Environmental Justice and Migration

Wed, Sep 20

The richest tenth of the global population is responsible for half of carbon emissions.

            — Daniel Aldana Cohen, Eco-Apartheid is Real

Think about it. This means that for every one person in the richest tenth of the population, they are polluting as much as 9 people in the other 90% of the population. 

This statistic, albeit disappointing, is not surprising. The implementation of capitalism has allowed individuals to thrive to climb their way to the top, leaving many others behind, and stopping at no means to make profit. The environment is unforgiving in that when one person pollutes, or one company uses coal, typically many others suffer the consequences. 

Meanwhile, according to UNHCR, between 2008 and 2016 an annual average of 21.5 million people were displaced each year by weather-related events such as floods, storms, wildfires and extreme temperatures. Climate-driven migration is expected to surge in coming decades, with the Institute for Economics and Peace estimating that as many as 1.2 billion people could be displaced by 2050 due to climate change and natural disasters. Climate-driven migration will pose intractable ethical and political challenges, and may be the greatest humanitarian threat posed by climate change. Climate change drives conflict and political instability, which only increases displacement, which in its turn increases conflict and political instability.

What is justice and how do we acheive it in a world threatened by ecological crisis? What are the ethics of living with climate crisis? If it is true that those who have contributed to the least to global carbon emissions, namely the world's poor, are likely to suffer the most from climate change and the political instability it will generate, what should we do about that?

Goals:

• Expand your vocabulary related to environmental justice, such as disposable people and eco-apartheid
• Contemplate ways you can reduce the disparity in environmental justice
• Develop a better sense of the relation between racism and climate change
• Understand climate displacement