{"id":777387,"date":"2026-02-20T15:34:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T15:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/777387\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T15:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T15:34:17","slug":"trumps-climate-health-rollback-likely-will-hit-vulnerable-communities-the-most-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/777387\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s climate health rollback likely will hit vulnerable communities the most, experts say"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a stretch of Louisiana with about 170 fossil fuel and petrochemical plants, premature death is a fact of life for people living nearby. The air is so polluted and the cancer rates so high it is known as Cancer Alley<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cMost adults in the area are attending two to three funerals per month,\u201d said Gary C. Watson Jr., who was born and raised in St. John the Baptist Parish, a majority Black community in Cancer Alley about 30 miles outside of New Orleans. His father survived cancer, but in recent years, at least five relatives have died from it. <\/p>\n

Cancer Alley is one of many patches of America \u2014 mostly minority and poor \u2014 that suffer higher levels of air pollution<\/a> from fossil fuel facilities that emit tiny particles connected to higher death rates. When the federal government in 2009 targeted carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as a public health danger because of climate change, it led to tighter regulation of pollution and cleaner air in some communities. But this month, the Trump administration\u2019s Environmental Protection Agency overturned that \u201cendangerment finding.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Public health experts say the change will likely mean more illness and death for Americans<\/a>, with communities like Watson\u2019s hit hardest. On Wednesday, a coalition of health and environmental groups sued the EPA<\/a> over the revocation, calling it unlawful and harmful. <\/p>\n

\u201cNot having these protections, it\u2019s only going to make things worse,\u201d said Watson, with the environmental justice group Rise St. James Louisiana. He also worries that revoking the endangerment finding will increase emissions that will worsen the state\u2019s hurricanes. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Gary<\/p>\n

Gary C. Watson, Jr., who was born and raised in St. John the Baptist Parish, poses for a photo in Edgard, La., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026, across the river from a Marathon Petroleum Refinery. (AP Photo\/Matthew Hinton)<\/p>\n

Gary C. Watson, Jr., who was born and raised in St. John the Baptist Parish, poses for a photo in Edgard, La., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026, across the river from a Marathon Petroleum Refinery. (AP Photo\/Matthew Hinton)<\/p>\n

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The Trump administration said the finding \u2014 a cornerstone for many regulations aimed at fighting climate change \u2014 hurts industry and the economy. President Donald Trump has called the idea \u201ca scam\u201d despite repeated studies<\/a> showing the opposite.<\/p>\n

Growing evidence<\/a> shows that poor and Black, Latino and other racial and ethnic groups are typically more vulnerable than white people to pollution and climate-driven floods, hurricanes, extreme heat and more because they tend to have less resources to protect against and recover from them. The EPA, in a 2021 report no longer on its website, concluded the same.<\/p>\n

The finding\u2019s reversal will affect everyone, but \u201coverburdened communities, which are typically communities of color, Indigenous communities and low-income communities, they will, again, suffer most from these actions,\u201d said Matthew Tejada, senior vice president for environmental health at the Natural Resources Defense Council and a former deputy with the EPA\u2019s office for environmental justice.<\/p>\n

Hilda Berganza, climate program manager with the Hispanic Access Foundation, said: \u201cCommunities that are the front lines are going to feel it the most. And we can see that the Latino population is one of those communities that is going feel it even more than others because of where we live, where we work.\u201d <\/p>\n

Research shows the unequal harms of pollution, climate change <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A Marathon Petroleum Refinery operates in Garyville, La., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Matthew Hinton)<\/p>\n

A Marathon Petroleum Refinery operates in Garyville, La., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. (AP Photo\/Matthew Hinton)<\/p>\n

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A study<\/a> published in November found more than 46 million people in the U.S. live within a mile of at least one type of energy supply infrastructure, such as an oil well, a power plant or an oil refinery. But the study found that \u201cpersistently marginalized\u201d racial and ethnic groups were more likely to live near multiple such sites. Latinos had the highest exposure.<\/p>\n

The EPA, in that 2021 report<\/a>, estimated that with a 2-degree Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) rise in global warming, Black people were 40% more likely to live in places with the highest projected rise in deaths because of extreme heat. Latinos, who are overrepresented in outdoor industries such as agriculture<\/a> and construction, were 43% more likely to live where labor hour losses were expected to be the highest because of heat. <\/p>\n

Julia Silver, a senior research analyst at the University of California, Los Angeles\u2019 Latino Policy and Politics Institute, found in her own research that California Latino communities had 23 more days of extreme heat annually than non-Latino white neighborhoods. Her team also found those areas have poor air quality at about double the rate, with twice as many asthma-related emergency room visits. Other research shows that Latino children are 40% more likely to die<\/a> from asthma than white children in part because many lack consistent health care access. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re risking with a rollback like this at the federal level is really human health and well-being in these marginalized groups,\u201d Silver said.<\/p>\n

Experts say the disparate impacts will be significant<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Gary<\/p>\n

Gary C. Watson, Jr., who was born and raised in St. John the Baptist Parish, walks on a path in Edgard, La., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026, across the river from a Marathon Petroleum Refinery. (AP Photo\/Matthew Hinton)<\/p>\n

Gary C. Watson, Jr., who was born and raised in St. John the Baptist Parish, walks on a path in Edgard, La., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026, across the river from a Marathon Petroleum Refinery. (AP Photo\/Matthew Hinton)<\/p>\n

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Armando Carpio, a longtime pastor in Los Angeles, has seen firsthand how vulnerable his mostly Latino parishioners are. Many are construction workers and gardeners who work outside, often in extreme heat. Others live and work near polluting freeways. He sees children with asthma and elders with dementia, both linked to exposure to air pollution. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re regressing,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know how many years back, but all of this really affects us.\u201d <\/p>\n

It is difficult to quantify how much more communities of color could be impacted by the finding\u2019s revocation, but experts who spoke with The Associated Press all said it would be significant. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou will see statistically significant increases in excess morbidity and mortality when it comes to climate impacts and health impacts associated with co-pollutants\u201d in communities of color, said Sacoby Wilson, a University of Maryland professor and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health INpowering Communities.<\/p>\n

Beverly Wright, founding director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice in New Orleans, said at least four Black communities in Cancer Alley no longer exist because of the expansion of industrial facilities. The repeal will bring more pollution, higher cancer rates, more extreme weather and the disappearance of more historic communities, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has us going in the wrong direction, and our communities are now at greater risk,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

______<\/p>\n

The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP\u2019s environmental coverage, visit https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/climate-and-environment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a stretch of Louisiana with about 170 fossil fuel and petrochemical plants, premature death is a fact…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":777388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3843],"tags":[37967,12019,226862,226858,7029,8616,2311,61849,226863,32,728,74589,4179,105,33150,226860,4474,195969,226861,20928,20300,226859,46168,856,1093,15895,70,12638,7143,16,15,5213],"class_list":["post-777387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-air-quality","tag-ap-top-news","tag-armando-carpio","tag-black-experience","tag-climate","tag-climate-and-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-science","tag-death-rates","tag-donald-trump","tag-environment","tag-environmental-science","tag-general-news","tag-health","tag-heat-waves","tag-hilda-berganza","tag-hispanics","tag-indigenous-people","tag-julia-silver","tag-la-state-wire","tag-louisiana","tag-matthew-tejada","tag-new-orleans","tag-pollution","tag-public-health","tag-race-and-ethnicity","tag-science","tag-u-s-environmental-protection-agency","tag-u-s-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-states-government"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=777387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/777388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}