Climate justice

Climate change is driven by global human greenhouse gas emissions, but some people and countries are much bigger contributors than others. For instance, the IPCC’s AR6 Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change report outlines how the 10% of households with the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions contribute 34-45% of global emissions, while the middle 40% contribute 40-53%, and the bottom 50% contribute only 13-15%.

There is much inequality of environmental impact within and between populations, and this broadly correlates with wealth. For climate justice to occur, those who are the bigger contributors to climate change should bear the most responsibility for addressing climate change, particularly as they also tend to have the most resources and opportunity.

The areas predicted to be affected worst by climate change are expected to be those that have contributed least and that are less able to cope with the impacts. Many of these areas may be in the “Global South” which is a term that some use to describe Latin America, Asia, Africa, and Oceania. For instance, see below the IPCC’s AR6 Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change report Figure SPM.2 which provides regional data on contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions. Notice the large per capita (per person) differences between different areas for greenhouse gas emissions and Gross Domestic Product (GDP, which can broadly indicate economic activity and income), for instance with North America emitting many times the amount that Africa emits and having a much larger GDP.

A Carbon Brief article on climate justice points out that small island developing states contribute less than 1% of emissions but are already suffering significant climate impacts and face existential risks (being lost to sea level rise) as global temperatures increase.

Climate change therefore disproportionately impacts the poor, including those in relatively richer countries, but particularly those relatively poorer countries such as in the “Global South”. Climate change is expected to increase existing inequalities, making the poor even poorer.

Poorer countries, such as those in the “Global South” are less able to deal with the impacts of climate change. The IPCC’s AR6 Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change report notes:

“There is a strong link between sustainable development, vulnerability and climate risks. Limited economic, social and institutional resources often result in high vulnerability and low adaptive capacity, especially in developing countries.”

However, climate change does not just amplify financial inequality, but also all other types of existing inequalities including race, gender, disabilities, sexual orientation etc. Those who are poor and/or  marginalised have less resilience to climate change impacts and also less opportunity to influence the response of their community to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Such individuals and communities are at risk of greater suffering, in silence. Friends of the Earth sugggest that marginalised people are more likely to live in the areas at most risk of climate change, may live in temporary or makeshift  accommodation, and may face discrimination when seeking shelter from extreme weather events. To help address inequalities, it is critical that the concerns and priorities of marginalised people are heard and accounted for.

Indigenous rights issues are related to racial inequality and may provide of the most extreme examples of injustice and inequality. Indigenous communities have typically managed their land sustainably throughout history but now face the multiple challenges including climate change affecting their ecosystem, and pressure from outsiders including land grabs and pollution. Indigenous groups are likely to be the best people to manage the natural landscape in which they live for themselves and nature, which helps store carbon and address climate change, helping us all.

To achieve climate justice, those who are relatively wealthier therefore have a strong moral obligation to take action to address the causes of climate change and support those who are vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. In this context, the relatively wealthy includes Governments, organisations and much of the populations of relatively wealthier counties as well as the wealthy in relatively poorer countries.

IPCC’s AR6 Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability report (February 2022) stated that:

“Human-induced climate change, including more frequent and intense extreme events, has caused widespread adverse impacts and related losses and damages to nature and people, beyond natural climate variability” and “The rise in weather and climate extremes has led to some irreversible impacts as natural and human systems are pushed beyond their ability to adapt.” It also reports that “Approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to climate change.”

There are already significant losses to livelihoods around the world and far more predicted in future.

Concern Worldwide US reports that:

• In Chad, droughts and unpredictable rainfall threaten the livelihoods of millions of people, with frequent food shortages caused by farmers struggling to cope with the changing conditions.
• In Bangladesh there, cyclones, storm surges, and flooding are more frequent and more impactful, also impacting local farmers and food production.
• Such areas are relatively understudied, hence it is more challenging to understand (and plan for) climate change impacts.
• According to the World Bank, in the next decade climate change could force an additional 100 million people into extreme poverty.

Major impacts also occur in developed countries, such as flooding in New York and Europe in 2021 as reported by the BBC; they also report that the cost of global natural catastrophes (which are made much worse by climate change) has been over $100 billion per year in recent years.

In the UK, climate change increases flood risk and the Environment Agency data suggests that for instance, during November 2019 to February 2020 storms Ciara, Dennis and Jorge caused widespread and repeated flooding, with over 4,600 properties flooded in England and economic losses estimated at £333 million.

Wherever they are in the world, many people, just like us, and some very close to home, are severely affected by climate change.

There are already climate refugees, forced to move from their homes due to the changing climate.

However, as Climate Refugees outlines, the concept of a climate refugee does not exist in international law and so climate refugees do not qualify for protection across borders in the same way as someone displaced by war or persecution, and may remain perilously vulnerable. As a result, they report that many climate refugees are internally displaced, while trends suggest more internal displacement due to climate-related disasters than conflict; in 2020, 30.7million people were internally displaced due to climate change across a range of countries, which is three times as many than those displaced by conflict or violence. They provide the example of decade long flooding of lakes in Kenya, which they suggest is responsible for the displacement of hundreds of thousands and destruction of property and livelihoods.

Friends of the Earth report how over 2,500 people have fled a group of coral atolls known as the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea due to rising sea levels.

There will be many further climate refugees in future, many of whom are likely to need to move across borders; these are likely to include the people of Kiribati, a vulnerable island nation who, as World Economic Forum report, are tragically planning a future relocation for when their island is submerged by rising sea levels. The World Economic Forum also report that Bangladesh is predicted to lose 17% of land to sea level rises by 2050, causing 20million people to lose their homes, and they reflect back to the migration of refugees from Central America through Mexico towards the USA in 2020, following two large hurricanes.

IPCC’s AR6 Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability report (February 2022) stated that

“By 2030, about 250 million people may experience high water stress in Africa, with up to 700 million people displaced as a result.”

There are already many health issues caused by climate change and children are particularly affected.

Concern Worldwide US reports that:

• In Niger, children born during a drought year were 72% more likely to have stunted growth.
• A study in Peru suggested that cases of diarrhoea among children rose by 8% with each degree Celsius increase in temperature.
• The International Food Policy Research Institute estimates a 20% increase in malnourished children by 2050 due to climate change. 

There are already many deaths are caused by climate change. As reported by Grist, a study by Vicedo-Cabrera et al. (2021) suggested that around 100,000 people per year are currently killed by heat who would not have died if climate change was not happening. It is likely this is an underestimate due to lack of data in the places that are worst affected by extreme heat.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports another study from 2021 which suggests almost 10% of global deaths, around 5million per year, are linked to climate change.

In 2018, the World Health Organisation estimated that between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional human deaths per year (i.e. 5 million over 20 years), from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone. They also suggest that areas with weaker health infrastructure will be less able to cope. However, this does not include deaths from physical risks such as from increased storms, flooding and fires, and it considers relatively short term climate change impacts which are less severe than the longer term climate change impacts will be; this could be considered as a conservative lower estimate, with a potential upper estimate being many times higher over the short term and human extinction in the longer term (see the Ecological emergency page).

There are also many further impacts and deaths linked to our unsustainable lifestyles which would be avoided if we addressed the climate emergency. For instance, a study by Vohra et al (2021), described in the Guardian, attribute a huge 8.7million global excess deaths in 2018 to air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels, one in five of the people who died that year.

Addressing the root causes of climate change may also help to avoid further injustices; for instance, the use of fossil fuels can also, in some cases, help to fund wars and social injustices, on top of the social issues climate change can cause to promote social unrest directly.

Current international efforts to address climate change via the IPCC largely relate to the current rate of emission by countries and apportioning the remaining budget between them. However, as well as providing the majority of current emissions, wealthier countries are also historically responsible for the vast majority of historic emissions. CO₂ emissions have been accumulating in our atmosphere at a rate much faster than can be removed by natural processes and the CO₂ emitted in the past since the industrial revolution influences the impacts we experience today; therefore, these historic emissions should also be considered in order to fairly account for climate impacts and to provide climate justice.

Furthermore, wealthier countries are also accountable for the majority of wider global ecological damage, as reported by the Guardian.

The IPCC’s AR6 Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change report clearly outlines the key role of climate finance to provide climate justice and address some of the issues outlined above. This states:

• “Accelerated international financial cooperation is a critical enabler of low-greenhouse gas emissions and just transitions, and can address inequities in access to finance and the costs of, and vulnerability to, the impacts of climate change.”
• “There is sufficient global capital and liquidity to close global investment gaps, given the size of the global financial system.”
• “Accelerated financial support for developing countries from developed countries and other sources is a critical enabler to enhance mitigation action and address inequities in access to finance, including its costs, terms and conditions and economic vulnerability to climate change for developing countries.”

Essentially this says that the relatively wealthy countries need to support relatively less wealthy countries (e.g. the “Global South”) with climate finance such that they can both mitigate and adapt to climate change, and that the wealthier countries have sufficient resources available to do this. As reported by Nature, wealthy nations have not met a target to provide $100billion of climate finance per year to less wealthy nations, and that even this target is well short of what is required.

“Loss and damage” is a concept that is increasingly gaining attention; and seeks to acknowledge and address the cost of and responsibility for negative climate impacts. This would involve the relatively wealthy countries which have contributed the most to causing climate change making payments to account for the loss and damages caused, now and in the future, to  countries in the “Global South”. This would cover the cost of things such as repairing damage from extreme events as well as potentially other negative economic impacts. Currently, wealthy countries are not typically accepting any responsibilities for loss and damage.

The IPCC’s AR6 Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change report touches on the interrelated impacts of inequality and climate justice as well as how improving equity and participation of marginalised groups can help with climate mitigation. They state:

• “Addressing inequality and many forms of status consumption and focusing on wellbeing supports climate change mitigation efforts.”
• “Inequalities in the distribution of emissions and in the impacts of mitigation policies within countries affect social cohesion and the acceptability of mitigation and other environmental policies. Equity and just transitions can enable deeper ambitions for accelerated mitigation. Applying just transition principles and implementing them through collective and participatory decision-making processes is an effective way of integrating equity principles into policies at all scales, in different ways depending on national circumstances. This is already taking place in many countries and regions.”
• “Attention to equity and broad and meaningful participation of all relevant actors in decision-making at all scales can build social trust, and deepen and widen support for transformative changes.”
• “Maximising synergies and avoiding trade-offs pose particular challenges for developing countries, vulnerable populations, and Indigenous Peoples with limited institutional, technological and financial capacity, and with constrained social, human, and economic capital. Trade-offs can be evaluated and minimized by giving emphasis to capacity building, finance, governance, technology transfer, investments, and development and social equity considerations with meaningful participation of Indigenous Peoples and vulnerable populations.”
•  “Consideration of climate justice can help to facilitate shifting development pathways towards sustainability, including through equitable sharing of benefits and burdens of mitigation, increasing resilience to the impacts of climate change, especially for vulnerable countries and communities, and equitably supporting those in need.”

Addressing the root causes of climate change may also help to avoid further injustices; for instance, the use of fossil fuels can also, in some cases, help to fund wars and social injustices.

We continue to add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere at a high rate, increasing global warming. Due to earth system time-lags, even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions immediately, there will be further warming in years to come.

We have known about the cause and impacts of climate change for decades; the international community has been seeking to address it since the IPCC was formed in 1988. Older generations both past and current have failed by a long way to take sufficient action to protect the younger and future generations. For anyone in older generations, on average your generation has been relatively lucky to experience a period of relative stability and rising living standards; it is now your moral duty to do everything you can to make up for any past inaction and to help address climate change, thereby protecting the future of your children and grandchildren. To ignore this duty is to condemn your children and grandchildren to a highly uncertain and unfavourable future which will severely limit their life opportunities and quite possibly their lifetime. They may not look too kindly on this.

Youth movements have unsurprisingly gained much momentum in recent years, as young people have realised the scale of the climate and ecological emergency which they will face throughout their lives. Their passion for this cause reflects how they are literally fighting for their futures, fighting for their lives. These inspiring activists are role models who see things far more clearly than many of our so called political ‘leaders’.

Some consideration of future generations is starting to be made by some governments – such as the Welsh Government Well-being of Future Generations Act, which requires that future generations are considered in public body decision making.

In the above sections, climate justice has been framed around justice for humans, however, this concept could be widened to encompass justice for nature and the natural world. The global ecosystem is our life-support system and by protecting it we are protecting ourselves. However, it is not merely a population of organisms and natural resources for humanity to control, but includes a wide range of living, thinking beings. True climate justice would encompass and protect nature, regardless of whether this also provides a clear benefit for humanity (which it does). Organisms experience many of the sensations and emotions that we do, but they have far less control over their destiny.

Nature is not always perfect and unstressful in its natural state, for instance, a proportion of prey species must be killed by predators in order to preserve the natural balance of populations. However, we should not add more climate stress and life-limiting pressures to wildlife than they already experience, particularly as nature is already in dramatic decline. Other organisms have far fewer resources and opportunities to adapt to climate change than humans do, and they will be by far the most numerous and impacted set of climate refugees; many will simply die out when their home environment becomes unsuitable for them and many species will be at high risk of extinction.

One approach to climate justice for nature is to give the natural world legal rights so it is better protected. In some parts of the world this already happens, for instance, nature’s rights are enshrined in Ecuador’s constitution and were recently upheld in court to protect a cloud forest against mining interests, as reported by the Guardian.