What is climate justice?
I am not going to begin this op-ed by providing an Oxford Dictionary definition for the term ‘climate justice.’ While tempted to do so, it wouldn’t encompass the movement that is sweeping youth around the world. I am a climate activist at 13 years old, middle-schooler organizing strikes and political actions in southern Maine. My vision of ‘climate justice’ will be different from most who might be reading this. My main inspiration for activism is wildlife and the effects the climate crisis has on the natural world. So in my eyes, climate justice pertains to the right the natural world has to thrive. To accurately define the phrase, one must decide what climate justice means to oneself. For many, it means the impoverished across the Earth.
Low-income communities, in the U.S. and throughout the world, are especially vulnerable to climate change. They are the people living closest to the oil refineries, the factories. In the event of a natural disaster, they are the ones swamped with water, mud, and fire. When I say ‘they,’ it is disproportionately families of color, immigrants, and women. Familiar images associated with people suffering from climate-related issues come from abroad — farmers in Guatemala, hungry without their sun-parched crops. The families in Australia, choking on heavy smog from the bushfires. In reality, there are struggles much closer to home. Hurricane Harvey dropped 27 trillion gallons of rain upon 13 million people, most of whom were uninsured and without means to recover.
There is a cruel irony in this situation. Those affected the most are often the ones with the most sustainable lifestyles. They are the ones who end up with nothing, while others dwell in their soaring New York penthouses. The indigenous peoples of Canada and America are having their water tainted, their fish are disappearing, and their children imperiled. All this, after they took care of their homeland and traditions for 15,000 years. Where is the dignity, the equity?
Mothers in these situations are suffering, facing the fact that their children won’t grow up in a healthy, thriving environment. It is the youth around the world who face a ticking clock. Young climate activists around the world are screaming: ‘Our lives are in your hands!’ The hands they refer to are all the people in power who won’t take action. Likewise, my future is held by politicians who won’t live to see the crisis they have created.
It has been made clear, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that we have 10 years to put the brakes on catastrophic carbon emissions. That is the whole of my entire lifetime, and at the deadline, I will be 24 years old. Climate change could destroy my life, and that isn’t hyperbole: 42% of the world’s population are youth — my generation is the physical representation of climate justice.
Governments denying scientific evidence on climate change violates citizens’ rights. The 14th amendment to the Constitution states that “Nor shall any state deprive any person of life or liberty.” Can one deny that having clean water and air is liberty? Alternatively, that having a stable planet to live on qualifies as a prominent aspect of life?
The current Juliana vs. the U.S. supreme court case tackles these questions. Twenty-one youth plaintiffs sued the Trump administration for not taking sufficient action to uphold their right to a healthy climate. The case has been attempted to be dismissed numerous times, most notably by the fossil fuel industry — with obvious ulterior motives — posing as defendants.
In addition, youth are protesting government inaction with grassroots organizing. See the example of New York City on the global climate strike of September 20th, with over 300,000 people taking to the streets. Or where I live in Maine, where the 20th actions compelled the mayor of our largest city to declare a climate emergency.
Even though my belief in the phrase ‘climate justice’ is centered around youth and wildlife, the term is really linked to all societal issues. Each individual can better understand the emergency we are living in by drawing a connection from their lives, their identities, to the climate crisis. So my message for one today is to think. For one person to put down their coffee, detach from their technology, and think about these words I have written. Think about what climate justice means to them. Think about how they would write that dictionary definition, and be a part of the kind of justice that will change the world for the better.
Note: The views of the author may not reflect the views of U.S. Youth Climate Strike. This piece was originally published in an edition of The Portland Press Herald on April 30, 2019.
Anna Siegel is a 13-year-old youth climate activist from Portland, Maine. She is the Maine State Lead of the ME Strikes chapter of US Youth Climate Strikes. ME Strikes’ current campaigns are mobilizing youth to demand that adults be “climate voters” in both the presidential and Senate primaries and to advocate for local and state declarations of climate emergency. Anna also works with Maine Youth for Climate Justice, a youth environmental coalition that ME Strikes is a part of. She is the youth representative on the Community Resilience, Emergency Management, and Public Health working group of the Governor’s Maine Climate Council. Anna is also an active member of the Sierra Club of Maine Political Team.
