Caption: The climate crises consequences hit people in vulnerable situations harder (MINUSTAH/Logan Abassi/ONUnews)
By Deborah Lopes for NINJA Collaborative Coverage at COP26
The term climate justice represents the defense of the rights of marginalized groups being directly affected by climate change. This movement correlates social justice and environmental problems and focuses on individuals whose lives are threatened by extreme weather events, for instance.
Which are the groups most affected by climate change?
When we reflect upon who is directly affected by climate change, we must think about indigenous communities, riverside communities, quilombola communities, people under the state of socioeconomic vulnerability and black people. Therefore, discussing environmental impacts equals discussing social rights.
Climate change is linked to social inequality
According to climate justice’s precepts, the damage to vulnerable groups reflects inequality and our current economic system, which seeks unrestrained development without taking its consequences into account. This system, which drives climate crises, is already responsible for the marginalization of the aforementioned social classes, so it is impossible to talk about a climate emergency without mentioning racism, people’s power, equality, and classicism.
Consequences to local communities
Climate crises’ consequences are felt mainly by social groups which are socially more vulnerable. Here are the consequences: the issue of human displacement, which generates the so-called environmental refugees; extreme droughts causing imbalance in the food system; fires which devastate flora and fauna, as well as the emergence of new pandemics.
Translated by Karen Lemes