President Obama at the 2015 GLACIER conference in Anchorage, Alaska (photo courtesy of Flickr)
At the first session of the 21st UN conference on climate (COP21) in Paris, U.S. President Barack Obama urged world leaders to deliver a meaningful agreement that would cap greenhouse gas emissions to limit the rise of global temperatures. Emphasizing the imperative for swift global action, the President spoke of his recent trip to Alaska, “where he saw the effects of climate change firsthand.” In that same speech, he also pledged $51.2 million to The Least Developed Countries Fund to assist communities in developing nations to prepare and adapt to climate change. The contribution indicated the U.S.’ strong commitment to the world’s most vulnerable countries. But it also revealed a disturbing paradox. Despite continued acknowledgment of Alaskan communities as being on the frontlines of climate change, the President has committed more to international communities than to domestic ones. As such, his pledge of support to Alaskan communities appears to be an empty promise.
While in Alaska last summer, the President announced a series of long-term initiatives to support the most imminently threatened villages, including a designation of $2 million to the Denali Commission to support voluntary relocation efforts and other resilience strategies. As an independent federal agency specifically designed to provide utility, infrastructure, and economic support throughout rural Alaska, the Denali Commission is certainly the right agency to spearhead this effort. This is an important first step. However, several villages such as Newtok, Kivalina, Shishmaref and Shaktoolik are eroding into the sea at dangerously high rates and are expected to completely disappear within a few years. The villagers have elected to relocate to safer ground, but they are unable to do so due to relocation costs, which lie anywhere between $95-$200 million per village. Thus, $2 million is just a drop in the bucket, considering the staggering costs of climate change in the region.
President Obama must direct more federal resources to these Alaskan communities and must do so soon. One way he can do this is by declaring these tribal villages as major disaster areas under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Act. The Stafford Act, which gives the President the authority to declare the existence of a major disaster or emergency, is often invoked after a natural disaster has “overwhelmed” the capabilities of local governments. Following a declaration, the federal government will provide a significant amount of money to the affected area-anywhere from a couple million to $120 billion (as it did following Hurricane Katrina). Although the exact amount varies, based on the magnitude of the event and the estimated needs of the affected area, disaster declarations can provide significant assistance for imperiled communities such as those in Alaska.
Through a number of executive actions, the Administration has repeatedly shown that it can navigate a tough political climate and be creative in addressing climate change. But besides just another political tool that the President has to bypass a gridlocked Congress, invoking the Stafford Act will symbolically show that climate change in Alaska is just as devastating as any other natural disaster. More importantly, such an action would convey the President leadership and willingness to do what it takes to protect his nation’s most vulnerable communities.
As the world’s largest economy and second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, the United States is morally and financially responsible for assisting poorer nations that are disproportionately facing the worst impacts of climate change. But the United States must not forget about its own people, particularly those living along the eroding and sinking coast of Alaska. The President’s creative and swift use of the Stafford Act would match his rhetoric in Paris, underscoring the imperative need for other nations to protect their most vulnerable from this dangerous and imminent catastrophe.