3 Climate Activists Making Change in Their Frontline Communities
Illustration by Ada daSilva/Getty Images
BIPOC leaders pursue visionary solutions proportional to the climate emergency we face.
May 12, 2021
The year 2020 illustrated to the world that the overlapping issues of climate and racial justice can no longer be ignored. A pandemic that disproportionately killed people of color and record-breaking wildfires that displaced thousands unfolded amidst international protests for racial justice spurred by George Floyd’s killing and the Black Lives Matter movement. We are living through the climate emergency every single day.
Communities that have contributed the least to the climate crisis are now bearing the brunt of its effects. Total emissions from 100 poor and vulnerable countries account for less than 5% of global emissions, according to the International Institute for Environment and Development, while the U.S. and China combined account for more than 40% of the world’s carbon emissions. In the United States, Black, Indigenous, and people of color are at greater risk because they often live in areas exposed to environmental crises, such as areas prone to flooding and rising sea levels, and often are unable to access infrastructure needed to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of extreme weather. The escalating climate crisis is a human rights crisis, evident in forced displacement and dispossession, along with impacts on access to food, water, housing security, and cultural identity. The world is increasingly at risk of “climate apartheid,” where the rich pay to escape heat and hunger while the rest of the world suffers, states a 2019 U.N. report.