Understorey: Women of Colour call for Climate Justice

Climate Justice addresses climate effects that are borne by peoples who have had no real connection with causing the problem, nor have they gained any special benefit from the historic exploitation of fossil fuels.

Thus global warming has sometimes been called climate colonialism, while climate justice has been linked to racial justice, because the poorest of the poor tend to be people of colour.  Because of this structural violence of climate consequences, there should be a systematic redistribution of resources, and differential policies and institutions, that would reduce global inequality, and pay for climate adaptation by poorer countries at the richer countries’ expense.
Today Understorey features women leaders of colour attending the first day of COP26, each separately calling on world leaders to make practical plans connected with their heart and their genuine will to act: we hear from Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, powerfully laying the call for action at the feet of the polluters; environmental advocate for Samoa, Brianna Fruean, speaking up for island states around the world; and Kenyan environment campaigner, Elizabeth Wathuti, daring world leaders to admit and face the consequences of climate disaster, not just in the future, but as it is happening in Africa right now.

Photos: UN Climate Change