Some people just don't
get it when I tell them that systemic racism
and environmental destruction are linked.
But both have roots in the horrors of slavery
and the British Empire.
Lives were ruined, resources were stolen,
and racist ideas were used to
justify it.
And it's not ended,
people of colour from London to
Lagos are still paying the price.
It's air pollution
hitting people of colour harder in the UK.
It's Indigenous Peoples across the world
who come second to our need for oil and palm oil.
It's communities who are left dealing
with the waste we dump back on their shores.
This is the story
powerful people and corporations
don't want you to know about.
You won't have learned in school that systemic racism,
the British Empire, and climate change are all linked.
And you won't find the media
talking about how it plays out today.
But let's go back a bit.
It was racism and racist practices
that were used to justify environmental destruction
by the British Empire in countries like Nigeria
and India.
When the slave trade was abolished, the British ruling
class went looking for other ways to make money.
As the Industrial Revolution took off in Britain,
whole swathes of Nigeria were colonised by the British
through the Royal Niger Company.
The British
were after palm oil to sell to British manufacturers
who needed it to grease their new machinery
The Royal Niger Delta Company
was bought by a UK business
looking for palm oil, a key ingredient
in their famous Sunlight soap.
And who did that company become?
One of the biggest corporations
in the world today,
Unilever.
Then it was the 1850s
and British companies went looking for fuel to power
their new steamboats and railways,
firing up the world's fossil fuel obsession.
In India, British corporations
bought land people were living on
so that they could mine their dirty coal.
They forced people to work in these dangerous mines
which polluted the air and water.
The coal was brought back to Britain and sold to line
the pockets of British elites.
During the tyranny of the British Empire,
45 trillion dollars was siphoned
out of India into the hands of the British.
Britain came to one of the richest countries
in the world in the early 18th century
and reduced it after 200 years of plunder
to one of the poorest.
All of that is really not known anymore.
Later on, Winston Churchill changed the British
Navy fuel supply from coal to oil.
That's when the British government bought Nigeria.
The British government bought Nigeria
this really did happen.
In 1900, Britain officially assumed responsibility
for the administration of the whole of what we
now know as Nigeria from the Niger Company
as this ceremony recalls.
This meant that they could give exclusive access
to oil-rich land to British company Shell,
guaranteeing a long term supply of oil.
This had a devastating impact
on the local population and the environment.
Shell has shamelessly raked in the profits
from the Delta region of Nigeria ever since.
The relentless extraction
of coal and oil would land us here
in 2022, in a climate and nature crisis.
Up until 1882, more than half
the world's emissions came from the UK alone.
The richest and most industrialised
countries are responsible
for 90% of excess greenhouse gas emissions.
This has led to the heating of the planet,
causing extreme weather events
across the globe,
which disproportionately affect people of colour.
The three countries most affected by extreme
weather events in 2019
were Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Bahamas.
In 2019, Mozambique was hit
by two massive cyclones,
causing hundreds of deaths and catastrophic damage.
Yet it contributed just 0.02%
of global carbon dioxide emissions.
Across India,
Bangladesh and Pakistan,
extreme weather events caused by climate change
displace more than ten million people each year.
My own family's village in Bangladesh
has been severely affected by both
flooding and drought.
Not only is the extraction of resources
and burning of fossil fuels leading to the destruction
of people's lands and livelihoods,
but racism is being used to justify it.
This destructive global economic system
continues to rule our lives today.
Corporations continue to plunder for raw materials
such as fossil fuels, palm oil, grain, soya
and fish without regard for local people.
Take fish, for example.
African waters are emptied of fish by big corporations
at the expense of local communities,
only to be used in fish farms,
pig feed and cosmetics in Europe and Asia.
Meat and dairy production is also responsible
for the deforestation of indigenous land in Brazil,
to grow soya for animal feed.
The soya is used to feed
cattle and chickens on British farms, and the profits
never make it back to local Indigenous people in Brazil
but go to giant agricultural businesses
and UK supermarkets like Tesco.
Racist ideas about Indigenous people have been used to
justify the theft
of their land and attacks on Indigenous rights.
Indigenous people in the Amazon
have defended their land against profit-hungry
governments and corporations for decades.
And many, many, Indigenous activists who have spoken out
have been murdered.
Not only is Indigenous land being destroyed
for the products on our shelves,
the plastic waste these products create
is then dumped in other countries.
The UK government exports half of the waste
that they claim is recycled.
40% of this goes to Turkey, which just doesn't have
the infrastructure to deal with it.
You might remember Unilever from the start of our story.
Well, this British Empire-linked company is now
one of the biggest plastic polluters in the world.
We mentioned Unilever's thirst for palm oil at the start
of the British Empire, and well, incredibly,
it's still happening 100 years later.
Palm oil is an ingredient in everything
from Dove soap to Magnum ice cream.
Unilever's palm oil supply chain is linked
to 250,000 football pitches
worth of deforestation in Indonesia.
And that's just in the past three years.
As well as human rights abuses
against Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
The lives of people of colour here in the UK
are being affected too.
People of colour in the UK are much
more likely to live close to incinerators
breathe dangerous and illegal levels of air pollution
and have less access to green spaces and gardens.
Right now, as we face
the worst cost of living crisis in 50 years,
over half of ethnic minority children in the UK
are already living in poverty,
with that figure set to rise.
Waste incinerators are three times more likely
to be built in the UK's most deprived neighborhoods
than the least.
To look at just one example,
an incinerator in Edmonton North London,
where 65% of residents are people of colour,
is going ahead despite protests.
Concerns about peoples lives
in Edmonton weren't listened to.
But plans for an incinerator in wealthy Cambridge
were dropped because of concerns
that it wasn't in keeping with historical buildings.
Lives, or buildings?
The environmental emergency and systemic
racism are two sides of the same coin.
We can't tackle one without tackling the other.
We need to move away from an economic system
that treats people of colour across the world and nature
like resources to be mined for profit
to one that's grounded in restoring nature,
local economies and allowing everyone to thrive.
We must shift power and resources to community
leaders, activists and experts within communities of colour
who are facing destruction and discrimination.
Big corporations are happy fuelling the climate crisis
and this toxic economic system.
As energy prices and bills continue to surge, Shell
has announced record profits of more than £7 billion.
We must call out those most responsible
for causing the environmental emergency.
Mr van Beurden, I just want to start by saying
that you should be absolutely ashamed of yourself
for the devastation
that you have caused
to communities all over the world.
Shell has spent millions
covering up the warnings from climate scientists.
They want us to be divided into neat activist groups,
never uniting or building enough power to actually win.
And they try to distract us with their glitzy
PR campaigns.
They hope that we focus on our individual actions
rather than centuries of exploitation.
They want us to blame each other for the climate crisis.
But we're determined to build a powerful,
diverse movement to win a fairer world.
We know the real villains are the powerful people
burning and looting our planet for profit.
And we know that it's only together, united
that we can defeat them.