CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

CLIMATE CHANGE 

AND

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Source: https://www.ecologiapolitica.info/justicia-ambiental-y-climatica-de-la-equidad-al-funcionamiento-comunitario/

Liliana Gracia Hincapié

lilianagraciah@gmail.com

    Climate change endangers all life on the planet. Today, almost no one questions this statement, it is a fact; however, all life isn’t affected the same way. In addition to the fact that the life of non-human species is seriously threatened, due to the losing of their habitats and their livelihoods, impoverished populations are the most affected by the environmental crisis. Social inequity has left a big part of the world population without access to basic rights, such as housing, health, food and education, and it is not sufficiently clear how this relates to climate change and environmental justice.  

    The capitalist economic model is the main cause of the environmental crisis, because it is based on the creation of infinite needs in a world of finite resources, and human beings just want  to satisfy these created needs through the exploitation of nature and its excessive consumption. In this race to accumulate wealth many people, in general populations of the global south, have been impoverished and oppressed creates inequality. As a result, a few get richer at the expense of the poverty of the majority.

    Environmental justice makes visible that it is not a coincidence that racialized populations, such as Afro-descendants and indigenous people, and peasants and women, have been the most affected by the consequences of the environmental crisis, because they already were the most vulnerable. Also, it recognizes their situation and how they live in places with natural wealth where the big companies extract a variety of resources,  generating negative impacts for the local communities who suffer from violence, famine, dispossession of their lands, and contempt towards their culture. 

Source:https://idehpucp.pucp.edu.pe/notas-informativas/migracion-y-cambio-climatico-cuales-son-los-mecanismos-de-proteccion-para-los-migrantes-climaticos/

In these conditions of degradation, natural disasters caused by global warming have dire consequences such as droughts, floods, landslides and forest fires, which in turn cause the loss of homes, crops, ecosystems and lives. People who have lost everything are forced to migrate to other places to live in conditions of violence, exclusion and precariousness, becoming climate migrants. This is another of the phenomena that environmental justice makes visible because of its serious consequences, since it is like a domino effect - in which one disaster after another is triggered by climate change - is hitting the poorest communities, which have no chance to recover.

    The environmental drama began decades ago and entire populations have been suffering disproportionately. We need to speak of environmental justice that allows us to understand the consequences of the civilizational crisis in a differential way, as well as to recognize those who are truly responsible for it.

Source:https://viaorganica.org/por-una-justicia-ambiental-mundial/

Sources:

https://justiciaambientalcolombia.org/

https://www.dejusticia.org/nuestros-temas/justicia-ambiental/

https://www.acnur.org/cambio-climatico-y-desplazamiento-por-desastres.html#:~:text=Cada%20a%C3%B1o%2C%20m%C3%A1s%20de%2020,%2C%20desertificaci%C3%B3n%2C%20degradaci%C3%B3n%20ambiental%2C%20ciclones

https://migracionesclimaticas.org/que-son-las-migraciones-climaticas/