No other crisis in the history of humanity has been as all-encompassing and existentially threatening as the one caused by climate change. The impacts of climate change have already started to unfold all over the world. However, they are mostly seen in fragments and in the forms of natural phenomena such as scorching summers, deadly floods, or fierce cyclones. For ordinary people these events appear to be isolated, regional, and natural, with little scope for human intervention. However, it cannot be denied that climate change is literally fossil-fuelled by human activities, and today it has taken the shape of an impending collective catastrophe.
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Efforts are, however, being made through policy intervention and technological transition to arrest the further rise of global temperature and thus to mitigate the impacts of climate change. What receives comparatively less attention in our response to climate change is the concern for social justice. Anything that is directly or implicitly linked to collective life and well-being cannot afford to overlook its relation to social justice.
The concept of social justice is based on the idea of just and fair treatment of all the members of the society. In practice, social justice is understood as a social arrangement which ensures that everyone in the society has equitable access to resources, rights, and opportunities. Nevertheless, the real world is replete with discriminations and inequalities which find myriad manifestations in our everyday life.
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The question of social justice in the context of climate change becomes more significant not only because it exacerbates existing inequalities, but it can also give rise to new forms of inequalities and injustices. We have already witnessed that climate change made the competition for resources fiercer and its impacts are felt disproportionately within a nation and across the nations. Poor, vulnerable, and marginalised people are the first and the worst victims of this competition. It may unleash a kind of social Darwinism by making the prevailing inequalities starker. Those who fail to cope with or are less equipped to adapt to these changes may eventually get perished. Nevertheless, it should also be acknowledged that climate change is neither purely natural as it seems nor is it guided by the Darwinian principle of natural selection. Rather its anthropogenic character should make us understand climate change — both its causes and effects — in the context of social justice.
Living on the edge
Climate change will accentuate the existing inequalities further, especially the economic one that divides the world into rich and poor. Poor people lack the means to withstand the changes triggered by climate change. Economically, socially, and even geographically they are placed in a far more vulnerable position with far greater exposure to the impacts of climate change. Climate change will lead to their further impoverishment, leading to more social unrest. Frequent and violent civil wars in African countries witnessed in recent times are not solely motivated by political dominance; climate change-induced insecurity of life and livelihood is one of the major contributing factors. What is ironic is that the people who are going to be the worst victims of climate change are the one who had contributed the least to its causes. Historically, poor people or the poorer countries emitted lesser amount of carbon than the developed nations which prospered at the cost of the environment. But now the way carbon-disciplining is being imposed, it is going to affect the poorer people and nations unfairly. However, this does not imply that poorer nations are to be allowed to emit their share of carbon into the environment. What is needed is sincere attention to the question whether climate action is leading to social injustice by unfairly punishing some people for the “misdeeds” of others, whether the victims of this injustice are properly listened to and helped out.
The clamour for climate justice, therefore, rightfully emerges as a legitimate demand. Climate justice shifts our focus from identifying climate change with rising temperature and melting of glaciers to its consequences in human life. But this is not enough. For climate justice to actualise, it is important that we realise that the consequences of climate change will not hit us all in the same way. The difference in experiences of climate change, however, is not limited to the division between rich and poor. Gender, race, tribe, community, culture — all these factors demand a more nuanced and inclusive approach towards climate action. So, the crisis brought about by a uniform yet uneven vision of human progress cannot be cured by the same kind of uniform response. Rather than reiterating and accentuating older injustices, climate action, guided by the principle of social justice, may become an opportunity of undoing the previous misdeeds.
hazra.nirupam@gmail.com