Climate Justice is a Hard Line
Why hundreds walked out of the UN climate conference and foreshadowed the devastation of Super Typhoon Odette
Christmas celebrations looked very different this year in the parts of the Philippines hit hardest by December’s Super Typhoon Odette. Many families were left homeless and hungry, searching for food to scavenge on Christmas day. Worse yet, many mourned family and friends who remain missing or have been discovered dead since the superstorm. Unfortunately, disasters of this caliber are becoming less and less unusual. Research shows that the intensity of tropical storms is increasing due to climate change, and projections based on worse-case warming scenarios predict that typhoons in this region could be two times as destructive by 2100.
The Philippines is experiencing some of the worst effects of climate change. Yet ironically, the nation is contributing very little to global temperature rise. The average carbon footprint of a person in the Philippines is 1.22 tons of carbon emitted per year. Compare that to the United States, where the average carbon footprint is 15.52 tons of carbon emitted per person per year. While other parts of the world are contributing more to the problem, countries like the Philippines are shouldering some of the worst effects. This is why the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has created a mechanism for loss and damage, which seeks to both minimize and respond to the impacts of climate change around the world. At COP26, the UNFCCC’s conference on climate change, mobilizing the finance to address loss and damage in low-income countries was one of the major interests of environmental justice advocates.
“What is the worth of our forests and oceans, our cities and villages? You could put a number on it, but to most of us, they are priceless.”
On the final officially scheduled day of COP26, hundreds of protesters walked out of the UN diplomatic zone carrying red rope in protest of the “red lines” that had been crossed amidst the negotiations. One of the major areas of demand was for high-income nations to follow through with finance to ensure that least developed countries (LDCs) don’t have to bear the burden of climate impacts alone, especially since those climate impacts have been primarily created by the emissions of wealthy nations. The high-energy march began in the People’s Plenary session and disrupted the usual business-like nature of the “blue zone,” or the official UN zone of the conference.
As we marched, the chant “What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!” echoed through the halls. I was approached by a reporter wanting to speak about what, more specifically, it would mean to achieve climate justice. In responses, I mentioned the need to mobilize climate finance for least developed and climate-vulnerable countries. The reporter followed up by asking how much money, exactly, would be necessary. I didn’t have an answer to that question, and I still don’t. The number on everyone’s minds is the one hundred billion dollars that were pledged in Copenhagen back in 2009, to be delivered from higher to lower-income countries every year between 2020 and 2025. This number has already become a broken promise. But even if the hundred billion dollars is eventually delivered, on a global scale it seems more like a drop in a bucket than a lifeline. How much is needed then? There are many development experts who have thought a lot more deeply than I have about the specifics of questions like how much, to whom, when, and how. Yet, even then, I don’t know if definitive answers exist.
What is the worth of our forests and oceans, our cities and villages? You could put a number on it, but to most of us, they are priceless. As we approach the existential issue of climate change, sometimes there simply aren’t definitive answers. Yet, at COP26, many of us came looking for them. We hoped for a clear plan that will hold us to 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming and keep us safe for generations. And yet, by those standards, COP26 was a failure. As an international community, we didn’t hold to 1.5 degrees of warming, instead, we’re headed towards something more like 2.4. And, the climate impacts we face due to warming aren’t just a risk looming far out in the future, they are here right now, hitting us hard in places ranging from the Philippines to, most likely, our own backyards.
While there aren’t always clear answers, there are red lines that we shouldn’t be willing to cross. Leaving the least developed countries behind is something we cannot consider. When we respond to climate change, climate justice should be a guiding commitment. We need to take responsibility for the legacy of emissions that mostly lies with wealthy nations. We must respond with all of the tools at our disposal, including climate finance, to support those most vulnerable and prevent the direst impacts of the climate crisis for all.
