Climate change hits women harder
What is climate justice?
Climate justice is a term that acknowledges those most responsible for burning fossil fuels are least hurt by their effects on the climate. It covers differences in age, wealth and race, as well as gender, sexuality and disability. It also includes policies protecting workers reliant on fossil fuel industries from the switch to clean energy. We re all in this climate crisis, but we re not all in it together, wrote Georgetown University philosopher Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò in DW newsletter Undercurrent in March.
Each year, rich countries like the US emit about 10 times as much carbon dioxide as poorer ones like India, and about 20 times as much as a country like Nigeria. The imbalance of emissions is skewed even further because industrialized countries have been polluting the planet for longer.
Earth Day and the environmental movement
While more ambitious climate targets are very encouraging indeed, said Prakash Kashwan, a professor of political science who researches climate justice at the University of Connecticut. Big emitters like the US and EU should explicitly recognize the carbon debt they owe the rest of the world instead of using their domestic actions to cajole other countries. Lead from the front by delivering actual emission reductions.
Climate ambition
The 40 world leaders who met virtually for Biden s two-day summit are responsible for 80% of the yearly greenhouse gas emissions that are heating the planet and wreaking havoc in the form of worse droughts, cyclones, floods, heatwaves and wildfires.
Young climate activists taking part in a demonstration called by youth for a true law on climate, in Nantes, western France, in March 2021. AFP
JUST weeks after security forces allegedly killed her friend and fellow human rights defender Melvin Dasigao and eight other campaigners, Filipina activist Mitzi Jonelle Tan was back on the streets protesting. Stop funding our destruction, the 23-year-old shouted outside British bank Standard Chartered at a demonstration in Manila last month against the financing of coal plants.
As critical UN climate negotiations loom, young activists from countries already feeling the impact of the accelerating destruction of nature are rising above the challenges of living in remote areas – and even threats to their lives – to sound the alarm.