Cooling Infrastructure, Cooling Security, and a Warming World
In this Article, I focus on what I term “cooling infrastructure,” by which I mean the infrastructure used to (either directly or indirectly) cool indoor environments so that they are safe and comfortable even in heat wave conditions. The cooling infrastructure currently in place in the United States (and elsewhere) was developed for a world before climate change and the increase in intensity and geographic scope of heat waves. That infrastructure must be adapted to a world where extremely hot days, or even strings of extremely hot days, become the norm rather than exceptional events. Meeting the challenges of adapting cooling infrastructure to a warming world is important for U.S. national security, among other goals. “Cooling security”—a term that is not in the legal or policy lexicon, but I am positing here should be— also matters; if people cannot access cooling in an affordable way, they will be forced to fight over resources (like electricity) or even flee their current homes. Like lack of food and water security, lack of cooling security can lead to political and social instability in regions of the world important for U.S. national security.Parts II and III of this article show that the adaptation challenge for cooling infrastructure—and especially air conditioning—can be thought of as entailing a long (or longer)-term challenge and an immediate-term challenge. The longer-term challenge is to spur innovation in air conditioning technology such that new, more environmentally friendly, yet also affordable options become available and adopted over the next decade or two throughout the world. The immediate challenge for cooling infrastructure is to ensure that people right now do not lose their lives and well-being because they lack any air conditioning or only have grossly inadequate air conditioning. In the United States, the most vulnerable populations—low-income tenants, disabled people, and elderly people— face the greatest risk of death or illness from lack of air conditioning. The challenge is essentially one of law and governance: how can law and policy ensure vulnerable populations be afforded adequate, reasonably efficient air conditioning that they will have the resources to operate when weather conditions require? This may require an adjustment in the federal government’s posture toward States with regard to subsidies programs. Rather than giving States wide leeway to determine if cooling (and, more than that, efficient cooling) is included and prioritized in State implementation of federally funded subsidy programs, the federal government will need to require that States do so as a condition of funding
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments March 29, 2023 erstellt
Other identifiers:
10.2139/ssrn.4404437 [DOI]
Classification:
K10 - Basic Areas of Law. General ; K30 - Other Substantive Areas of Law. General ; K32 - Environmental, Health, and Safety Law ; K40 - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior. General