Texas’s Harris County — home to Houston — now has the distinction of being one of the only counties in the country to adopt its own climate justice plan. Finalized in April after nearly three years in the making, the 59-page Harris County Climate Justice Plan lays out a vision for a safe, equitable future for all residents — and not just only around bureaucratic issues like, say, floodplain management and air quality, but food access and and housing as well, for example — including proposals for direct cash support for those who need help meeting such basic needs, too.
“The fact that we’re one of the first jurisdictions in the country to have this community-led, community-driven justice plan gives me tremendous hope and tremendous pride,” Lesley Briones, a county commission member, told the Houston Chronicle.
Harris County, on the whole, is about 19% Black, but many areas in the county have a larger percentage of Black residents — including Houston, which is about a quarter Black. But rather than overtly address the well-known disparities between Black (and Brown) people and white people in the face of the climate crisis, the Harris County plan takes more of a float-all-boats approach: it focuses on ways to make the climate future look better for all residents, while also highlights solutions to problems that are more specific to communities that are more likely to be Black.
The plan is divided into five categories: ecology, infrastructure, economy, community, and culture. In the infrastructure section, for example, one of the goals is, “The electric grid and the delivery of power is resilient, reliable, affordable, and protected from failure.” Part of how to get there, according to the plan, is to “coordinate and deploy community micro-grids, particularly in neighborhoods that consistently lose power.”
Research shows that Black communities in Texas suffer from blackouts at much higher rates than white communities — as much as four times higher, according to one study. While the plan doesn’t get into which communities might need those microgrids the most, it gets to where there needs to be justice nonetheless.
“This initiative is the first time a U.S. county has prepared a resiliency plan that covers its entire population, as opposed to its bureaucracy alone,” Lina Hidalgo, a Harris County judge, said in a statement. “At the heart of this plan are realistic steps to advance issues like clean air, resilient infrastructure, and housing affordability and availability.”
The plan lays out what Harris County could and should look like in the coming years, even as it has to contend more with climate change. But the vision is a rather beautiful one: “Housing is a human right and the basis of stability and security for our families and communities.
“Our communities are thriving through density, connectedness, and resilience.
“Our connection to nature is restored as all communities have accessible and high-quality parks and open spaces that reduce heat islands, absorb floodwater, and support healthy living.
“Everyone has access to healthy, affordable, and nutritious food through increased local food production that protects families from rising costs and reduces the number of miles food travels.”
Sounds awfully nice.
