‍Shifting the narrative on the climate crisis

The climate emergency and global systemic racism are indelibly linked, as a new parliamentary report researched and funded by the Runnymede Trust makes clear. Understanding this connection is vital if we are to create climate policies that actually work, writes Nannette Youssef.

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On 19 May, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Race and Community launched a new report, A Vision for Climate Justice: Tackling the climate and nature emergency and global systemic racism. Based on an inquiry that brought together people of colour and Indigenous communities from across the globe into the UK parliament, the report investigates the relationship between the climate and nature emergency and global systemic racism. It demonstrated the devastating impact the former is having on people of colour and Indigenous communities, who are disproportionately losing their lives and livelihoods as a result.

From Brazil, where droughts are decimating Indigenous farming and fishing practices, to Nigeria, where rampant oil extraction in the Niger Delta is leading to a stark rise in birth defects and infant mortality rates doubling, the evidence is clear: the climate emergency has already begun. 

An Indigenous environmental activist from the Tato’a Indigenous Association in Brazil described the situation their communities face: ‘Here where I am, I feel the earth and sky changing. The weather before was regular, there was rain and drought, but now it’s confusing, there’s no rain and there’s more drought. The rivers are getting lower, the fish and animals are gone. The sun is hotter. 

‘For me, this is a sign of the earth hurting. From my point of view, the instigators are strange men who arrive, cut down trees, burn the forest, take gold, disturb the earth. They don’t understand when we say that the earth lives, that the forest is a mother. They just want to take and take and take, and they never give anything. The forest suffers, the earth suffers, we suffer.’

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‘The Global North has been responsible for 92 per cent of all excess emissions’

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The communities hurting the most have also done the least to create the climate and nature emergency. Historically, countries in the Global South have had, and continue to have, lower carbon emissions per person than the global average, making them less responsible for the climate and nature emergency. Over the last 150 years, the Global North has been responsible for 92 per cent of all excess emissions, with just 8 per cent coming from the Global South.

The origins of the climate and nature emergency are also rooted in the histories of European slavery and colonialism, which established the model of a global extractive economy that exploited people, eco-systems and raw materials from the Global South for profit in the Global North. 

As grassroots campaign group Clean Air for Southall and Hayes told the inquiry: ‘Our economic system has at its core the notion that in the pursuit of capital accumulation and profit, some people can be sacrificed, and that has overwhelmingly been people in the Global South. We have to understand the connection between slavery, colonialism and racialised capitalism, which creates the conditions for the climate crisis.’

Throughout, the report explores possible solutions to the disproportionate impact of the climate crisis on people of colour, including a commitment to reparations, the establishment of due-diligence legislation – which would require businesses to actively identify, prevent and mitigate potential human rights and environmental harms within their operations and supply chains – and bolstering a social security system to support people of colour in the UK. Witnesses to the inquiry described how any solution to the climate and nature emergency that aims to be truly sustainable must tackle its structural causes.

‘There needs to be a holistic acknowledgement that it’s not just an inequality in wealth, it’s also an inequality in terms of political systems,’ said Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins of War on Want. ‘If there was just a one-off reparations payment made but we left in place tax loopholes, unfair trade relationships, and the global debt crisis, the reparations would have little impact.’ 

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Debt justice, climate reparations and tax reforms

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With this in mind, the inquiry identified three areas where intervention is necessary to address inequalities in the impact of the climate and nature emergency:

• Debt justice: Countries in the Global South face an enormous burden of debt owed to corporations primarily in the Global North. These vast debts impede their ability to address and mitigate the climate and nature emergency. Research submitted to the inquiry by the NGO Debt Justice shows that lower-income countries spend five times more on debt repayments than on addressing the impact of the climate crisis.

• Climate reparations: Witnesses described climate reparations as a form of compensation from countries that have historically contributed the most to the climate and nature emergency to countries that are now disproportionately suffering from this emergency and which have historically done the least to contribute to it. Research by Debt Justices calculates that rich, polluting, Global North countries should pay $192 trillion in compensation to low-emitting countries in the Global South as compensation for the greenhouse gas pollution at the heart of the climate crisis. 

• Tax reforms: Inquiry participants described how billions of pounds are lost every year through the current tax system, which facilitates the highly unequal distribution of wealth, driving deeper levels of inequality in the UK and globally. This money could be used to fund a just transition, providing the finance and resources necessary to help to transform our societies so they can better respond to the climate, nature and equality emergencies.

By platforming these systematically marginalised voices and experiences, the report shifts the narrative on the climate and nature emergency to one that acknowledges the devastating effects it is having today. It also provides an important framework for how the UK government can develop inclusive climate and nature policies that can deliver a truly just transition for everyone.

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Nannette Youssef is the Runnymede Trust’s policy manager


The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Runnymede Trust.

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