Global Issues
Accessing Climate Justice -By Kene Obiezu
It is why climate justice is so important. Since it has been conclusively shown that those most endangered by climate change are the worlds poorest people, working for climate justice invariably means working for them and in the process, shaping a more equal world.
For those who live and work for a world at peace, the recognition is real that such a world will remain utopian without justice.Justice has many forms and feelers. Long recognized as an irreducible ingredient of every concrete civilization, the quest for justice is as old as man itself.
Societies that have been convulsed by conflict at different periods in their history have come to recognize that without justice, no solid society can be truly and sustainably built.
A world at risk
For the environment, for nature, the threat is real indeed. The statistics are truly sobering.
Even random statistics show that carbon dioxide levels are at their highest in 2 Million years with the earth losing 1.2 trillion tons of ice each year. In 2019,302.4 billion work hours were lost to excessive heat.
According to the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change, 85 per cent of the worlds population is impacted by climate change.
According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the last decade was the hottest in 125,000 years, and stabilizing the climate will require strong, rapid, and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and reaching net zero carbon dioxide emissions.
Climate change is intensifying the water cycle which brings more intense rainfall and associated flooding, as well as more intense drought in many regions.
Climate change is affecting rainfall patterns. In high latitudes, precipitation is likely to increase, while it is projected to decrease over large parts of the subtropics. Changes to monsoon precipitation are expected which will vary by region.
Air pollution kills about nine million people per year. It could also become too hot to live in many places by the end of the century.
Justice for the climate
Given the rate at which the climate is being devasted, there is no doubt that climate justice has become a most pressing issue.
Climate justice is a concept that addresses the just division, fair sharing, and equitable distribution of the benefits and burdens of climate change and the responsibilities to deal with climate change. It is essentially a term used for framing global warming as an ethical and political issue rather than one that is purely environmental.
Essentially, it means trying to ensure that people and the planet are treated fairly in the way attempts are made to reduce further climate changes for example by cutting down the amount of fossil fuels burnt to produce energy, which is known as mitigation, and adapting to changes brought about in the climate, for example by developing crops that are resistant to droughts where rainfall levels have dropped as a result of climate change, which is known as adaptation.
Climate justice is so important because it forces people to work with and protect communities bearing the brunt of devastating hurricanes and accompanying flooding, disproportionate exposure to toxic substances, chronic flooding, premature deaths and chronic illnesses.
According to the Mary Robinson Foundation, the core principles of climate justice center around respecting and protecting human rights, supporting the right to development, sharing the burdens and benefits of climate change equitably, ensuring that decisions of climate change are participatory, transparent and accountable, highlighting gender equality and equity, harnessing the transformative power of education for climate stewardship and using effective partnerships to secure climate justice.
Internationally climate change is linked with an agenda for human rights and international development, and sharing benefits and burdens associated with climate stabilization as well as concerns about the impact of climate change.
As things stand, the grave threats faced by the environment approximates the threat that humanity itself is facing.
It is why climate justice is so important. Since it has been conclusively shown that those most endangered by climate change are the worlds poorest people, working for climate justice invariably means working for them and in the process, shaping a more equal world.
Kene Obiezu,
keneobiezu@gmail.com
