climate justice
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climate justice now two words that we
hear
more and more but climate justice
is linked to racial justice social
justice and intergenerational justice
too
this is why we call not only for climate
action but climate
justice two words that could define the
century
there's no climate justice without
racial justice there is no climate
justice without gender
justice there is no climate justice
without queer justice
but what exactly does climate change
have to do with justice
aren't we all in this together
to understand climate justice we need to
understand climate injustice
who causes climate change and who's hurt
by it
let's first look at who's responsible
for putting carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere
and heating the planet imagine this
grain of rice
is one tonne of carbon dioxide each year
the average person in nigeria adds less
than one grain into the atmosphere
the average person in india two grains
in china seven grains
in germany 10 grains in the u.s 17
grains
in one year the average american
pollutes 20 times more than the average
in nigeria
but the problem with carbon is that it
stays trapped in the atmosphere for
centuries
so it's not just about how much we add
each year it's about how much has piled
up over time
since 1850 that adds up to about 1500
gigatonnes
okay so we wanted to pull loads of these
rice bags on the table to show you how
big that really is but
after doing the math we realized we need
three million of them
historical emissions matter today
because countries are arguing about how
soon they have to cut their net
emissions down to zero
big polluters like china india and
brazil
look a lot less guilty when you consider
they've only recently become part of the
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problem the tendency is to quote the
annual emissions
but that doesn't tell us anything about
you know why are
why we are in the correctness this is
prakash kashwan
a political scientist researching
climate justice he says rich countries
haven't accepted how unjust climate
change really is
it's mind-boggling the kind of
inequalities that have
brought us to the current climate crisis
they're unbelievable and they aren't
talked about enough
in 2020 research has calculated how far
each country is responsible for pushing
co2 levels beyond a safe threshold that
we crossed in 1990
the study takes into account how many
people live in a country how much they
emitted throughout history
and includes emissions that cross
borders through traded goods
the research shows that rich countries
have outspent their carbon budgets
by a lot the global north has emitted 92
percent of the co2
that pushed the planet beyond safe
levels asia africa the middle east and
latin america have emitted just eight
percent
even a massive emitter like china is
only just using up its carbon budget now
but if you live in a country that runs
on fossil fuels this doesn't mean
climate change is your fault personally
but some of your choices do still make a
difference
because it's not just about where you
live but also how much you spend
the world's richest one percent emits
twice as much of the poorest 50
and those elites live all over the world
unequal emissions are one big reason why
climate activists
are shouting about justice
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everyone already is is affected by the
climate crisis just on a very different
scale but if we look at the people
ruling germany and sitting at these
decision tables for the past decades
they have not faced their responsibility
they are destroying our environment
i think they need to act now
not later but hold up
co2 heats the planet by the same amount
whether it comes from germany or kenya
the climate doesn't care about geography
well
geography cares about the climate
the second part of climate injustice is
that even though poorer countries have
done the least to change the climate
they're the ones getting hurt the most
take heat waves and drought
heat waves are becoming most unbearable
across africa where droughts are even
more punishing for crops
then there's storms warmer air means
that hurricanes and typhoons carry more
energy and unleash more rain and
stronger winds across the tropics
and by 2050 sea levels will have risen
so high that floods which used to hit
once a century
will strike many coastal cities every
single year
you can check out one of our other
videos to see how some cities are trying
to keep themselves afloat
the inequalities of climate change come
together hardest in a country like india
even those people have barely
contributed to global warming they're
among the most vulnerable
india's coastal cities are facing
unprecedented floods while its rivers
dry up
leaving farmers struggling to grow
staples like rice and wheat
india is one of the most in equitable
countries
in the world and we what we can see is
that even if you take a city like
mumbai when floods happen in the city
it's the poor
that are the most impacted this is
paella perek
a climate scientist who campaigns
full-time for climate justice
having grown up in a country like india
i grew up with inequality all around me
and this is essentially what it comes
down to the world
is very unequal and it's playing out
in terms of climate change as well but
that inequality is found within rich
countries too
black and brown people in countries like
the us or the uk are typically poorer
than white people
and that means they have less money to
spend on air conditioning to adapt to
heat waves or flood insurance to rebuild
after storms
so how can we make it fairer well
polluting countries can first turn off
the co2 tap and start removing their
pollution from the atmosphere
then they could pay reparations for
using up more than their fair share of
emissions some countries and companies
are already doing something similar by
paying poor countries to not chop down
forests
and instead plant trees but instead of
using that saved carbon to atone for
their climate debts
they're using it as an excuse to keep on
emitting
so climate evaporations have to be part
of that discussion and climate debt in
particular
is where we think about who is you know
we kind of
uh divide up who is responsible for
the kinds of um ecological changes and
and
um climate changes we we're seeing in
societies but also the kinds of
climate induced disasters that countries
are facing
this is kesten perry a political
economist studying climate justice
he says reparations are needed to
balance the scales but
that they won't be enough it is an
interim measure
when i say that i mean it has to be we
have to have a sort of much more
longer term conversation around the
economic system that we have
uh nurtured and cultivated globally
um that have resulted in these kinds of
disasters and what do we do
to not only reform that system but
absolutely overhaul it
reparations might sound radical but rich
countries already agreed to pay poorer
ones to adapt to climate change
imagine each of these peas is one
billion us dollars rich countries
promised a hundred of them each year in
climate finance by 2020
but it's 2021 and they haven't coughed
up
in 2018 they gave 80 billion but most of
it was loans not grants
uk-based charity oxfam found that the
real aid was actually closer to 20
billion
yearly we have not been meeting the
kinds of targets
um that
even global north uh countries have set
themselves
that finance mechanism is not meant to
actually solve the problem
another approach takes climate justice
more literally
holding polluters to account in court
after deadly wildfires tore through
portugal in 2017
six young activists took 33 industrial
countries to the european court of human
rights
for failing to cut their emissions
quickly they argue that the countries
are discriminating against young people
who will have to live with the
consequences of climate change
the verdict is still pending
in germany and the netherlands high
court judges have ordered their
governments to up their ambitions on
cutting emissions
activists also won a case against royal
dutch shell forcing the company to pay
for oil pollution
and are now demanding climate friendly
investments too
so the basic legal argument for
assigning responsibility is your
contribution to
the problem so how much do you emit how
much do you contribute to climate change
greenhouse gas emissions and what is the
possibility uh for
contributing to the solution the
defendants argue that national courts
don't have the right to rule on the
climate because emissions and their
impacts are global
but a new generation of activists are
fighting for them to take exactly that
responsibility
and give them climate justice
people have no idea how unjust the
climate crisis is and that's why we're
making videos about it every friday to
help you understand
so if you like what you saw then hit
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