Archive for category: Luskin Center

UC Grant Will Fund EV Research by UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation Team led by a Fielding School professor gets nearly $2 million to pursue an equitable model for electrical vehicle charger placement

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The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation will be a key contributor to research recently funded through a partnership between the University of California and the state intended to spur real-world solutions relating to climate change in California.

A team from the Center for Innovation, or LCI, will focus on community engagement relating to a project led by Yifang Zhu, professor of environmental health sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, that will look at how efforts to reduce greenhouse gases can better enable residents of disadvantaged communities to adopt electric vehicles more readily. 

A $1.99 million grant under Zhu’s direction will fund the study of EV usage in communities that have historically lacked access to charging stations. The LCI researchers will work with local residents and community-based organizations to identify barriers, improve knowledge and awareness of EVs, and design plans for deploying and installing charging stations in underserved areas. 

To date, the siting of EV chargers has been a top-down process driven by business priorities rather than community needs and preferences. Gregory Pierce, adjunct associate professor of urban planning and co-executive director of LCI, said researchers will partner with three community-based organizations in the Los Angeles area to co-design the first-ever procedurally equitable process for placement of EV chargers. 

“We hope that this project leads to a new community co-designed model for placing electric vehicle charging stations throughout California that can accelerate our transition to a zero-emissions transportation future,” Pierce said. 

The UCLA Luskin-affiliated team will be co-led by Rachel Connolly, project director for air quality and environmental equity research at LCI. The effort will include surveys and a three-part workshop process relating to the siting of EV chargers and future investments in coordination with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and other partners. Connolly, who earned doctorate and master’s degrees in environmental health sciences from UCLA, has been working at LCI since 2017. 

In all, $83.1 million in California Climate Action grants were awarded to a total of 38 projects involving researchers from across the UC system, as well as California State University campuses, private universities and community, industry, tribal and public agencies. The two-year grants are part of $185 million allocated by the state for UC climate initiatives that advance progress toward California’s climate goals.

Read about other UCLA research funded by California Climate Action grants

The Heat Is Rising, and UCLA Luskin Research Is Helping L.A. Respond Environmental justice has been the cornerstone of Luskin School efforts related to the city’s hot weather policies

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By Les Dunseith

As Southern California braces for more heat waves this summer, the city of Los Angeles has launched its most comprehensive and equitable response ever, thanks in part to partnerships with student, faculty and staff researchers from UCLA Luskin.

Interactive mapping tools co-developed by Luskin School-affiliated scholars and the Public Health Alliance of Southern California, for instance, are helping government officials and social services providers better visualize the neighborhoods most in danger from extreme heat. And research has helped ensure that city resources like cooling centers are being deployed in areas with high numbers of low-income residents and communities of color — groups that tend to be disproportionately affected by hot weather but whom previous heat-mitigation efforts often failed to reach.

While California has not historically viewed hot weather in the context of social equity, heat’s disparate impact on the state’s various populations has been a central focus of Luskin School and other UCLA research.

“Heat is an equity issue. Neighborhood by neighborhood, we’re going to be experiencing heat differently,” said Colleen Callahan, co-executive director of the Luskin Center for Innovation and co-author of the center’s three-part series on California’s Extreme Heat Action Plan. “That’s why it’s important to identify where protections are most needed and where they’ll have the biggest impact.”

Among those equitable protections is providing shade from the heat, said V. Kelly Turner, an associate professor of urban planning and point person for the Luskin Center for Innovation’s climate adaptation and resilience research. In a July 2023 commentary in the journal Nature, Turner detailed how a lack of shade affects urban residents — particularly those from low-income and marginalized communities, who tend to live in heat-prone areas that lack air-conditioning and tree cover — and stressed the need for cities to remove regulatory restrictions that make it difficult to build shade infrastructure.

“It’s going to take a setting-by-setting approach, whole of government approach, where we look at all the regulations that make it really hard to do the right thing,” she recently told LAist.

A related recent capstone effort at the Luskin School involved graduate students in public policy. Their research (PDF) explored historical inequities in Los Angeles and included a survey to assess how the city can create an equitable heat policy with long-term resilience for vulnerable communities.

It’s the hope of Callahan, Turner and many other UCLA scholars that their research will spur the city of Los Angeles and its Climate Emergency Mobilization Office to continue to implement equitable and forward-thinking responses to extreme heat.

Finding CEMO

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These and other UCLA contributions are informing the city’s equity-based approach to the threat posed by climate change and rising temperatures, said Marta Segura, Los Angeles’ first chief heat officer and director of the city’s Climate Emergency Mobilization Office. Launched in 2021, CEMO is responsible for coordinating across agencies to create a cohesive response to extreme heat.

“It’s my belief that in focusing on equitable climate solutions and investing first and foremost in the historically disinvested communities, we will accelerate climate solutions for everybody,” Segura, a UCLA Public Health alumna, said during a May panel discussion at UCLA organized by the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.

Using data gathered in partnership with UCLA scholars, CEMO was able to identify which cooling centers received a lot of use in previous years, which didn’t and where the need was greatest. This summer, the number of city-coordinated facilities offering heat relief — including air-conditioned recreation centers and public libraries that stay open beyond regular hours — has expanded significantly.

Among those helping the city evolve its hot weather response were 13 students who earned their master’s degrees in urban and regional planning this past June. As participants in the UCLA Luskin Urban Planning 2022-23 Comprehensive Project class, they prepared a report on heat equity for CEMO under the direction of Gregory Pierce, adjunct associate professor of urban planning and co-executive director of the Luskin Center for Innovation.
woman in striped top speaks at podium while map is projected on a screen behind her

Corinne Odom discusses the importance of cooling centers at the Comprehensive Project’s June 2023 presentation. Photo by Les Dunseith

The students focused on three areas — cooling centers, emergency response and bus shelters. Their final report (PDF), released in June, commended Los Angeles for being at the forefront of government efforts on extreme heat but noted room for improvement to ensure public safety and equitable distribution of resources.

Corinne Odom was among the students who looked at cooling centers. She and her classmates spoke with staff members at libraries who were eager to help but frustrated that people in danger didn’t seem to know these facilities were available.

“Visitor counts at cooling center locations last summer were low,” Odom said. “So, really informing people that they’re available is important, and that’s something that CEMO is prioritizing.”

Odom and her classmates were supportive of the city’s efforts to create “resiliency centers” by offering a broader range of social services programs and heat-related amenities at locations like recreation centers and public libraries that traditionally serve as cooling centers. They also noted that CEMO’s communication efforts also recommend informal locations where residents can duck in quickly to escape extreme heat.

“A mall could be a cooling center,” Odom said, “or a movie theater.”

A particularly difficult challenge for city officials is reaching the people in the most danger — the unhoused population.

Michelle Gallarza, a Comprehensive Project participant who contributed to Luskin Center for Innovation research on heat and housing insecurity, noted that the unhoused population’s lack of shelter makes them particularly vulnerable during heat waves.

woman in dark shirt without sleeves speaks at a podium

Michelle Gallarza, shown here talking about the Comprehensive Project’s findings, remembers the lights being left off during heat waves in her Los Angeles grade school that lacked air conditioning. “The same thing would happen when I would go home,” she said. “We’d just have fans blowing and no lights on.” Photo by Les Dunseith

“These people are more likely to suffer from the extreme aspects of heat and a really increased likelihood for illness and, unfortunately, death,” she said.

In Los Angeles County, unhoused people accounted for 42% of heat-related deaths in 2022, even though they make up less than 1% of the population. Beyond having less access to indoor cooling than the general population and facing challenges getting information about emergency resources, they may not always feel comfortable in city-provided facilities, said Gallarza, who spoke with an unhoused person who said cooling centers have not felt very welcoming.

“In our sensitivity and vulnerability analysis,” Odom said, “we thought that there should be more specific solutions catered to that community, especially in collaboration with organizations that are trusted and knowingly support unhoused communities.”

Generally speaking, Segura said, a person in danger doesn’t need to be out of the heat for long to benefit, and this is where resilience centers, particularly smaller ones, can help. She and other city officials hope to persuade, for example, local fast-food restaurants to serve as centers for unhoused people and others on hot days.

“With just three or four hours of refuge and recovery, you can make it to the next day,” she said. “People don’t need to stay there 24 hours.”

Waiting for the bus: The need for transit shelters

Other Comprehensive Project students focused on Los Angeles’ Sidewalk and Transit Amenities Program, recently established to support the expansion of transit shelters in a city where only 26% of Metro bus stops currently offer shade.

Project participant Miguel Miguel said he was surprised to discover that the city’s shelter placement decisions were often related more to political and commercial considerations, like advertising potential, than protecting people from heat. “We never suspected that would be such a driving factor,” he said. “We finally realized that the contract explicitly said that [shelter providers] needed to maintain advertising revenue to support the operations of the program.”

man in blue shirt and glasses gestures at a podium while a woman listens int he background

Miguel Miguel delivers findings from the Comprehensive Project’s final report. Miguel, a San Fernando Valley resident who has seen the impact of dangerously high temperatures on communities without adequate heat protection, said, “It was really important for me to be involved and to bring lived experience and emotional compassion into this [research].”  Photo by Les Dunseith

In the end, the students recommended prioritizing bus shelter development on geographic equity, with a focus on the Harbor Gateway area near San Pedro and parts of the San Fernando Valley area that have high ridership and where historically underserved populations frequently experience extreme temperatures. The final report of the Comprehensive Project class recommended revising criteria for heat emergencies and heat warnings, setting lower thresholds than previous city policy. And their emergency response analysis found a statistically significant correlation between 911 call volumes and heat across the city but no similar spike in calls to the 311 system, which connects residents to city services, including heat mitigation. More outreach is thus needed to ensure that people seek help before it’s too late.

Segura said in May at UCLA that the city had developed an equity index to guide policy decisions, but it didn’t yet have a strong climate equity focus. Now, Los Angeles has begun ts climate vulnerability assessment and fully developing its heat action plan.

“This information that the UCLA researchers are bringing to us is going to be part of the consideration and the development of those plans,” she said. “So, the timing couldn’t have been more perfect.”

Read more about UCLA’s efforts to combat the effects of extreme heat

Weekend Event Harnesses the Power of Service Public Policy hosts aspiring public servants from across America for workshops focusing on policy issues and solutions

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Twenty-nine undergraduates from across the nation came to UCLA in mid-August for three days of study and discussion as UCLA Luskin Public Policy returned to in-person programming for its third Public Service Weekend.

“Harness the Power of Action-Oriented Public Service” provided aspiring public servants an in-depth look at a diverse array of career opportunities, policy developments, and social issues such as environmental justice, inequality, homelessness and immigration reform.

The program, which was produced in cooperation with the not-for-profit Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) organization, included a tour of a Los Angeles clean technology site and workshops conducted by UCLA faculty, alumni and staff.

“Additionally, we aimed to inspire students by sharing the life stories and successes of UCLA graduate students, alumni, policymakers and faculty doing the work on the front lines of advocating for policy reform and social change,” said Kenya Covington, a senior lecturer at UCLA Luskin who coordinated the program.

Speakers included Dean Gary Segura, as well as alumni William “Rusty” Bailey, the former mayor of Riverside, and Dan Coffee, a project manager for the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. Second-year MPP student Elliot Woods, chair of the School’s Black Student Caucus, shared educational and personal insights. He said experiences with the foster care system early in life have sharpened his determination to improve society through a career in public service.

man in industrial workplacePilot projects at the La Kretz Innovation Campus focus on green tech efforts to mitigate climate change.
man in industrial workplace man gestures in front of screen showing photos man speaks at front of classroom with presentation slide behind him man at podium speaks to group four people sit at a table in the front of a classroom at UCLA

A site tour of the La Kretz Innovation Campus exposed participants to creative clean technology ideas seeking to decrease the emissions that cause climate change. Participants learned about pilot projects involving lithium battery recycling, for example, and they witnessed how welding workspaces, 3D printing technology and chemistry labs can all play a role in developing green technology solutions.

The student participants were challenged by Covington to identify pressing societal problems, and faculty and staff facilitated learning exercises that helped them to define values that have been violated and the scale of problems to be addressed. The students wrapped up the Public Service Weekend with mock professional presentations that focused on potential solutions.

“The presentations were impressive,” Covington said. “Future social change depends largely on the development of leaders capable of taking on the most pressing social problems that we face in the world. With partners like PPIA, the Luskin School is doing just that.”

View photos on Flickr:

Public Service Weekend 2022

Most Major U.S. Cities Are Underprepared for Rising Temperatures Study led by Luskin Center for Innovation highlights gaps in municipal planning for often dangerous heat

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By Michelle Einstein

This month, Denver, Las Vegas and Phoenix all posted record high temperatures. And across the nation, Americans are ramping up for a scorching summer. Yet despite more frequent and intense heat waves on the horizon, cities are underprepared to deal with the challenge, according to a UCLA-led research team.

Their new study, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, analyzed municipal planning documents from 50 large cities across the country. The researchers found that 78% of these cities’ climate plans mentioned heat as a problem, but few offered a comprehensive strategy to address it. Even fewer addressed the disproportionate impact heat has on low-income residents and communities of color.

“Just a couple of years ago, very few cities were talking about preparing for rising temperatures, so it’s an important step that heat is becoming a larger part of the conversation,” said V. Kelly Turner, lead author of the study and co-director of the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation. “But without concrete steps to protect residents, cities are lagging behind the problem.”

Heat, exacerbated by climate change, has become one of the deadliest weather hazards in the nation, the researchers said, accounting for more deaths in a typical year than hurricanes, floods or tornadoes. In California, according to a recent Los Angeles Times  investigation, heat killed some 3,900 people between 2010 and 2019. And UCLA research has shown that heat leads to more preterm births, makes it more difficult for students to learn and increases the risk of injuries to workers on the job (PDF).

Despite these damaging and wide-ranging effects, governance for heat has historically fallen behind other climate change-related hazards.

To assess heat planning, the researchers — from UCLA, Arizona State University and the University of Southern California — examined 175 municipal plans from the 50 most populous cities in the United States, drawing from an open-source database they created. They conducted a content analysis to understand the types of solutions and interventions cities proposed in response to heat and why.

The team found that, overall, solutions to rising temperatures didn’t match the severity or complexity of the problem. How municipal plans framed the issue of urban heat, they said, strongly influenced how cities addressed it, and in most cases limited the scope of their approach.

For instance, many plans looked at heat through a “hazard” lens, focusing on extreme events like triple-digit heat waves. When identifying the issue as a crisis akin to a hurricane or flood, the solutions often fit into a disaster response-style approach — like text alert systems and air-conditioned public cooling centers.

Other plans defined the issue in terms of the “urban heat island effect,” a phenomenon whereby cities — because of their heat-absorbing infrastructure, like asphalt — become and remain hotter than surrounding rural areas. In framing the issue as a land-use problem, these plans often focused on physical ways to cool cities. Adding more trees was the most common intervention, while sun-reflecting cool roofs and vegetation were also mentioned.

However, the study found that these two approaches to heat governance rarely overlapped. And while each approach has its benefits, such narrow framings don’t get at the full issue, the researchers emphasized.

“If cities are not painting a complete picture of heat — how chronic it is, and its disparate impacts on the ground — we’re not going to be able to fully protect residents, and we could end up exacerbating existing social and environmental injustices,” said co-author Emma French, a doctoral student in urban planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs.

Even some seemingly obvious solutions, such as providing outdoor shade for residents, received short shrift in planning documents, noted co-author Ariane Middel, an assistant professor at Arizona State University. “Shade is the most effective way to protect pedestrians from exposure to sunlight, but few cities mentioned shade in their plans.”

Further, heat was only identified as an equity issue one-third of the time, despite a growing body of evidence that urban communities of color are disproportionately affected by rising temperatures as a result of longstanding social, structural and health-related inequities. Cities that don’t address this disparity can expect to see increasingly adverse implications down the road, the researchers stressed.

Among cities with more robust preparations for heat, membership in environmental networks like the National League of Cities and the Urban Sustainability Directors Network was more common. These groups bring together sustainability practitioners from across the country, and their broader governance structures can offer opportunities to share best practices.

“Peer-to-peer knowledge exchange through networks that connect large and small communities is going to be essential to implementing the most effective solutions as quickly as possible,” said co-author David Hondula, an associate professor at Arizona State University and director of the Office of Heat Response and Mitigation for Phoenix.

Read more about the Luskin Center for Innovation’s heat-related research and policy recommendations in their Adapting to Heat in California (PDF) report and Protecting Californians From Deadly Heat (PDF) policy brief.

Message From the Dean: Grappling With the Tragedy in Buffalo Some thoughts in the aftermath of a mass shooting in which Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, were targeted

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To the Luskin Community:

Let me echo the Chancellor’s comments in this BruinPost regarding the events in Buffalo. More than a dozen people shot, 10 killed, in another explicitly racist attack by a gunman intent on killing African Americans. And let me augment the chancellor’s remarks by reminding us all that just three days earlier, in Dallas’ Koreatown, three Asian women were injured in a mass shooting that is now ruled part of a string of anti-Asian hate attacks on Asian-run businesses across Dallas, and a growing record of anti-Asian hate up more than 300% in the last year.

These attacks occur at the intersection of two of America’s most grievous plagues — the ongoing scar of racism in too many forms to count, and the seemingly endless capacity for gun violence. I am angry. Perhaps you are too. I am angry because neither of these struggles is occurring by chance, in a social vacuum, emerging un-prompted from other social phenomena. Rather, these emerge from explicit ideologies of white supremacy and entitlement to the means of deadly force which are promoted — previously with a wink and a nod and increasingly with shameless embrace — by political forces who think they can manipulate these evils to their own political gain.

I will not stay silent in these moments. The parroting of racist conspiracy theories by elected officials inspire, encourage, and provide emotional justification for the evil and the disturbed in our society to carry out these attacks. They are not isolated social phenomena and we should never treat them as such.

I do not have the right words of comfort here, other than to remind you that there are services available on campus (see links in the Chancellor’s message) for those of you grappling with these events. And I want you to take comfort in each other in knowing that the forces of light — those of us who would resist, battle, engage the forces of divisiveness and hate — are stronger. The good outweighs the bad, those motivated to peace and coexistence have right on our side. Our work at Luskin is explicitly dedicated to empowering those with solutions and stopping those interested only in destruction and nursing their resentments. Meet violence with determination for change. Speak out. Shout out. Work harder to create justice.

In solidarity and sadness,

— Gary

Gary M. Segura
Professor and Dean

 

Gas Bill Debt Disproportionately Burdens Low-Income Neighborhoods As California’s utility shutoff ban ends, UCLA research shows where unpaid gas utility bills proliferated amid the pandemic

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By Lauren Dunlap

Unpaid bills for heating and cooking gas are unevenly distributed among Californians, according to a new report from the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin in partnership with the Latino Policy and Politics Initiative (LPPI) and the Luskin Center for Innovation.

Since Oct. 1, customers who are behind on utility bills are no longer protected from shutoffs by a statewide order enacted in April 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study reveals clear patterns of inequity: Neighborhoods with high gas bill debt rates also have higher poverty rates, lower incomes, more renters than homeowners and higher proportions of Black and Latinx residents than the average neighborhood served by Southern California Gas.

The research team analyzed data from the utility, which provides gas service to about 50% of California residents. The team found that, as of February 28, 2021, 1 in 5 customers were at least 30 days behind on their gas bill payments, and almost 1 in 10 were at least 90 days behind. 

The report provides several lessons for policymakers to equitably relieve the burden of utility debt on customers. The authors recommend improving the data available on utility debt and shutoffs to lead to better-informed decisions. They also note the importance of targeting relief aid at the most affected, lowest-income households. 

The co-authors also emphasize a connection between their findings and the growing movement toward building electrification. Transitioning residential buildings to run on electricity alone is significant to avoid greenhouse gas emissions — especially since natural gas is composed primarily of methane, a major contributor to climate change. But this transition may impose high costs on people who already face utility debt. 

“When higher-income households stop using gas, lower-income households may be saddled with higher and higher gas costs,” said Silvia González ’09, MURP ’13, UP PhD ’20, director of research at LPPI. “It is essential to make electrification equitable, which means households don’t get left behind or stuck with increasingly unmanageable energy costs.” 

Because lower-income households could be negatively impacted by the fixed costs of gas service — the costs that don’t go down when there are fewer customers — the researchers advise that more research is needed to understand and mitigate this impact. 

This study is the third and final in a series examining utility debt inequity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previous policy briefs focused on unpaid utility bills among Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Pacific Gas and Electric Company customers. 

 

UCLA Scholars Aim to Help Shape President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative Report by Luskin Center for Innovation provides framework for environmental justice in disadvantaged communities

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One week after his inauguration, President Joe Biden ordered federal agencies to direct 40% of the government’s investments in climate and clean infrastructure to benefit people in disadvantaged communities. According to his executive order, the Justice40 Initiative is intended to “address the disproportionate health, environmental, economic and climate impacts on disadvantaged communities.”

Implementing the directive will not be simple, but a new report by scholars from the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, advised by environmental justice leaders, provides a framework that federal officials could use to maximize Justice40’s impact.

“One initiative alone can’t erase systemic racial and environmental injustices, but setting a strong, equity-centered framework for Justice40 is a first step in the right direction,” said Colleen Callahan, deputy director of the Luskin Center and a co-author of the report.

The report analyzes state-level programs seeking to address environmental justice through investments in clean energy and climate change action — already underway in some cases, and in planning stages in others — and identifies shortcomings, ongoing challenges and successes that could help inform the implementation of Biden’s plan.

The authors set forth three primary areas of emphasis for the initiative:

  • Resources. Focus investments on the people who need it most. Provide funding to under-resourced communities for physical infrastructure projects, like clean water systems, as well as technical support to help local officials and community organizations apply for and manage funds they might receive through Justice40. The authors also recommend that the initiative’s 40% funding goal should be considered the minimum percentage of investments in disadvantaged communities, and that the figure should represent direct investments — rather than counting trickle-down benefits — for those communities.
  • Empowerment. The initiative should pursue a ground-up approach by enabling those who live in under-resourced communities to help set policy and determine what local investments are made.
  • Accountability. The initiative must include guardrails to ensure that all government agencies and contractors involved further the goals of environmental, racial, economic and health justice. The scholars write that Justice40 could be a catalyst for the federal government to help institutionalize equity including by pushing back on entrenched practices and rules that uphold inequities in government.

The authors list five types of disparities that Justice40 should seek to address: pollution burdens, climate risk, communities’ limited ability to apply for and manage federal funding, effects on labor and jobs, and environmental policy costs. They also identify numerous states that have plans or have already begun taking action to address those concerns, which disproportionately affect communities of color and low-income households:

  • New York is planning to address those communities’ elevated exposure to pollution and its related effects on their health.
  • Virginia is planning to address the uneven effects of storms, rising sea levels and other effects of climate change.
  • California is investing in helping local officials and community groups apply for funding for under-resourced communities.
  • Illinois and Maryland are planning to help provide job training for workers transitioning into clean energy jobs and financial support for those whose careers are being affected by the loss of jobs in the fossil fuel industry.
  • The state of Washington is allocating funds to increase access to clean technology and lowering utility costs for low-income households.

The report explains that initiatives like those demonstrate that residents, workers and businesses can benefit from clean energy and climate investments across a range of sectors —  including agriculture, health, housing, energy, transportation and water infrastructure.

“A theme across the states we studied is a history of grassroots strategy and organizing by communities of color,” said Silvia González, a co-author of the report and the director of research at the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Initiative. “In states such as California, New York and Illinois, those communities have helped shape investment plans and programs to be more equitable.”

The researchers specifically examine California Climate Investments, a statewide initiative that has directed billions of dollars to disadvantaged communities.

The research was funded in part by the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Climate and Clean Energy Equity Fund and the Hewlett Foundation. The report’s other authors are Daniel Coffee, a UCLA associate project manager, and J.R. DeShazo, the former director of the Luskin Center for Innovation and current dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. The study’s advisers included leaders of GreenLatinos, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth and other nonprofits.

High Temperatures Increase Workers’ Injury Risk, Whether They’re Outdoors or Inside The finding reflects another consequence of climate change, according to new study led by R. Jisung Park of UCLA Luskin Public Policy

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A UCLA study published today shows that hot weather significantly increases the risk of accidents and injuries on the job, regardless of whether the work takes place in an indoor or outdoor setting.

The report is based on data from California’s workers’ compensation system, the nation’s largest.

“The incidence of heat illnesses like heat exhaustion and heat stroke definitely go up on hotter days,” said the study’s lead researcher R. Jisung Park, an assistant professor of public policy at UCLA Luskin. “But what we found is that ostensibly unrelated incidents — like falling off a ladder or being hit by a moving truck or getting your hand caught in a machine — tend to occur more frequently on hotter days, too.”

By comparing records from more than 11 million California workers’ compensation claims from 2001 to 2018 to high-frequency local weather data, Park and his co-authors isolated the impact of hotter days on the number of injury claims.

The study shows that on days with high temperature above 90 degrees Fahrenheit, workers have a 6% to 9% higher risk of injuries than they do on days with high temperatures in the 50s or 60s. When the thermometer tops 100, the risk of injuries increases by 10% to 15%.

Those findings are particularly alarming in the context of climate change, which is expected to produce more high-temperature days each year. The researchers estimate that high temperatures already cause about 15,000 injuries per year in California.

“Heat is sometimes described as a silent killer,” said Nora Pankratz, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar. “But if you look into the data and do the statistical analysis, you find that heat has a significant impact on mortality and health outcomes.”

 

It’s not surprising that hot weather would lead to injuries and illness among workers in predominantly outdoor industries such as agriculture, utilities and construction. But the data consistently show that industries in which most people work indoors are affected as well. In manufacturing, for example, days with high temperatures above 95 degrees have an injury risk that is approximately 7% higher than days with high temperatures in the low 60s.

“A lot of manufacturing facilities are not air conditioned,” said Stanford University postdoctoral scholar A. Patrick Behrer, the study’s other co-author. “Because you’re inside, you don’t necessarily think about the temperature as being a major threat.”

The reality is that overheated workers face numerous risks, regardless of where the work occurs.

“Heat affects your physiology,” Park said. “It affects your cognition. It affects your body’s ability to cope. It seems possible that what we’re observing in the data for these workers is that they’re more likely to make mistakes or errors in judgment.”

The researchers found that heat-related workplace injuries are more likely to be suffered by men and lower-income workers. In addition, younger people suffer more heat-related injuries, possibly in part because they’re more likely to hold jobs with greater physical risks on construction sites, in manufacturing plants or at warehouses.

For an office worker at a computer desk, nodding off on a hot summer afternoon is unlikely to cause an injury. “But if you have a huge chainsaw in your hand, you’re not in a great situation,” Park said.

Among the paper’s other conclusions:

  • The number of heat-related injuries actually declined after 2005, when California became the first state to implement mandatory heat illness prevention measures for outdoor workplaces on days when temperatures exceed 95 degrees.
  • The financial costs of heat-related injuries may be between $750 million and $1.25 billion per year in California alone, considering health care expenditures, lost wages and productivity, and disability claims.
  • Inequalities in the labor market are exacerbated in part by the fact that low-income communities tend to be situated in hotter parts of the state. People in the state’s lowest household income tier are approximately five times more likely to be affected by heat-related illness or injury on the job than those in the top income tier, the study found.

The UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, where Park is associate director of economic research, provided funding for the study. It is available now through the Institute of Labor Economics, which disseminates working versions of potentially influential research prior to publication in academic journals. Park previewed the findings  July 15 during testimony at a Congressional hearing organized by the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

The new study echoes the results of a 2019 study that focused on how extreme temperatures raise injury risk in Texas and in the U.S. mining industry. Park, whose prior research includes a finding that student learning is negatively impacted by warm temperatures, said there has been “an explosion of research just in the last five to 10 years that illustrates, using data, the serious consequences of climate change for health, productivity and economic growth. This likely adds to that urgency of reducing greenhouse gas emissions now.”

Pankratz got involved in the study while working at UCLA Luskin as a postdoctoral scholar, having previously researched the impact of heat on businesses while working toward her Ph.D. in the Netherlands. 

Worldwide, she said, there is growing interest in the concept of adaptation — the pragmatic changes that can be made by governments and businesses to cope with the reality of climate change.

“For a long time, the focus has been on mitigation — what can we do to prevent climate change,” she said. “But as it becomes more and more obvious that there is policy inertia on mitigation, it’s important to think about what we can do to adapt and to work as well as possible in a warmer world.”

The study authors, all of whom have backgrounds in economics, realize that the desire to protect workers from heat may be complicated by economic reality. 

Behrer said policymakers could stipulate that workers not be exposed to the heat on days above 100 degrees, for example, without proscribing a specific strategy to be used by individual business owners.

“Then firms have the option either to use air conditioning or come up with some other method of climate control for their facilities,” he said, noting that some might change work hours or shorten the work day during heat waves. “It allows them to decide the most cost-effective way for them to meet the objective of reducing workplace injuries.”

 

Message From the Dean: JR DeShazo to Become Dean at University of Texas The UCLA Luskin professor, Center for Innovation director and former department chair has been selected to lead the LBJ School of Public Affairs

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My Friends:

It is with a mixture of incredible sadness and immense pride that I share the news that JR DeShazo will be leaving UCLA Luskin in the coming weeks.  JR has just been announced as the new dean at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. He assumes his new role on Sept. 10.

As all of you know, JR has been a central and transformative figure in the life of the Luskin School. He has served many roles —most recently as chair of UCLA Luskin Public Policy — but made his greatest impact in the further development, expansion and institutionalization of the Luskin Center for Innovation, which today is a premier think tank and research operation focusing on the environmental and technological challenges facing California and beyond. Much of UCLA Luskin’s environmental research effort on Californians and their environment is owed to JR’s effective and important leadership and creativity.

I want personally to extend to JR and his family my best wishes and those of the School as he embarks on his new challenge and the leadership of one of the nation’s leading public affairs schools. And I want to thank JR for his incredible work. JR—YOU WILL BE SORELY MISSED!

All the best,

Gary

Gary M. Segura
Professor and Dean

—

Read more about DeShazo and his new role at the University of Texas:

THE UT ANNOUNCEMENT

 

Decarbonizing California Transportation by 2045 Report to state outlines policy pathways to meet the zero-carbon time crunch

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Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California. In order to achieve the state’s goals of carbon neutrality by 2045 and avoid the worst impacts of climate change, decarbonizing this sector is essential. But such a transition is unlikely to occur rapidly without key policy intervention, according to a new study that included research from the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation.

A team of transportation and policy experts from the University of California released a report April 21 to the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) outlining policy options to significantly reduce transportation-related fossil fuel demand and emissions. Those policy options, when combined, could lead to a zero-carbon transportation system by 2045, while also improving equity, health and the economy. A second study, led by UC Santa Barbara, identifying strategies to reduce in-state petroleum production in parallel with reductions in demand, was released simultaneously.

The state funded the two studies through the 2019 Budget Act. The studies are designed to identify paths to slash transportation-related fossil fuel demand and emissions while also managing a strategic, responsible decline in transportation-related fossil fuel supply.

The University of California demand study was conducted by researchers from the UC Institute of Transportation Studies, a network with branches at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC Irvine, and UCLA. The UC Davis Policy Institute for Energy, Environment, and the Economy coordinated the report’s policy management, and the UC Davis Center for Regional Change led the study’s equity and environmental justice research.

Bringing about a zero-carbon transportation future will be challenging but not impossible, the report states. Doing so requires urgent actions and a long-term perspective. Importantly, a major upfront investment in clean transportation through incentives and new charging and hydrogen infrastructure will soon pay off in net economic savings to the California economy, with net savings in the next decade growing to tens of billions of dollars per year by 2045.

The report recommends flexible policy approaches that can be adjusted over time as technologies evolve and more knowledge is gained.

“This report is the first to comprehensively evaluate a path to a carbon neutral transportation system for California by 2045,” said Dan Sperling, director of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. “We find that such pathways are possible but will rely on extensive changes to existing policies as well as introduction of some new policies. The study also prioritizes equity, health and workforce impacts of the transition to zero-carbon transportation.”

Researchers from the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation led the study’s workforce analysis. Achieving carbon neutrality in California’s transportation sector could create over 7.3 million job-years of employment over the next 25 years, according to the researchers. These jobs would result from “greening” many existing occupations and creating new occupations.

“This presents the state with a golden opportunity to create not only new, high-quality jobs, but also ensure that many existing industries and occupations transition to better practices,” said J.R. DeShazo, director of the Luskin Center for Innovation and professor of public policy.

KEY POLICY STRATEGIES

 Zero emission vehicles: Many of the report’s policy options are centered on a rapid transition to zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), which is expected to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve local air pollution as the state’s electric grid is also decarbonized.

Light-duty and heavy-duty vehicles are responsible for 70% and 20% of the state’s transportation emissions, respectively. The report suggests a combination of enhanced mandates, incentives, and public charging and hydrogen infrastructure investments to speed the adoption of ZEVs. For medium and heavy-duty vehicles, key policy priorities include increasing the availability of charging stations for long-haul freights, electricity pricing reform to make depot charging more affordable, and priority lanes and curb access for zero-emission trucks, among other possibilities.

Vehicle miles traveled: Even with widespread ZEV use, reducing overall vehicle miles traveled is necessary to reduce traffic congestion and emissions from vehicle manufacturing, and to enhance quality-of-life and land-use benefits related to traffic. The report suggests policies that encourage active, shared and micromobility transportation, telecommuting, and land-use changes that reduce people’s reliance on automobiles and enhance community connectivity.

Fuels: About 86% of transportation fuel is petroleum. Shifting toward low-carbon clean energy requires major investments in electricity and hydrogen. Low-carbon liquid fuels compatible with internal combustion engines will be needed to reduce emissions while the transition to ZEVs progresses, as well as in some specialized applications, like aviation. California can support the needed investments in clean fuels with mandated blending levels, new incentives and credits to stimulate investment in very low-carbon liquid fuels for aviation, shipping and legacy combustion engine vehicles.

Getting to zero: Some residual emissions remain in every scenario examined. The report states that at least 4 million to 5 million metric tons per year of negative emissions capacity (equal to 2.5% of current transportation emissions) is needed by 2045 to counteract those residual emissions. These could come from carbon capture and sequestration projects that pull carbon from the air to store it underground, as well as so-called sequestration by natural or working lands.

BENEFITS

In addition to direct economic benefits beginning around 2030, the transportation decarbonization policies could also lead to health, equity and environmental justice, and workforce and labor benefits.

Health: Transportation is a major cause of local air pollution and contributes to climate change. Particulate matter harms lungs and hearts, while nitrogen oxide compounds contribute to ozone pollution and other health impacts. The report found that cleaner heavy-duty vehicles would significantly reduce pollution in many of the state’s most vulnerable communities. The health benefits of reducing local pollution will grow with the deployment of clean transportation technologies and could translate to more than $25 billion in savings in 2045.

Equity and environmental justice: Transportation in California carries a legacy of inequity and damage to disadvantaged communities. These communities often lack quality public transportation or viable transportation choices. Highways have been built with little consideration for displacement, and many communities of color have been divided by freeways, perpetuating historic segregation policies like redlining. The report identifies options that prioritize equity in transportation investments and policies.

For example:

  • Continue to support electric vehicle incentives targeted to lower-income buyers and underserved communities, including used vehicles.
  • Prioritize deploying electric heavy-duty vehicles in disadvantaged communities and magnet facilities such as commercial warehouses in those communities.
  • Support transit and zero-emission services and charging stations in disadvantaged communities. This can help reduce vehicle miles traveled and increase accessibility while avoiding displacement.
  • Avoid siting non-renewable fuel production facilities in disadvantaged communities, engage communities disproportionately affected by transportation sector emissions in decision-making concerning the siting of new infrastructure and investments associated with achieving carbon neutrality, and continue to carefully monitor and control local pollutants.

“We must confront the legacy of the lack of public and private investment where Black, indigenous and people of color live and work,” said Bernadette Austin, acting director of the UC Davis Center for Regional Change. “This report identifies ways to strategically invest in sustainable infrastructure while intentionally avoiding disruptive and damaging infrastructure in our most vulnerable and disadvantaged communities.”

Workforce: The transition to a carbon-neutral transportation system will disrupt jobs in some sectors while creating new jobs in others, like clean vehicle manufacturing and electric and hydrogen fueling infrastructure. The report suggests that California prioritize the needs of impacted workers. In addition, wherever ZEV-related industry expansion creates quality jobs, state policy should focus on creating broadly accessible career pathways.

Economy: The transition to ZEVs is expected to generate savings for consumers and the economy well before 2045. Within the next decade, the cost of owning and operating ZEVs is projected to drop below that of a conventional gasoline or diesel vehicle. That is because battery, fuel cell and hydrogen costs will continue to decline; electricity costs will be much less than petroleum fuel costs; and maintenance costs of ZEVs will be less. These savings can be invested elsewhere by households and businesses.

For further information about this report, contact Samuel Chiu or Kat Kerlin at UC Davis.