Assistant Professor Fayola Jacobs has been invited to be an author on the Human Social Systems chapter of the Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5). NCA5 is the fifth congressionally mandated report on climate change impacts, risks, and adaptation across the United States. It will be released in 2023. Previous reports were produced in 2000, 2009, 2014, and 2017-2018.

The report is a scientific assessment that serves to: evaluate and interpret the latest climate science;  analyze the effects of global climate change on the natural environment, economic sectors, and human social systems; and project trends for the future.

While it does not make policy recommendations, it is intended to inform the decision-making processes of governments and society as they relate to climate change.

The report will include chapters on sectors such as agriculture, the built environment, and the economy, as well as on specific geographic regions in the United States. NCA5 will be the first NCA report to include a chapter on Human Social Systems.

Jacobs’s contributions to the Human Social Systems chapter will be focused on climate justice, which is based on the understanding that communities facing racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of oppression are often overburdened by the impacts of climate change, which further exacerbate societal inequalities. The climate justice movement aims to combat these issues by bringing race, class, and gender to the center of climate change discussions to ensure mitigation and adaptation solutions are just and equitable.

Jacobs will be working on this report for the next two years. It will build on her research which aims to understand the differential effect of disasters and climate change on Black communities, and work to envision and create more just climate futures.