New Report on Equity Dimensions of Cap-and-Trade Investment in Orange County

UCI Community Resilience Projects recently published a new report, Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund Investments in and around Orange County: Observations on Place, Purse, and Politics. The purpose of this report is to increase understanding of current Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF) investment trends in Orange County, California, and its borderlands with a lens toward assessing whether, and to what extent, inequities may exist in how funds are disbursed. Program Coordinator Kim Serrano, the lead author of the report, observes that “treating dollars for regional (multi-county) and place-based projects in disadvantaged communities the same overstates the degree of investment in these places.” She notes that next steps for research should prioritize “assessing the role that democratic community engagement has played (to date) in the distribution of GGRF projects and dollars in Orange County,” and that “civic leaders who seek to maximize single and multi-county GGRF investments in disadvantaged communities should look to the examples of San Diego and Riverside to better understand how those neighboring counties have achieved high rates of GGRF spending within disadvantaged communities.” UCI Community Resilience Projects brought the report together through the Regional Resilience Project in collaboration with regional non-governmental and philanthropic leadership.