future greenhouse gas emissions, the amount of warming likely to occur over the next several generations will have significant impacts on the environment and on human and natural systems. And if current emissions trends continue unchecked, the expected change in average global temperature over the next 100 years would be so great that truly devastating and perhaps irreversible effects would become not only possible, but likely. Hurricanes Rita and Katrina, recent wildfires in the West, and the current, unprecedented drought situation in the South all provide vivid examples of the cost—in human lives, health, property, and suffering—we might incur as a result of continued warming.

There are a number of reasons why the Latino community is likely to be especially vulnerable to some of the adverse effects of climate change. First, minority and low-income groups are typically most exposed and least able to protect themselves against the worst consequences of extreme weather events and natural disasters. Twenty-two percent of Latinos live below the poverty level and 13.9 million Latinos do not have health insurance. As a result Latinos could be expected to suffer more than other segments of the population if, as expected, floods, heat waves, and severe storms become more frequent as a result of global warming.

Other effects might be more subtle: for example, warmer temperatures would tend to exacerbate certain other types of air pollution, such as smog. This would be particularly harmful for the Latino community, given that the percentage of Latinos living in areas where air pollution levels exceed federal air quality standards is consistently higher than it is for any other population. A study by the National Coalition of Hispanic Health and Human Services Organizations, for example, revealed that 71 percent of Latinos live in areas with high concentrations of ozone. Furthermore, Latinos, and especially Latino children, may be especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of air pollution. Children of Latino families develop asthma at a rate 2 ½ times more than non-Latino, white children. Twenty percent of Puerto Rican children between the ages of six months and 11 years old are diagnosed with asthma, more than any other community. All of these direct and indirect health-related impacts from climate change would be compounded by the fact that many Latinos lack access to quality health care and preventative medicine,

Latinos will also be directly affected by the costs and broader economic consequences of climate change. Agricultural production, for example, is likely to be among the most profoundly affected sectors of the U.S. economy. Agriculture is also a major source of employment for the Latino community, which makes up a majority of the labor force in this industry (65% in California, 48% in Florida, and 59% in Texas). More frequent droughts, water shortages, hurricanes, and severe storms will undoubtedly affect Latino farm workers and businesses in areas that have traditionally been hit hardest by these natural disasters. Given the myriad ways that global warming could burden local and regional economies—especially in hot, arid, or low-lying parts of the country—the Latino population, which is concentrated in many of these areas and already experiences high poverty rates, is likely to be especially vulnerable.