在加利福尼亚州的北Richmond成长，Denny Khamphantong不认为每月凌晨11点一次哭泣一次。警报是对社区的紧急警告系统的测试，这些系统在附近的雪佛龙炼油厂多年来已经提醒了居民。那里的一次意外 -2012年火灾- 在旧金山湾滚滚的黑烟云，留下了成千上万的当地居民努力呼吸。
Now, when Khamphanthong explains the sound to his young nieces, he sees the fear in their eyes. "I forget that this isn’t normal," he says. Nor is the fact that Khamphanthong and most of his childhood friends carried inhalers. Richmond, a diverse, industrial city where housing prices and incomes have lagged behind its Bay Area neighbors, haspoor air quality和some of thehighest rates of respiratory and cardiovascular disease在加利福尼亚。
“在里士满]有很多美丽的事情发生，”社区组织者Khamphanthong说Asian Pacific Environmental Network谁的家人在20世纪80年代从老挝移民。“但与此同时，当你看看它的现实时，很伤心。”
Pollution, poverty and racecollidein many other disadvantaged communities across California — and the country — and some argue that the state’s climate policies haven’t helped. While California already hascut its greenhouse gas emissionsby 13 percent since their peak in 2004, many residents still suffer from high levels of air pollution — much of it produced by fossil fuels.
特别是，争议有顽固的加利福尼亚州概要贸易政策在2013年生效，并规定大约450个实体占加利福尼亚排放量的85％。该系统通过在炼油厂，发电厂和其他大型发射器发布的温室气体总量的限制，要求污染者获得允许涵盖其份额的许可证。整体“盖帽”每年都会降低，迫使污染者减少其他人的排放或购买津贴。
环境司法活动人士表示，上限和贸易计划尚未担任加州弱势社区，特别是许多设施的弱势社区。
经济学家，环保主义者和政策制定者 - 其中许多白人 - 吹捧帽和交易作为为其他气候倡议产生资金而削减排放的经济有效的方法。但环境司法活动家表示，该计划尚未担任加州弱势社区，特别是许多设施运作的弱势社区。在他们的眼中，它不足以解决气候变化，并允许发射者在此期间继续污染空气。
例如,表明Chevro状态记录n Richmond Refinery, one of California’s largest emitters,released2017年和2018年更多的温室气体 - 该数据被公开可用的最后几年 - 它自2008年以来已经拥有。并且在近年来，它发出了多大或多次某些空气污染物。它也有显着增加了气体量flared off as waste — another source of有害化合物。（雪佛龙代表说，燃烧与在线上市的新氢气厂有关，炼油厂在过去40年中减少了减少空气污染物排放的重大投资。）
To many, cap and trade highlights a contradiction. "You’re hearing all this great stuff about how amazing your governor and your state is on climate leadership," says Lucas Zucker, policy and communications director at theCentral Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy。But "it doesn’t feel like anything is changing."
As the United States reckons with its long legacy of racial injustice and the increasingly devastating consequences of climate change, questions about the efficacy and fairness of cap and trade have taken on greater urgency than ever. But seven years on, researchers, regulators and activists are still arguing about how California’s most famous climate policy has affected its most vulnerable residents — and how to do better.
该air
气候变化通常被视为全球问题。但其影响是深刻的局部，通常通过长期不等式和种族主义的长期模式折射。
In the U.S. and elsewhere, low-income residents and people of colorshoulder an outsized shareof the climate burden. Theyface greater risks从heat waves，洪水和其他与气候相关的影响。他们遭受了苦难collateral damage从the harmful pollutants produced by using fossil fuels.
As the U.S. reckons with its long legacy of racial injustice and the increasingly devastating consequences of climate change, questions about the efficacy and fairness of cap and trade have taken on greater urgency than ever.
这些污染物包括颗粒物质，氮和硫氧化物，以及有毒物质如苯，与呼吸障碍与癌症的生殖问题的健康问题有关。Numerous学习给我看看polluting facilities和他们的排放量tend to concentrate in disadvantaged communities.
“我和我的五个表兄弟，我们都有哮喘，”萨克拉门托15号亚坡弗朗西斯说。当弗朗西斯年轻时，医生开了他的药物，因为他们担心他可能会在睡梦中停止呼吸。当他在公园玩篮球时，他仍然努力赶上他的呼吸。“这对我来说是非常吓人的，”弗朗西斯说，弗朗西斯说，他是非洲裔美国人。
According toCalenviroscreen., the system the state uses to identify at-risk populations, his neighborhood falls in the highest fifth of pollution-affected communities in California. It ranks in the 94th percentile for poverty and roughly 90 percent of residents are people of color.
威尔明顿的化工厂，加利福尼亚州洛杉矶县的一个城市。
在威尔明顿，达尔·阿尔塔安省南洛杉矶的主要拉丁裔社区表示，她的孩子和孙子们遭受了污染引起的头痛，皮疹，流鼻血和呼吸问题。“空气质量非常糟糕，”45岁的Altamirano用西班牙语说，叹了口气。“我亲自有很多呼吸问题，我的喉咙。......有时候我的丈夫想称之为有护理人员。”这座城市坐落在众多炼油厂，石油井和储存设施，运输港口和高交通道路，以及一些社区排名top 10thof CalEnviroScreen scores.
Climate policies present an opportunity to解决这些问题因为温室气体和有害空气污染物通常来自同一来源，如工业烟囱和车辆尾巴。事实上，加利福尼亚州过了它地标2006年气候法- 到2020年将州将温室气体排放量降至1990级 -supporters claimedthat it would save thousands of lives through improved air quality alone.
But environmental justice advocates grew concerned that these benefits would not be equally distributed when theCalifornia Air Resources Board（CARB）决定采取一项关于履行法律战略的一部分。
CARB转向CAP和贸易，因为它有来自环境团体和工业参与者的广泛支持，并且已经在使用中东海岸国家联盟和theEuropean Union解决温室气体。（2014年，魁北克加入加利福尼亚州的市场和其他几个states和countrieshave considered or adopted their own versions in recent years.) However, community activists worried that the system would allow companies to find ways to keep emitting, particularly in disadvantaged neighborhoods.
Zucker说：“随时对已经牺牲的污染计划，已经被牺牲的污染计划，已经成为经营决定，”Zucker说。有些证据表明这些恐惧已经成真。
A2018 studyled byLara Cushing现在，在加利福尼亚州加州大学洛杉矶，发现盖帽和交易所涵盖的一半以上的设施实际上在该计划的前三年内提高了他们的内部排放量。这些设施也更有可能成为弱势社区。（通过从其他地方减少排放的其他项目购买清洁能力和碳信用额，抵消了国家排放。）
A2019 report由环保组食品和水表发现了东海岸区域温室气体倡议的类似结果 - 一个规范电力部门的概要贸易计划。
然而，一个新的分析由California大学圣巴巴拉的经济学家，在加利福尼亚绘制了一个稍微更明亮的画面。研究人员使用了模型来模拟污染在大气中的污染方式，以研究排放方式如何转化为暴露。与其他人一样，他们发现弱势社区与他们更白，更繁荣的邻居之间的耀眼差异。但是，虽然在CAP和贸易生效前的年份所谓的环境正义差距增加，但在该计划涵盖的设施所涵盖的地区之后，它在20％到30％下降了20％至30％。
加州研究采用不同的方法，不提供关于CAP和贸易是否有帮助或损害国家处于弱势社区的明确答案。两者都不得不与影响排放的外部因素搏斗，例如巨大的经济衰退和加州的其他气候政策。但活动家表示，一个更重要的问题大多是没有掩盖：如果加利福尼亚完全通过了不同的政策，那将发生什么？
许多人认为，如果国家直接调节发射者，他们的社区就会得到更大的进展凯蒂Valenzuela。She grew up in Oildale — a town in a major oil-producing region in California’s Central Valley — and previously served as policy and political director for the加利福尼亚环境司法联盟。今年3月,Valenzuela elected to Sacramento’s City Council District 4, representing midtown and downtown Sacramento and South Land Park.
近年来，国家监管机构试图解决空气质量的不平等。But Valenzuela says that officials have leaned on cap and trade instead of embracing more aggressive climate policies — often at the expense of vulnerable communities: "It’s been 14 years, and we’ve still never had a meaningful discussion about reducing our dependence on fossil fuels."
钱
By the time California’s cap-and-trade program came up for renewal in 2017, environmental justice advocates had united against it. They felt ignored by state officials and abandoned by mainstream environmental groups. The最终重新授权法案, which extended the program until 2030, only compounded their sense of betrayal: Among other provisions, it exempted many polluting facilities from extra regulation by local air districts.
This souring of relationships was particularly disastrous given that many saw California’s原始气候法as an explicit effort to advance environmental justice. It was "integral to the design," saysMichel Gelobter, a social entrepreneur and environmental justice advocate who helped shape the bill when he was executive director of Redefining Progress, a sustainability think tank.
法律定向州官员考虑气候政策对“空气污染影响的社区”的影响。它还要求国家召集一个环境司法咨询委员会监督其气候努力。Gelobter说，即使是CAP-和贸易计划虽然远非完美，但具有公平的雄心壮志。
He and other economists note that traditional environmental regulations often raise the cost of goods and services, which disproportionately harms low-income people. And the extra money that consumers pay goes into the pockets of polluters, Gelobter says. Thus, to him, the most just climate policies are those that impose a price on carbon and use the revenue to blunt the economic blow on the most vulnerable members of society. California has done exactly that.
Every quarter, the state auctions off emissions allowances to polluters (some are also distributed directly to industries) and by law, 35 percent of the money raised must be spent in disadvantaged communities. In practice, however, the state has delegated far more — almost 60 percent, or roughly30亿美元总的来说，自2014年第一次资金已发布。
Phil Serna是加州空中资源委员会的成员，认为这是一个强大的对立批评，批判和贸易是不公正的。“我们如何投入资源真的反映了我们的优先事项，”塞尔纳说，萨尔马托县主管说。
How we invest our resources is really a reflection of our priorities.
Some cap-and-trade revenue goesdirectly to California residents，抵消由国家气候倡议引起的电力和天然气成本增加。该剩余的钱goes toward projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or improve water quality. In disadvantaged neighborhoods, that might mean expanding public transit, increasing access to renewable energy and building efficient, affordable housing.
有些人对这些资金来源感到不舒服，因为他们经常以社区健康成本。“如果没有来自CAP和贸易系统的资金，我们更愿意，因为没有来自我们的经济的污染，”非营利组织环境股权总监Alvaro Sanchez说Greenlining Institute。但从投资角度来看，他说，“金钱映像感觉相当积极。”
在圣何国山谷，CAP和贸易基金帮助低收入居民购买了洁净的汽车。大多数山谷排名upper thirdof CalEnviroScreen scores and the region has the最糟糕的空气质量。Bakersfield.领导该国在颗粒状污染，弗雷斯诺排名第二。但在这里，领先的罪魁祸首是农业和交通- 不是CAP和贸易下涵盖的大型工业设施。（该计划通过迫使燃料分销商购买排放津贴来调节交betway必威娱乐通工具。）
根据一个呼吁在圣Joaquin开车干净，居民可以在旧车中获得9,500美元的旧车用于混合动力或电动车辆。到目前为止，Drom Knox说，到目前为止，驾驶干净已经取代了3,000辆汽车，并在瓦斯维护成本中每月节省数百美元，汤姆·诺克斯Valley Clean Air Now, which runs the program.
其中一辆车去了Sokunrith Nop，他从41年前从柬埔寨移民到美国，并在斯托克顿生活。他用完全电动2017菲亚特500e取代了他的1995年的公民。“我喜欢它。它完美适合我，”NOP说，他需要一些可靠的东西来驾驶他的孩子去学校。
他喜欢省钱。他想帮助环境。“每个人都应该驾驶一辆像我们不污染的那样的车，”NOP说。他只希望该计划可以帮助更多像他的人：“那些车很贵。”
该rub
Cap and trade isn’t the only way to put a price on carbon, and it’s not the only one that提高环境司法问题。每当政策依赖市场力量降低排放的政策时出现此类问题 - 因为市场具有着名的股权无关紧要。“这一切都是关于寻找效率，”Kyle Meng，UCSB的经济学家和环境司法差距研究的共同作者。
Still, activists and researchers have proposed numerous ways to make California’s program fairer. For instance, regulators could require that emissions in disadvantaged communities decline at least at the same rate as the overall cap, rather than setting a statewide goal, says詹姆斯·伯斯, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Officials also could impose geographic restrictions on trading to ensure that the pollution benefits accrue more locally, or force emitters to go through local air permitting processes.
加州的环境司法咨询委员会反复存在called on regulators减少可用津贴的数量，并脱离偏移 - a成本遏制措施这使得污染者从外部项目中购买额外的排放信用额度减少碳排放，例如种植树木或保护它们免受伐木, often in other states.
艾丽西亚里维拉, a community organizer forCommunities for a Better Environmentin Wilmington, says that she struggles to explain the concept of offsets to residents breathing unhealthy air. "The refinery gets credit, but in Wilmington, they haven’t reduced anything," she says. (CARB has not banned offsets; however, starting in 2021, companies won’t be able to use as many, and at least half must benefit the state.)
有人说，如果加利福尼亚州的计划会产生更公平的结果，如果它有更雄心勃勃的排放目标，因此更高的碳价格。（由州own assessment到目前为止，CAP和贸易值得为其进展的进展很少。）其他人认为它受到了太多的关注。Danny Cullenward., a climate policy expert at Stanford University, argues that cap and trade "claims to be able to do anything you want … while the politics frustrate any efforts to dial it up to do that."
Carb Communications的沟通总监Stanley Young表示，CAP和贸易是该州其他气候政策的反击，例如增加可再生能源使用和清理流量污染的努力。他说它正如广告所在的工作。它有助于更低的温室气体排放，并迫使公司以碳成本为代理。
该program raises money, too, and California has made good on its obligation to invest the resulting funds in hard-hit communities, but some say it still could do better. Certain programs that ostensibly benefit disadvantaged communities may not actually do so; for example,最近的一项研究通过缓冲和其他人发现一些国家的清洁车辆折扣计划比低收入居民提供更多的加州加州。
绿色研究所的桑切斯表示，最弱势社区往往缺乏进入CAP和贸易收入的手段。行政总裁Simeon Gant表示，当他们这样做时，州各机构有时候是不愿意对基于社区组织的控制权。GreenTech，萨克拉门托的劳动力培训计划，其学生包括青少年亚坡弗朗西斯。结果，他说，“他们从不达到他们所定位的人。”
事实上，许多加利福尼亚人从未听说过Cap和Trade，并且仍然没有意识到它为他们的利益提供了资金。Khamphanthong和其他人表示，该州应该更好地与社区成员搞定以弄清楚他们最需要的东西。在里士满，Khamphanthong希望看到对待员工的绿色工作，并使社区受益。“为什么不与我们一起弄清楚解决方案？”他问。
未来
In recent months, California’s cap-and-trade program has encountered problems. At the beginning of the pandemic, the春季拍卖带来了一小部分预期收入。在夏天，加州的环保局负责监督碳水化合物，released a letterstating that he would work with the board to reevaluate the state’s dependence on cap and trade going forward.
无论加州决定，它都必须首先放置权益Jackie Cole名副其实的是一家专门从事环境司法的咨询公司。“如果那不是你开发解决方案的中央镜头，那么这些社区将永远被遗漏，”她说。
New York may offer an interesting model. Last year, activists celebrated the passage of aclimate lawthat sets even more aggressive emissions reductions goals than California. Environmental justice groups championed the bill, and they are hopeful that the state will steer clear of cap-and-trade policies (they have long fought the East Coast’s regional market). Instead, activists support imposing a polluter fee to raise money, on top of strict mandates to cut emissions.
在社区成员，地方官员和行业代表进行了长期谈判后，炼油经理商同意将几个关键污染物的排放量减少50％到2030年。
回到加利福尼亚，碳水化合物通过了a resolution— "almost a constitution," says Serna — reaffirming its commitment to social and racial justice in October. "I have every expectation that that will eventually find its place into everything that we continue to do at CARB," he says, including managing cap and trade. (InSeptember，碳水化合物的黑人员工写了一个open letter and proposed an action planto address concerns about systemic racism within agency culture.)
该州已经采取了措施解决弱势社区的空气污染，包括发行new regulations for vehicles— a major contributor. After Francis participated in a recent CARB panel on environmental justice, the agency offered to installlow-cost air monitorsat his home as part of a pilot program. Francis said they already have helped his family members stay safe on unhealthy days.
国家也已经开始实施2017年法律，传递给帽子和交易延伸，创造了一个community-focused system用于解决最受影响的社区有害排放。除了里士满之后，第一城市之一是威尔明顿，与邻近的卡森和西长海滩一起。在社区成员，地方官员和行业代表进行了长期谈判后，炼油经理商同意将几个关键污染物的排放量减少50％到2030年。该final plan, released last year, also includes provisions to reduce pollution from traffic and oil wells.
Rivera, the community organizer, says the refinery agreement represents a victory — albeit hard-won and too late for many. But Altamirano, the Wilmington resident who served as a member of the community steering committee in the negotiations, isn’t quite as hopeful.
她住得足够接近炼油厂，以听到阀门突然开放，闻到渗出的有毒烟雾。有时，耀斑照亮了她家上方的夜空。她说她还在等待改变。
"Solo Hablan，Pero No SE Hace Nada，“她说。”只是说话然后做不到。“
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