Environmental justice - what it is and why it is important

Environmental injustice is an often less studied area by many. The effects and the costs of adaptation activities often are not equally distributed. which means the poor and the vulnerable are more exposed to them.

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Why the poor and the marginalised suffer more

Unequal burden sharing
Climate change is often seen as a problem for which wealthy economies of the North seem to be held responsible for, but where the burden of finding solutions is leading to many justice struggles in places in the global South.

The demand for solutions is opening up new commodity frontiers in the South and we can see environmental justice struggles sprouting up. We can see regularities that connect individual and local sites of conflict. There is an increasingly urgent need to address this unfairness.

Add to that, many of the environmental crises caused by climate change seems to be hitting the less developed countries, which already have more populations who are less ready and equipped to deal with the impacts.

Why some suffer more
The poor suffer more from environmental impacts because they are the ones with lesser, fewer or weaker defense mechanisms. They are the ones who find it harder to relocate, to use substitutes for resources that they once depended on etc.

The groups of people mentioned above tend to suffer more from environmental crises and the question is, why are there higher concentrations of environmental pollution sources in these communities?

This course seeks to enable the learners to understand the complexities of bearing the impacts of climate change. Environmental laws and regulations may be enforced unequally and certain communities may lack political power, or little representative for them in parliament.

Proceed to the next lesson!

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What is environmental injustice?

Why the poor and the marginalised suffer more.

Environmental decision making

Environmental justice, climate change and equity

What is environmental justice?

Imagine some of us in the world who live in places exposed to pollution and some inconveniences caused by climate change, and some of us who are not really affected. Why the unfairness?
Environmental injustice has been around in our societies for a long time, and it is often also something governments close an eye to. Why do some have to live in places that out them in some form of harm to their health?

Environmental justice ensures that everybody has the means and ways to cope with, or at least to a certain extent are able to deal with environmental challenges and problems. Or at least have some kind of choices or a way out.
It is important to have this equity as societies are formed in big ways on how resources are distributed and shared.

Climate change, environmental impacts and injustices

Why are the effects of climate change unevenly felt and unfairly dealt with? What is environmental justice, and why does it matter?

Environmental justice refers to the fair or even redistribution of environmental benefits and burdens, regardless of economic status of people, skin colour, or ethnicity. Environmental justice supports the policies about the environment and strengthens environmental laws. Equal distribution of resources and laws regarding pollution is key in environmental justice.

As the effects of climate change worsens, there will be more places suffering from its effects and more people suffering from its effects and deeper.

How certain groups of people seem to suffer more

Environmental injustice is caused by many factors, including discriminatory siting of facilities and infrastructures that exacerbates the externalities that occur from climate change effects, misguided regulatory policies, unequal regulation enforcement, and unequal political power.

Certain groups of people like the poor and the marginalised end up suffering more due to their inability to move, the limited ability to relocate, and the little or limited access and means they have to access resources.

Indigenous people for instance, often find themselves on the receiving end of such injustices. They live close by to facilities that pollute which are not able to be sited elsewhere.

What is dreadful is that the contaminants from mines and factories can move into the water, air and soil, where they affect the flora and fauna Indigenous people rely on for traditional hunting, fishing and gathering.

We hope you enjoy this course, and write to us if there is anything we can help!
Email: kevinphun@yahoo.com

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Environmental justice - why it matters

Injustice and equity

Ethics in environmental sustainability

Measuring the impacts of environmental injustices

Environmental justice - why it is important in the global climate change action

How certain groups of people can better live with effects of climate change is important in the global fight against climate change.
Why environmental injustice matters
The principles of environmental justice support and strengthen environmental laws through equal distribution of resources and laws regarding pollution.

The global fight against climate change requires greater collaboration; collaboration that includes diversity. The current pandemic the world is going through, the covid 19 virus, is increasingly seen as an example of climate injustice.

Why environmental justice is critical to fighting climate change

Social movement and politics of environmental justice

Environmental actions - adaptation and mitigation

Unequal Enforcement

Regulators are also guilty, in at least some instances, of applying enforcement initiatives inequitably. Advocates for environmental justice often contend that low-income communities of color experience disproportionate environmental harm because of unequal enforcement of environmental protection laws and regulations in these communities. Some believe that regulatory capture has resulted in lackluster detection and penalty. For example, politicians in the southern United States have been accused of lax enforcement of environmental regulations in order to profit from outside industry relocating to their jurisdictions.

Empirical evidence confirms that low-income areas are not subject to the same level of enforcement as more affluent areas. The role of race, independent of income, in influencing enforcement decisions is less clear. Moreover, the concentration of enforcement efforts in more affluent communities may ultimately be a function of political influence being disproportionately focused in these communities. Regardless, because governmental enforcement provides a powerful incentive for firms to abide by regulations, it merits special attention as a solution to environmental injustice.

Climate adaptation and mitigation in environmental injustice
Adaptation strategies will hence become more complicated

The barriers to adaptation and mitigation

Climate change adaptation and mitigation and their impacts on the poor

Implications of environmental injustice

The fight against environmental injustice

Enabling fairer distribution of environmental benefits

How can we reduce the disproportionate exposure of the mentioned groups of people to environmental harms?
There has been protests by indigenous peoples in parts of the world, reacting against what we have been talking about in this discourse.

There hence has been greater awareness of the situation these people groups face, and many people are calling actions to be taken.

Fair distribution of environmental benefits is only possible when there are policies that direct the allocation of resources more fairly. Who should be involved in the process of ensuring a more fairer distribution?

Progress

Environmental injustice is something that will need time to be resolved, or reduced. Fighting injustices requires a rebalance of access to resources; a rebalancing of the way risks are shared.

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Fighting environmental injustice

Distribution, procedure and recognition