COP 27 gets under way in Egypt on the 6th of November. With it taking place in Africa, developing countries are going to speak loud about what needs to be done, and the promises that need to be kept. It’s going to sound like demands for money, but actually, it’s about Climate Justice.
As the effects of climate change are felt more and more around the world, more and more people will suffer the consequences. The people who’ll feel it most are people in Asia and Africa, the poor, the disabled, and the youth.
In other words, the people who are least responsible for causing the steady rise in global warming. Climate Justice is about looking at the problem through a human rights lens. We know that sea levels are rising, that the arctic ice caps are melting, that the rainforests are getting smaller, and that species of flora and fauna are disappearing. But how does this affect real people, and how do we protect the most vulnerable.
The most important point in climate justice is the recognition that the most vulnerable are those that bear little or no responsibility for the problem. That is also key to understanding why developed nations need to pay to help developing countries cope. Simply put, it’s (mostly) their fault.
The youth, the elderly, the disabled, the very poor, these are the people who often don’t have options. They can’t get out of the way of devastating climatic events, and don’t have the means to recover from the disasters. It is very concerning that a large percentage, between 75-80%, of climate financing goes to mitigation. The reason is partly because rich countries are spending it on themselves, trying to fix their own energy problems. The United Nations Framework Convention of Climate Change stipulated the split between mitigation and adaptation should be 50-50. More money needs to be spent on helping people, communities and poor countries deal with the consequences.
In Mozambique that could mean finding homes for people who live on potentially dangerous flood plains. South of the Sahara, it is developing drought-resistant crops. In South Africa that means giving people access to affordable renewable energy. But the solutions need to be people centered. It needs to have the civil rights issue at its core.
In South Africa, just as the pandemic swept the globe, a long process came to fruition with the formation of the Climate Justice Charter Movement, which is fighting for the adoption of the charter to be part of the Constitution. At its core, the movement argues that those least responsible must not be harmed or carry the cost of climate impacts. In its own words, “The needs of workers, the poor, the landless, people with disabilities, grassroots women, children and vulnerable communities have to be at the center of the deep just transition. The benefits of socio-ecological transformation must be shared equally.”
So recognizing that climate change has victims is a strong start. It’s not just about the air quality, or where our power comes from, even though those are important (and related). It’s about the fact the people’s quality of lives, and often very survival, is impacted by climate change. And there is something that can be done to help them and protect them.
All that is required is for the money to go to the right place, and for those in power to take responsibility. That’s not just the governments of rich countries. It means the leaders in poor countries need to make sure that the money and the aid gets to the right people. Perhaps most importantly it means big corporations need to be held accountable. And they need to do due diligence, not just buy carbon credit points and pass the problem on to someone else.
At the moment, all these international agreements require a certain amount of honour. When Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Paris Agreement, the world could do little but lament that action. (His successor Joe Biden did bring the US back into the fold). If South Africa cannot wean away from coal power, there’ll be no consequences, other than bad air and unstable energy. If a multi-national corporation billows carbon, it will get a rap on the knuckles. There’s no real mechanism for punishment, and thus no real inducement for compliance, other than honour, possible small (to them) fines and sometimes future profit.
The International Criminal Court has never heard a climate change case. But they are in the midst of hearing an application from Vanuatu, originating from a group of Solomon Island university students, to have the court issue an advisory opinion on climate change. While this isn’t the same as a court decision, it would have implications on the future of litigation, as well as international, regional and domestic disputes on climate harm.
Climate Justice needs teeth. And it needs to be put at the center of the fight for human rights. Caring for the environment is vital to our quality of life, and for many that means it’s vital to our immediate survival.
