Climate change is an urgent challenge today that is hitting countries in the Global South the hardest. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the communities most affected are those that have historically contributed least to this phenomenon: between 3.3 and 3.6 billion people in the Global South are the most vulnerable to climate change worldwide.
Latin America is responsible for only 8% of greenhouse gas emissions, but is highly vulnerable to disasters and phenomena such as food insecurity and forced population displacement caused by climate change in combination with other factors, and has limited means to adapt to these challenges.
Therefore, talking about climate change implies recognizing that it is not just an environmental problem, but also a political and ethical one, with differentiated impacts and responsibilities. In this context, climate justice places equity and people’s human rights at the center and seeks to address these issues in an interconnected way, considering various forms of inequality.
The notion of climate justice brings to light the unequal historical and current responsibilities of countries, companies and individuals for the climate crisis. These responsibilities can be measured through the high emissions of countries in the Global North and large polluting companies, as well as through the disproportionate impacts of wealthy people on the climate crisis.
They have a greater impact through their lifestyles, investments and political actions that often deny the gravity of the climate crisis, block just transition processes and silence the voices of those who defend the environment and the need to replace fossil fuels and the current economic model.
According to OXFAM’s Global Inequality Report, corporate power is driving climate breakdown, exacerbating inequalities and increasing suffering for millions of people. Since 2020, the world’s five richest people have more than doubled their fortunes, reaching $869 billion by 2023, while the wealth of 5 billion people worldwide has declined.
The great responsibility of billionaires
As a result, the richest 1% of the world’s population generates as much carbon emissions as the poorest two-thirds of humanity. Furthermore, although only slightly more than one in five people live in countries in the Global North, they concentrate 69% of private wealth and almost three-quarters of the world’s wealth. Multinational corporations are the other major beneficiaries of this scandalous process of accumulation, accelerated in the wake of the pandemic, with the profits of the largest companies increasing by 89% between 2021 and 2022.
In addition to exposing historical and current socioeconomic inequalities between countries and social classes, climate justice is the heir to political ecology studies and the struggles for environmental justice that have historically denounced environmental racism and the disproportionate effects of environmental degradation on black, peripheral, indigenous and peasant populations. Likewise, the notion of climate justice is fueled by the demands of the feminist movement that has exposed the greater effects of the environmental and climate crisis on women.
Thus, the notion of climate justice takes into account structural inequalities between regions, but also within countries, and how specific populations, such as indigenous people, black people, women or people with disabilities, are more likely to suffer the adverse effects of climate change.
Climate justice also looks at intergenerational inequalities that examine why today’s children and young people, despite not having contributed significantly to the climate crisis, suffer more severely from its impacts as they grow up and see their right to a sustainable future undermined. In fact, a study published in the journal Science in 2021 found that children born in 2020 will experience two to seven times more extreme weather events, especially heatwaves, compared to people born in 1960.
The concept of climate justice
At the international level, the concept of climate justice is a derivative of the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR), which is a fundamental standard of global climate policy. The principle was established in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which recognizes that all States have a responsibility to protect the climate as a common good of humanity and to address the challenges posed by climate change. This agreement advocates varying levels of environmental protection and commitments by industrialized and developing countries. The CBDR was one of the achievements of cooperation and coordination among developing countries during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, better known as the Earth Summit, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
The principle recognizes that developed and developing countries have historically contributed unequally to the climate crisis: the former’s higher levels of industrialization are responsible for generating higher greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, developed countries have greater financial and technological capacity and can deal with climate impacts and challenges differently. They are able to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and finance the losses and damages that climate change is causing in the most vulnerable countries, to name just two examples.
At the COP28 Conference of the Parties in Dubai in 2023, a historic decision was made to approve a Climate Loss and Damage Fund for vulnerable countries. The Fund has received contributions of approximately US$400 million. But researchers and organizations working to combat climate change stress that the unprecedented and devastating impacts of global warming require more resources and comprehensive commitments.
The Climate Damage and Loss Fund for vulnerable countries has been defined by UN Secretary-General António Guterres as “an essential tool for achieving climate justice”. However, to achieve true climate justice, much more needs to be done. According to OXFAM’s report “Climate equity: A planet for the 99%”, the crises (climate and inequality) are interconnected, inextricably linked and feed off each other.
Therefore, the best antidote to ending climate breakdown and poverty is to promote equality across the board. Unless we move away from fossil fuels, tackle inequality and put people’s rights at the heart of climate decisions, it will be impossible to build a truly just transition to a sustainable future.
Planet in Trance
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