Climate Change in the Mountain State: The Need for New Policies for West Virginia

Keywords: Flooding, Climate Change, West Virginia, Climate Policy
Session Type: Virtual Poster Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 38

Abstract

We have just eight years to create new policies at international, national, and local scales to keep the global climate from warming to severely destabilizing levels. In the United States, President Biden has pledged to cut national greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. However, it remains unclear whether the sweeping policy changes required to make these cuts will be established, especially since President Biden’s climate agenda, the $150 billion clean electricity program, has encountered several roadblocks in the US House and Senate. Of note, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin is a key player in the creation of this policy yet seems resistant to enacting sweeping policy measures. Simultaneously, rural communities in West Virginia are unequipped with the resources to recover from the damages of severe weather patterns, such as frequent floods, that will increase in intensity and severity across the state due to climate change. This poster will draw from an example to show how climate change is already affecting West Virginia to explore the implications of new policy (or lack thereof) for the state, by exploring the long-term impacts of the 2016 severe flooding event in the rural town of Rainelle, West Virginia. Over five years after this flooding event, Rainelle continues to lack full recovery – emotionally, economically, and physically. This poster will explore how the climate policies being decided in Washington, DC would help rural communities like Rainelle respond more successfully to climate events, across West Virginia and beyond.