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Abstract As the global impact of climate change intensifies, there is an urgent need for equitable and efficient climate adaptation policies. Traditional approaches for allocating public resources for climate adaptation that are based on economic benefit-cost analysis often overlook the resulting distributional inequalities. In this study, we apply equity weightings to mitigate the distributional inequalities in two key building and household level adaptation strategies under changing coastal flood hazards: property buyouts and building retrofit in New York City (NYC). Under a mid-range emissions scenario, we find that unweighted benefit cost ratios applied to residential buildings are higher for richer and non-disadvantaged census tracts in NYC. The integration of income-based equity weights alters this correlation effect, which has the potential to shift investment in mitigation towards poorer and disadvantaged census tracts. This alteration is sensitive to the value of elasticity of marginal utility, the key parameter used to calculate the equity weight. Higher values of elasticity of marginal utility increase benefits for disadvantaged communities but reduce the overall economic benefits from investments, highlighting the trade-offs in incorporating equity into adaptation planning.
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This content will become publicly available on January 7, 2026
Funding rules that promote equity in climate adaptation outcomes
Many climate policies adopt improving equity as a key objective. A key challenge is that policies often conceive of equity in terms of individuals but introduce strategies that focus on spatially coarse administrative areas. For example, the Justice40 Initiative in the United States requires 518 diverse federal programs to prioritize funds for “disadvantaged” census tracts. This strategy is largely untested and contrasts with the federal government’s definition of equity as the “consistent and systematic fair, just and impartial treatment of all individuals (Executive Office of the President, Federal Register, 2021).” How well does the Justice40 approach improve equity in climate adaptation outcomes acrossindividuals? We analyze this question using a case study of a municipality that faces repetitive flooding and struggles to effectively manage these risks due to limited resources and public investment. We find that the way the Federal Emergency Management Agency implements the Justice40 Initiative can be an obstacle to promoting equity in household flood-risk outcomes. For example, in this case study, ensuring the majority of benefits accrue in “Justice40 Communities” does not reduce risk for the most burdened households, does not reduce risk-burden inequality, and produces net costs. In contrast, we design simple funding rules based on household risk burden that cost-effectively target the most burdened households, reduce risk-burden inequality, and accrue large net benefits. Our findings suggest that “disadvantaged community” indicators defined at coarse spatial scales face the risk of poorly capturing many climate risks and can be ineffective for meeting equity promises about climate-related investments.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2103754
- PAR ID:
- 10609912
- Publisher / Repository:
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- National Academy of Sciences
- Volume:
- 122
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 0027-8424
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- e2418711121
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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