Did you know that climate change does not impact all people equally?
While nobody can entirely avoid climate change, some groups are more impacted than others. Groups that have been historically marginalized by oppressive societal systems, such as racialized people, Indigenous people, disabled people, and people living in the global south, are experiencing greater and more immediate impacts of climate change.
This reality is the basis of Climate Justice, a field of work which recognizes the disproportionate impact of climate change on marginalized communities while working to implement solutions. Today we will explore some of the Climate Justice work happening at UBC. I hope this blog post allows you to consider climate change through a new lens, and to recognize the unique, multifaceted ways that you engage with climate and the environment.
The Centre for Climate Justice at UBC was established in 2021. It recognizes challenges related to taking action against climate change, including that climate change disproportionately impacts people already impacted by other injustices. Grounded in this knowledge, their mission is to “diversify the expertise and perspectives represented in climate justice theory, policy, and research” and to “connect often-siloed issue areas between climate and housing, or climate and care work.” These actions will help address the disproportionate impacts that marginalized communities are experiencing, increasing the intersectionality of climate activism work.
An example of the Centre’s work includes the ‘Right to Cool’ Knowledge Exchange workshop, led by Liv Yoon and the Centre for Climate Justice, and facilitated by Olive Dempsey. The workshop occurred in June 2024 and brought together community members to discuss innovative ways to combat extreme heat. By exchanging knowledge with the community and addressing issues like housing policy in relation to extreme heat, the event put the principles of Climate Justice into action.
The Centre has also supported initiatives that recognize the emotional, phenomenological ways that people experience climate change. They collaborated with Future Ecologies to create the podcast series “The Right to Feel.” In the podcast, UBC students share their emotions surrounding climate change, uncovering new layers through storytelling and personal reflection.
I find this podcast extremely compelling, unique, and distinct from the ways information about climate change is typically presented. “The Right to Feel” recognizes that climate change is not only an empirical, scientific issue. It is also a deeply emotional issue that impacts different people in different ways. Depending on our backgrounds, identities, and experiences, engaging with climate change can be shocking or routine, energizing or exhausting, paralyzing or motivating. It can spark passion in some while causing avoidance and denial in others. Climate Justice recognizes these emotional realities and aims to integrate climate change activism into other areas of social justice work, such as anti-racism, Indigenous truth-telling and reconciliation, and working to end the housing crisis.
When we ground our climate work in this understanding, we are better able to effectively and equitably work with people to combat adverse changes to the climate. The Climate Justice framework allows those most impacted by climate change to be represented equitably in decision-making. It leads to better climate activism outcomes, since the actions of researchers will be aligned with the needs of communities most impacted.
Human beings are guided by emotions. Even when we know climate change is a pressing issue, we may hesitate to engage with information about it, discouraged by feelings of fear, anxiety, and grief. You may come to the table with vastly different conceptions and experiences than I do. My research into the Centre for Climate Justice’s work has led me to conclude that humanity’s best strategy to combat climate change is to embrace our differences. Information-sharing and solution-making must realize that climate change intersects with every other injustice in our society, and engaging with those injustices is emotional, personal, community-driven work.
I hope you have enjoyed this dive into Climate Justice. To wrap up this blog post, I invite you to consider three questions about climate change and your relationship to it:
- What parts of your own identity and life experience affect the way you think about climate change?
- What emotional responses do you feel when you read, talk, and learn about climate change?
- How might you move forward with your answers to those questions, integrating your identity, experiences, and feelings into the ways you take action for our climate
Feel free to comment your takeaways down below, or keep them in a journal, notes app, or sticky note on your fridge.
As always, thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next month with another exploration of EDI issues in our community.
Web Resources:
Right to Cool Knowledge Exchange Workshop
Mission and Mandate – Centre for Climate Justice
“The Right to Feel” Podcast by Future Ecologies – Centre for Climate Justice
Scholarly Resources:
Srikanth, R., & Thompson, L. (2024). Climate justice and public health: Realities, responses, and reimaginings for a better future. University of Massachusetts Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.16148239
Gardiner, S. M., Obst, A., & Taylor & Francis eBooks EBA. (2023;2022;). In Obst A. (Ed.), Dialogues on climate justice (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003123408
Lake, O. O. (2024). The story is in our bones: How worldviews and climate justice can remake a world in crisis. New Society Publishers.
UBC Researchers:
Glen Coulthard, Yellowknives Dene and associate professor in the First Nations and Indigenous Studies Program and the Departments of Political Science
Amanda Giang, Assistant Professor in the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability and the Department of Mechanical Engineering
Maggie Low, Co-Chair of the Indigenous Community Planning (ICP) program at UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP)
View more faculty here