Ci. e Nat.,
Santa Maria v.42, e20, 2020
DOI:10.5902/2179460X38599
ISSN
2179-460X
Received 18/06/19 Accepted: 29/10/19 Published:24/06/20
Environment
Climate
justice: a new way of looking at environmental issues
Justiça climática: uma nova forma de olhar para as questões ambientais
IResearcher,
Consultant and University Professor in the areas of Environmental Management,
Marketing, Strategic Planning, Communication, Social and Environmental fields, Universidade
do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Universidade Estácio de Sá, RJ, Brasil - t.mariacecilia@gmail.com
Climate change is a concerning topic, as it is
impossible to deny its damaging effects on the planet. Different policy
responses have been offered regarding climate change adaptation, and these have
brought forward issues related to climate justice. As this topic is still not
very well known in Brazil, this paper aims to raise awareness on climate
justice concepts and related issues.
This is a literature review which analyses climate justice theories and
their relation with the concept of climate change adaptation in order to offer
a new point-of-view on the topic. This
paper has come to the conclusion that the concept of climate change has been
created due to the increased importance of climate justice. Its origins lie in
climate change activism, which seeks to help the most affected
communities. That was when the fight for
sharing the burden of climate change emerged, giving rise to the concepts of
mitigation and climate adaptation. Thus, the most affected populations should
receive assistance in the form of climate change impact adaptation, financed by
the countries which are responsible for most greenhouse effect gas emissions,
in name of climate justice.
Keywords: Climate justice; Climate change; Climate
change adaptation
A mudança
climática é um tema que causa preocupação, não havendo como negar seus efeitos
danosos ao planeta. Diferentes respostas políticas vêm sendo propostas em
relação a adaptação às mudanças climáticas, e essas trouxeram à tona questões
relacionadas à justiça climática. Trata-se de um assunto ainda pouco divulgado
no Brasil, o que motivou a realização desse artigo, com o objetivo de
esclarecer à sociedade conceitos e aspectos relacionados à justiça climática. Foi feita uma
revisão da literatura, que traz explicações sobre justiça climática e sua
relação com o conceito de adaptação às mudanças climáticas, trazendo um novo
olhar sob o tema. O artigo concluiu que o conceito de justiça climática nasceu
a partir da importância que passou a ser dada à justiça ambiental, se
originando do ativismo relacionado a mudança climática, onde se iniciou a busca
na promoção de ajuda para comunidades mais afetadas. Foi então que começou a
luta pelo compartilhamento dos encargos da mudança climática, emergindo os
conceitos de mitigação e adaptação climática. Assim, as populações mais
afetadas devem receber auxílio por meio de oportunidades de adaptação aos
impactos da mudança climática, financiados pelos países mais responsáveis pelas
emissões dos gases de efeito estufa, fazendo-se justiça climática.
Palavras-chave: Justiça climática. Mudanças climática. Adaptação às mudanças
climáticas.
1 INTRODUCTION
Climate
change can be explained, according to Born et al (2007, p.6), as “changes in
the climate system provoked by human-generated greenhouse effect gases”. According
to Teixeira (2013), these changes lead to the warming of the planet, which
intensifies climate events such as droughts, hurricanes, floods and storms.
Moreover, it raises the ocean levels and changes rain patterns, thus, causing
impacts on agriculture, on urban housing, on the usage of hydro resources and
on the energy grid. All these consequences cause social and economic damages of
unprecedented scale. Therefore,
promoting actions that can mitigate climate change becomes essential. These
include actions to reduce carbon and other greenhouse effect gases emissions,
as well as offering society, especially the populations most vulnerable to extreme
climate events, the means to adapting to the effects of these changes.
In
this context, international negotiations have pondered on topics related to the
relative responsibility of different nation-states in reducing greenhouse
effect gases emissions, as well as how should climate change adaptation be
financed and to which extent should different actors have a spot in the
negotiating table (BULKELEY et al., 2013).
“Climate
change adaptation” is a strategy to mitigate the effects of climate change on day-to-day
life. Burton (1992 apud SMIT et al. 1999, p.203.) defines it as “the process
through which people reduce the adverse effects of climate on their health and well-being
and enjoy the opportunities which their climate environment provides.” Another
definition for adaptation was given by Pielke (1998) and refers to the behavior
adjustments by individuals, groups or institutions in order to reduce their
climate vulnerabilities.
Climate
justice, adaptation and change issues have been raised internationally as well
as within different national contexts. The recent debates on a “carbon tax” in
Australia are a good example of these issues, which are based on wider debates
about who might benefit and who might be harmed by these measures (BÜCHS et
al., 2011; BULKELEY et al., 2013).
Today,
climate change is concerns everybody, because its nefarious effects to the
planet’s well-being and to the survival of life on Earth are undeniable.
However, as soon as this issue became a global political issue, positions regarding
climate justice were taken in the most recent debates.
Different
policy responses have been offered regarding climate change adaptation, and
these have brought forward issues related to climate justice. As this topic is
still not very well known in Brazil, raising awareness on climate justice
concepts and related issues, is one of this paper’s goals, along with
discussing how this issue has been dealt with internationally.
Therefore,
the specific aims of this study were to present conceptual explanations on
climate justice and the term’s origin, as well as its relationship with the
concept of climate change adaptation in order to offer a new point-of-view on
the topic. This is a literature review which uses data from books, public
documents and papers on the topic. The research was conducted in February and
March 2019 using the following online databases: PubMed, BIblioteca
Virtual em Saúde (BVS), Google Scholar, and Google. The descriptors climate
justice; adapting to climate change; and climate change have
been used.
Publications
which are fully available online, in Portuguese, English or Spanish, and which
could contribute towards the goals of this paper were included in this
research. 30 references were selected to be used in this paper, which was
divided in two topics in order to better explain to the reader the related
concepts discussed here. In the first topic, the origin and the concept of
climate justice are described. The second one explains the relation between
climate change, climate justice, and climate change adaptation.
2
CONCEPT AND ORIGIN
Climate
change is currently creating a double inequality due to the inverse
distribution of risk and responsibility. Richer nations are more responsible
for these changes but predicted to face only moderate adverse climate effects
(risks), whereas poorer countries, which are less responsible face greater
threats to their economies, wealth and safety, that is, they face the greatest
environment risks (BARRETT, 2013).
This
means there is a lot of global inequality, as less developed countries, which
produce fewer GEE are more affected by climate change than developed ones
producing substantially more GEE. Moreover, less developed countries face more
obstacles to adapting to climate change than developed nations (LEVY; PATZ,
2015).
The
data shows that most poor nations emitted fewer than 115 tonnes
of carbon dioxide per capita since 1960, while rich countries emitted between
1,6 and 2,7 kilo tonnes (BARRETT, 2013). The United
Stated and the European Union alone are responsible for over half of total or
“historic” global emissions of CO2 between 1850 and 2011. In the
20th century, China became a great polluter (ELLIOTT; COOK, 2016), which lead
other countries to face disproportional adverse consequences and be liable to
physical risks, such as floods and storms (BARRETT, 2013).
Furthermore,
exposure to and sensitivity to physical events are enhanced by poverty and
underdevelopment. Poor education, deficient health infrastructure and
inefficient governance structures increase the negative consequences (BARRETT,
2013).
At
first, climate activists presented demands which the global establishment would
not meet, such as: a 50% cut of GEE emissions by 2020 and a commitment to cut
90% by 2050; paying a rapidly-growing climate debt; ending carbon markets which
thus far were favored by elites; and massive investment in renewable energy,
public transportation and other transformational infrastructure. When reality
showed that these demands were unreal, it was evident that in the next stage of
the fight for climate justice, it would be necessary to step down from this
ambitious global reform agenda and be inspired by more direct and realist
action (BOND, 2012).
The
term “climate justice” originated from another environmental term: environment
justice. The discussions on environment justiced
started in the United States of America in the 1960s. Their primary objective
was to guarantee that Black and minority communities residing in suburbs had
the right to breath clean air, be less exposed to toxic wasted and had
guaranteed access to quality health care (ALVES; MARIANO, 2017).
The
first known reference of the concept of climate justice was in a 1999 report
called Greenhouse Gangsters vs. Climate Justice, by the
London-based Corporate Watch group (a
non-profit research group, news institution and publisher which conducts
research on the social and environmental impact of corporations and corporative
power). This report was mostly concerned with analyzing the oil industry and its
disproportional political influence, but it also presented a first attempt at
defining a multifaceted approach to climate justice, including: 1) To approach
the deep causes of global warming and make corporations responsible; 2) To
oppose the destructive impacts of oil development and to support affected
communities, including those most affected by the growing incidence of
climate-related disasters; 3) To look at environment justice communities for
strategies to support a fair transition out of fossil fuels; 4) To challenge
company-led globalization and the disproportional influence of international
finance institutions, such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization
(TOKAR, 2013).
According
to Schlosberg and Collins (2013), the term climate justice was used again in
2002 in the 6th Conference of the Parties (COP 6) in Hague, the Netherlands.
The Brazilian Ministry of the Environment (BRAZIL, 2019) explains that the
Conference of the Parties is the ultimate decision-making institution in the Convention
for Biological Diversity (CBD). It is a large-scale meeting with 188
participating delegations from the 188 members of the Convention for Biological
Diversity, as well as observers from non-member countries and representatives
from major international institutions (including those of the United Nations),
academic organizations, NGOs, business organizations, indigenous leaders, press
and other observers. Schlosberg and
Collins (2014) say that the objective is to debate how to guarantee basic
rights to individuals who are harmed by climate changes.
According
to Bulkeley et al. (2014) environmental justice sees
“justice” as a three-sided concept, therefore, climate justice can be seen as a
pyramid, whose faces are: distribution, proceeds, and rights and
responsibilities. Its base is acknowledgment.
These authors defend the development of a new explanation of climate
justice as an urban concern, which goes beyond the principles of fair
distribution of rights and responsibilities and of procedural demands. It
demands participation and access to decision-making, and it leads to the
“acknowledgement” of the existing inequality and how climate change policy can
magnify or mitigate these underlying structural issues.
Nevertheless,
the concept of climate justice has only become a coherent political approach in
the international stage after it had failed as a collaborative strategy between
major environment NGOs and the global capitalist managerial class. The first
real efforts to foster a movement to defend the climate among the global civil
society have become the Climate Action Network - an encompassing group
of environmental NGOs which deal with climate change issues. However, starting
in 1997, the Climate Action Network has adopted a “false solution” as
its main strategy: to emphasize inter-state negotiations with United Nations
regulators in order to promote reductions in carbon emissions and related
compensation (BOND, 2012).
The
problem was that this strategy forgot that climate change causes are fundamentally
related to responsibility towards emission reduction. By focusing on rights
instead of responsibilities, it tends to encourage self-interested claims,
whose competition have an inherent expansionist logic. Moreover, rights can
give normative validation to imperatives other than emission-reduction.
This
is particularly evident when emission rights become property rights that may be
negotiated in markets and, furthermore, acquired by means such as the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM – a flexibilization mechanism created by the Kyoto
Protocol – an international treaty establishing stricter responsibilities
regarding greenhouse-effect gases – in
order to foster the reduction of GEE emissions or the capture/sequestration
of carbon), which creates emission
rights according to supposedly rejected emissions instead of real reductions
(HAYWARD, 2007).
Furthermore,
over time it has been noticed that the carbon trade, as an answer to global
warming, shall magnify the effects of copollutants
coming from the same source. These copollutants
include toxic hydrocarbons that cause cancer, mercurial and particulate matter,
among others. Nonetheless, as a rule of thumb, those who focus on tradable
commodities have a greater weight on aggregate impact, as they are only concerned
with global reductions. On the other hand, those who are concerned with equity
and justice seek distributive effects. Hence, climate justice is by principle
against this type of emission-reduction scheme. In its stead, it seeks
affirmative action to weight inequalities. Market systems, which frequently
incorporate technological solutions, seek efficiency. But concern regarding
distributive effect is opposite to the dominance of efficiency and the
excessive trust in technological solutions, which tends to reinforce power and
wealth inequalities due to the unequal distribution of technology (BURKETT,
2008).
Thus,
is born the current concept of climate justice: that climate adaptation
financing should take into account the existing inequality in risk and
responsibility distribution. Therefore, developed countries should finance the
necessary behavior adjustments of exposed communities so that they may reduce
their climate risk. Policy changes in adaptation financing on the community
level include: irrigations, drought crops, flood protections, early warning
systems, tree planting, conservation agriculture, and distribution of
fertilizers. Each policy addresses at least one factor contributing to climate
risk, such as droughts, floods, storms, tornadoes and soil erosion (BARRETT,
2013).
It
could be argued that climate justice is the name of a new movement which has
best mixed a variety of political-economic and progressive political-ecological
schools of thought in order to fight the most serious threat facing humanity
and most other species in the 21st century. This is an appropriate moment for
this debate, due to the continuous fragmentation of elite power, including the
acquiescence of big environmental NGOs, in a time in which global elite actors
are unable of resolving great environmental, geopolitical, social and economic
issues. This debate emphasizes the necessity of a climate justice philosophy
and ideology, and the practice of its principles, strategies and tactics (BOND,
2012).
However,
to reach climate justice, effective action in global (regional and local) and
interdisciplinary scale is necessary. Consequently, the development of
strategies and solutions to reach it is an urgent need that shall benefit all
(humans and non-humans) (CALZADILLA, 2017).
Another
important detail which has been neglected is the fact that climate justice
research is generally made in international, or at least national, scale,
addressing principles of justice, allocation criteria, carbon markets and
financing architectures. But the variability and the change of climate are
mostly found at the local level, at communities, and require analysis and
policy in lower scales, that is, practices of Community-Based Adaptation. In
other words, the research on climate justice needs to advance and to evaluate
the strategies of climate risk reduction in poor, marginalized and vulnerable
communities. It must consider them the main actors defining climate justice
analysis. Indeed, it has been observed that recent debates on climate justice
and equity do not focus on local-level vulnerable communities (BARRETT, 2013).
Climate
change is only one, however, there are multiple environmental stressors, and it
is essential that studies identify how these stressors shape long-term
vulnerabilities at the local-level. This study approach acknowledges that
multiple stressors threaten a system and, instead of focusing on the multiple
effects of a single stressor, seeks to understand a more dynamic and
evolutionary reality by incorporating internal and external aspects of
vulnerability. In other words, it acknowledges that stressors generate outcomes
that strengthen or create other stressors. This type of research argues that:
(a) there are different stressors in different environments; (b) stressor ponderation
is ambiguous and stressors do not interact in similar manners in different
environments; and (c) conducts case studies to understand how individual and
composite stressors affect individuals and local systems (BARRETT, 2013).
Thus,
the importance of another type of justice is highlighted here: social justice,
based on the social character of the human being.
It is a concept of justice which can only be reached in the relationship with
society, because it deals with the human person in a network of rights and
responsibilities towards the other. In terms of community, all members owe
something to the others. The most important of these responsibilities is that
all should have their human dignity recognized. In the political and legal
fields, this means that all have equal rights and responsibilities (BARZOTTO,
2003).
Burkett
(2008) explains that depressed locations, both rural and urban, end up
determining the educational and economic well-fare levels of its citizens.
Unfortunately, communities that are left behind in relation to the rest of the
country in these public well-fare indicators are also left without access to
health care and environmental services. In other words, they live in a reality
of social injustice. In the United States, as well as in other countries, these
poorer and neglected communities generally concentrate racial minority
communities. In other words, the inherent limits of population growth,
industrialization, pollution and resource depletion are unequally imposed on
poor and racial-minority communities.
These populations are politically powerless and confined in national
areas of “environmental sacrifice”.
In
the USA, for example, these areas include Navajo territory, or Western
Shoshone, Chester, Pennsylvania, and Cancer Alley, Louisiana, among others
throughout the country. Hence, environmental risks are higher among
middle-class African-Americans, Hispanics and Asian-Americans. The risk is also
higher when it comes to the unequal access to energy. There are multiple causes
of the disproportional effects and these include racism, inadequate health
care, limited access to environmental information, and the lack of political
influence (BURKETT, 2008). It is also true that less developed countries
frequently do not have the necessary human, technological and financial
resources to adapt to climate change effectively, and many countries in the
southern hemisphere claim that this inequality harms their long-term
development and poverty-reduction objectives (ELLIOTT; COOK, 2016).
In
Brazil, this is not difference. The state of São Paulo, for instance, faced an
extreme drought in 2013 and 2014, disrupting the water supply of its
inhabitants. Another example are the intense rains which cause rains and
landslides throughout the country which usually affect poorer communities
(ALVES; MARIANO, 2017).
Herrmann
(2006) highlights extreme climate events which have affected the Brazilian
state of Santa Catarina: between 1980 and 2013 there were 1,299 gradual floods,
555 flash floods, 140 landslides, 492 lulls, 502 wind storms, 43 tornadoes, 26
storm tides, as well as Catarina Hurricane in 27 and 28 of March, 2014, the
first one in the Southern Atlantic, which hit the Northeastern part of Rio
Grande do Sul and the Southern part of Santa Catarina.
Nevertheless,
the state of Santa Catarina continues to foster highly erosive agriculture,
animal creation, coal mining, intense occupation of coastal areas, and
reforestation in such a way that impoverishes the soil and harms bio diversity
(BUTZKE; THIBES, 2011).
Lima
(2014) highlights another important issue: the cultural loss of indigenous
communities. These peoples are described as having traditional practices and a
strong bond to their ancestral lands. These are the most susceptible
populations to global warming, not only because they already have great
vulnerability (due to their state of marginalization, poverty and lack of
political power), nor because they are exposed to biophysical and
socio-economical risks of climate change, but also because they are especially
sensitive to the cultural impacts of this phenomenon due to their special bond
to their territory as well as their high dependency on local natural resources
to reproduce their traditional practices.
This loss might even go beyond cultural desegregation: it might lead to
the very the very disintegration of the people in the most extreme cases.
These
facts underscore the urgency of discussing how much countries are offering
their population in terms of adaptation and survival to extreme climate events
(ALVES; MARIANO, 2017).
3
CLIMATE CHANGE, CLIMATE JUSTICE AND CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION
The
4th Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC,
2007) has concluded that climate change is “unequivocal, accelerating and probably
induced by mankind.” At the time, the most optimistic forecasts predicted a
rise in 2°C in global temperature averages by the end of the century, due to
rising concentration of potentially dangerous greenhouse effect gases.
Nevertheless,
six years afterwards this forecast has been proven to be strongly
underestimating the rise in temperatures. A recent report written by the
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, written for the World Bank,
estimated a rise of 4°C by the end of the century if the global community does
not act against climate change. This difference is due to the rising “emission
gap”, that is, the difference between pledged emission reductions and the
necessary emission levels to maintain the global temperature at around 2°C above
pre-industrial levels. The implications to socioecological and socioeconomical
systems are enormous. The first victims of global warming are biodiversity and
ecosystems. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimates
that up to 35% of avian species, 52% of amphibians, and 71% of coral reef
systems have characteristics which make them potentially susceptible to climate
change (CAMERON et al., 2013).
According
to the IPCC Special Report (2012), climate change already is increasing the frequency
of extreme climate events such as floods, droughts, tornadoes, tropical storms
and heat waves. As the population continues to grow and consolidate, and since
a growing number of people depend upon fragile soil for their houses and
resources, the number of people affected by extreme climate conditions is also
poised to go up.
According
to the 2003 World Disasters Report, the number of people affected by climate
disasters has increased from 740 million in the 1970s to over 2,5 billion in
the first decade of the 21st century (CAMERON et al., 2013). According to the
UN, climate and geophysical disasters — such as earthquakes and tsunamis — have
killed 1,3 million people and either injured, displaced or left in a state of
emergency over 4,4 billion in the last 20 years (UN, 2018). The World Bank
report warns that a warming of the estimated magnitude (over 4°C) will likely
lead to a rise of 0,5 to 1 meter, and possibly even more, of sea levels by
2100. Nevertheless, if the warming is
limited to 2°C, the rise in sea levels by 2100 is estimated to be approximately
20 cm lower than if the temperature were to rise 4°C (CAMRON et al., 2013).
Another
issue is that climate change also has direct and indirect impacts on human
health. For example, the vectors of vector-borne diseases such as malaria,
dengue, and yellow fever are sensitive to temperature, humidity and
precipitation patterns. As the temperature and precipitation patterns change
due to climate change, these diseases will spread to areas where they traditionally
did not exist. Moreover, there is the issue of food security and hunger, which
are quickly becoming main concerns for governments, which are alarmed by the
speed and scale of climate change. According to the World Food Programme, climate change has become an intensifier of
hunger risk and, therefore, food security is a major concern in most countries
which have developed National Adaptations Programmes
of Action (NAPAs) (CAMERON et al., 2013)
The
terms climate justice or equity (widely used in debates meaning a distributive
justice) have entered public discourse thanks to a concentrated effort from
some South Hemisphere countries (most notably India), which recognized the
historical differences in climate change responsibility, and, therefore, the different
responsibility of fighting it, be it through emission reduction or through
financial contributions to adaptation policies (FISHER, 2012).
In
order to afford these climate justice adaptation plans, Caney (2014) argues
that there are two different ways of conceptualizing justice. The first one is
to highlight how the cost of fighting this issue should be borne in a fair way
among those responsible. In this case, responsibility is to do your fair share,
and that can be done according to the following principles: those who caused
the problem should bear the costs; those who are capable of carrying the burden
should do so; and those who benefit from climate change-inducing activities
should bear the cost. He calls this perspective Burden-Sharing Justice.
The
second perspective is based on the imperative of avoiding climate change to
deduce who should do what. Its main goal is to avoid catastrophe (or at least
to mitigate it to reasonable levels). This perspective is concerned about
potential victims, those whose rights are threatened, and attributes
responsibilities to defend these rights. The author calls this Harm Avoidance Justice (CANEY, 2014).
Nevertheless,
many attitudes towards climate change responsibility lean towards
Burden-Sharing Justice and not to Harm Avoidance. Avoiding climate change
demands some sacrifices. To recognize the necessity of some sacrifices is to
take seriously the need of creating and sustaining an institutional context
that leads people to follow through with their responsibility of mitigating
climate change and making real adaptation possible (CANEY, 2014).
Thus,
Catterton et al. (2012) believe that by developing a climate justice policy
which clearly articulates the antagonistic relationships of an unequal
capitalism is it possible to build a pre-figurative space and to extend
interclass solidarity practices, from north to south of the planet. Hence,
climate change activism provides a direct criticism to ecological
neocolonialism and to neoliberal globalization.
Thus,
according to Elliot and Cook (2016), a climate justice approach towards climate
policy stimulates both individual and collective responsibility and can have a
positive influence on mitigation efforts. This can range from inspiring
individuals choosing inspiring lifestyles to protect future generations to
states which had benefited from prior industrialization supporting mitigation
and adaptation efforts of less developed countries. These same authors quote
the definition given by Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice
: Climate Justice connects human rights to development in order to
create an approach centered on human beings, safeguarding the rights of the
most vulnerable and sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change in a
more equitable and fair manner.
Moreover,
climate justice also means to recognize the vulnerable and marginalized of
every country/nation. Climate change is most destructive to those who already
are affected negatively by other forms of structural inequality within their
own countries. Thus, the poor and the indigenous people frequently are the most
vulnerable ones (ELLIOTT; COOK, 2016).
It
is, therefore, essential that climate justice debates and decisions include the
voices of indigenous/native peoples, because the existence and the well-fare of
these communities depend on climate justice. Indigenous perspectives and
traditional knowledge should orient the assessment and the adaptation to
climate change in order to develop culturally appropriate strategies (FERGUSON,
2018).
Furthermore,
the impacts might be more heavily felt depending on gender, class, ethnicity,
age, and special needs of a person. Especially at risk are women in these
groups, for they have limited access to resources and suffer from weak legal
protection of their rights and less significant participation in
decision-making (ELLIOTT; COOK, 2016).
Hence,
Butzke and Thibes (2011)
reinforce the idea that the resolution of environmental problems must also
involve the resolution of social ones, and this is not always considered in
federal, state and regional plans and policies, nor in knowledge production,
nor in social movements.
Indeed,
the intensification of global warming and climate change has led to the
increasing incorporation of global justice issues to climate justice. Indeed,
climate justice offers its own path, with its own dilemmas and possibilities.
It is a scientifically measurable, totalizing experience which creates new
growth opportunities for countries that industrialized later. This path
requires a proactive strategy set within a limited timeframe and a
comprehensive, yet radically challenging, epistemology. Thus, the emerging dynamics of this climate
justice are forcing large-scale transformations in terms of political contests
(GOODMAN, 2009).
Climate
justice must, therefore, consider which risks should be faced and engaged in a
political process towards a climate adaptation that is not only based on
apparently urgent solutions for today’s anguishing problems. An ideal solution makes
climate solutions which cater to all concerns possible. What is needed it to
look beyond common discussions about distribution and procedure. Instead, it is
necessary to analyze how the inclusion of diversified values and priorities of
affected people can influence what is seen as urgent. In other words, an ideal
solution does not neglect the concerns of some people nor does it worsen their
problems (FORSYTH, 2014).
Thus,
it can be seen that adaptation has been as a mechanism to unite environmental
justice, climate justice, and social justice for the most vulnerable.
Adaptation is also seen as an opportunity to approach many social justice
issues globally. The idea of building adaptive capacity and developing
communities in a fairer manner has become increasingly common among environmental
justice groups (SCHLOSBERG; COLLINS, 2014).
4
CONCLUSIONS
Climate
change has provoked a series of setbacks throughout the planet, pressuring
existing vulnerabilities in some locations, causing damage to agriculture, to
the health of the environment, among other issues, due to the higher frequency
of extreme climate events. Besides destroying areas after floods, droughts,
hurricanes, tornadoes and others, these events change the distribution of
vector-borne diseases or magnify air pollution, damaging the health of humans,
animals and plants.
This
paper has come to the conclusion that the concept of climate change has been
created due to the increased importance of environmental justice and climate
change-related activism. This activism has been focused on the environmental
justice movement and the concern with climate change. It was this concern which
drove the search for ways to help the most affected communities. Then, the
fight to share the burden of climate change emerged, alongside the concepts of
mitigation and climate adaptation.
Climate
change adaptation policies have the potential to reduce social iniquities and
there are significant lessons for their development that can be learned from
local adaptation experiences made by native communities — which generally are
the most vulnerable ones and the ones with the fewest means to mitigate climate
change-related problems.
Thus,
it is possible to learn from local experiences in which native populations,
with their traditional knowledge, develop simple strategies to mitigate local
climate effects and then magnify these strategies in a global scale by using
science and technology.
Another
important point is that the approach towards the causes of climate change must
focus mainly on the responsibility towards emission reduction. For if it
focuses on rights, instead of responsibilities, the result are self-interested
and individualistic demands, instead of global ones. In other words, they remedy the original problem
instead of curing it. If the cause is not solved, individual problems will
continue to appear and get worse throughout the world.
It
has been observed that climate justice policies link human rights to the
development of adaptation projects which are centered on the human being. In
these, the rights of the most vulnerable peoples are defended by sharing the
burdens of climate change and providing a fairer and more equitable solution.
Hence,
climate change offers an opportunity to undertake real sustainable development
on a global scale. Based on the urgent necessity of expanding and transferring
green technology to all regions of the planet, as well as of supporting low
carbon strategies, this sustainable development seeks to join mitigation and
climate adaptation efforts and involve social problem resolution, for this is a
pressing issue that is frequently ignored in policies and projects.
Indeed,
the countries which have benefited, and still benefit, from the emissions of
greenhouse effect gases due to their continued economic development and wealth
accumulation have the moral and ethical duty of sharing these benefits with the
communities which most suffer from the effects of these emissions.
Thus,
the most affected populations — usually from poorer countries — should receive
support through climate change impact adaptation opportunities financed by the
countries which are most responsible for greenhouse effect gas emissions, so
that climate justice be done. And in order to climate justice be effectively
done, action in global scale is needed. It is necessary to share the resources
and climate adaptation skills with all peoples and communities.
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