Building a 100 Percent Clean Future Can Drive an Additional $8 Billion a Year to Rural Communities

by Bidisha Bhattacharyya, Ryan Richards, and Rita Cliffton (Center for American Progress) Rural communities face many challenges, and climate change is only making matters worse. Flooding and drought are hitting rural communities hard, causing massive financial losses for farmers, who are also facing low commodity prices and bearing the brunt of an international trade war. And the rural landscape is changing as farmland is being lost to the same development pressures that are contributing to climate change. These challenges are creating a palpable sense among rural residents that their way of life is changing and under threat.

Shifting weather patterns are one of the most noticeable changes. For example, in Iowa, the past 18 months have been the wettest on record, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.¹ Iowa climatologists cite climate change as one of the key causes of flooding in the state. Across the Midwest, flooding caused $3 billion in damage in 2019.² According to an August 2019 poll, 1 in 4 Iowans say that they or someone in their family has experienced property damage or other economic hardships as a result of flooding or severe storm damage in the past 12 months.³

Flooding has been especially devastating for farmers. Fields saturated with water forced farmers to leave more than 19 million acres of agricultural land unplanted in 2019.⁴ Crops that they did manage to plant remained in the ground, as the wet soil coupled with propane shortages (due to pipeline distribution constraints) prevented farmers from drying and storing their grain. These challenges, along with a global trade war, rising input costs, and low prices have been a catastrophic combination, with farm debt projected to hit $415 billion in 2019.⁵ In addition, from October 2018 through September 2019, Chapter 12 bankruptcies for farms increased 24 percent, with 40 percent occurring in the Midwestern states.⁶ These factors raise serious questions about the prospects for agriculture and rural livelihoods in the future.

At the same time, the look and feel of rural America is changing, with significant swaths of farmland and natural lands being converted for other uses. A recent CAP analysis found that, every 30 seconds, a football field worth of America’s natural areas are disappearing to development.⁷ A study by American Farmland Trust found that almost 31 million acres of agricultural land were lost to development between 1992 and 2012, more than one-third of that land being some of the most fertile acreage in the country for food production.⁸ Similarly, work by Conservation Science Partners suggests that this trend of agricultural land loss is continuing unabated.⁹

The rapid development of rural lands, along with oil and gas pipelines running through rural communities and fertilizer runoff and erosion from fields, make water quality a key issue for rural voters. For example, a Yale Program on Climate Change Communication poll found that 79 percent of Iowa voters say pollution of water bodies is a serious problem in the state, and 66 percent worry that floods could expose waterways to pollutants from damaged oil and gas pipelines.¹⁰ There is good reason for their concern: A 2017 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) study found that, nationally, 55 percent of assessed rivers and streams, 71 percent of lakes, and 84 percent of bays and estuaries have impaired water quality.¹¹

Many of these problems will only worsen with climate change. Rural voters across America understand that the climate is changing, and many support climate action. In fact, an August 2019 Yale University poll of Iowa registered voters found that 70 percent support government action to address climate change. ¹² However, these voters tend to have a low level of trust in the federal government’s ability to address climate change the right way. A poll from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found that majority of rural Iowa voters say that politicians don’t hear them and that politicians from across the political spectrum do not take their way of life into consideration when they talk about climate change.¹³ This needs to change.

If done right, taking climate action will be a win-win for rural communities, counteracting the shifts to their way of life. Taking action will also help them to preserve a rich heritage. A recent report from the Center for American Progress outlines a framework for successful and durable climate action and recommends a move to a 100 Percent Clean Future that focuses on a big and ambitious “100 percent clean” target that puts the needs of communities at the center of climate policy.

This issue brief identifies ways climate policy can address the needs of rural communities by focusing on supporting rural livelihoods; protecting natural lands and farmland from development; and keeping water clean. Moreover, CAP finds that enacting such policies would drive an additional $8 billion in economic benefit to rural communities each year.

Conclusion
Policymakers must put the needs of communities at the center of climate policy, and they need to undertake a concerted effort to understand the problems rural communities face and design climate policies that address those concerns. Climate policy informed by rural voices can be a win-win by protecting and strengthening the rural way of life while harnessing the power of America’s lands and rural communities to address climate change. This approach is essential for building a strong, durable climate policy that can move the United States toward a 100 Percent Clean Future. READ MORE Download Report