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After doing some research on brazilian youth advocates on climate change, I was able to find out about a 27 year old activist called Paloma Costa. She has work towards climate injustice since she was an undergraduate law student, and was chosen to speak at the opening of the Climate Change Summit in NY in 2019, alongside the secretary general of the UN, Greta Thumberg and another activist called Anurag Saha Roy.
Link to video about who is Paloma Costa: https://youtu.be/ELjUY6qkX80
Link to Paloma’s speech at the Climate Change summit in NY in 2019 https://youtu.be/P9QzCLYamDQ
The countries that have benefited the most from using fossil fuels are big economies located in the northern hemisphere. They will not be the ones to be hugely impacted by climate change due to their influence around the world and economic resources. The countries that will suffer the consequences of climate change are small economies located around the world and that are ecologically disadvantaged due to their locations (close to sea level nations will be the first to disappear, such as bangladesh, Vietnam and the Maldives)
Indigenous peoples are among the first to face the direct consequences of climate change, due to their dependence upon, and close relationship, with the environment and its resources. Climate change exacerbates the difficulties already faced by indigenous communities including political and economic marginalization, loss of land and resources, human rights violations, discrimination and unemployment. Examples include:
- Indigenous peoples in Africa’s Kalahari Desert are forced to live around government drilled bores for water and depend on government support for their survival due to rising temperatures, dune expansion and increased wind speeds which have resulted in a loss of vegetation, and negatively impacted traditional cattle and goat farming practices.
- In the high altitude regions of the Himalayas, glacial melts affecting hundreds of millions of rural dwellers who depend on the seasonal flow of water is resulting in more water in the short term, but less in the long run as glaciers and snow cover shrink.
- In the Amazon, the effects of climate change include deforestation and forest fragmentation and consequently, more carbon is released into the atmosphere exacerbating and creating further changes. Droughts in 2005 resulted in fires in the western Amazon region and this is likely to occur again as rainforest is replaced by savannas thus, having a huge affect of the livelihoods of the indigenous peoples in the region.
- Indigenous peoples in the Arctic region depend on hunting for polar bears, walrus, seals and caribou, herding reindeer, fishing and gathering not only for food to support the local economy, but also as the basis for their cultural and social identity. Some of the concerns facing indigenous peoples in the region include the change in species and availability of traditional food sources, perceived reduction in weather predictions and the safety of traveling in changing ice and weather conditions, posing serious challenges to human health and food security.
- In Finland, Norway and Sweden, rain and mild weather during the winter season often prevents reindeer from accessing lichen, which is a vital food source. This has caused massive loss of reindeers, which are vital to the culture, subsistence and economy of Saami communities. Reindeer herders are being forced to feed their herds with fodder, which is expensive and not economically viable in the long term.
The ethical tension over whether countries have differentiated responsibilities for climate change mitigation evokes the tale of a master and a man. The one who thinks she is the master is analogous to the wealthier, industrialized nations and their market actors, and the human is the rest of humanity, particularly those citizens of less developed countries. Since 1992, there has been formal, stated agreement that there should be differentiated responsibilities for climate change mitigation between developed and developing nations, but differentiation remained a sticking point in negotiations over implementation at Copenhagen in 2009. In my opinion, although all countries played a part in the usage of natural resources and carbon emissions, it is important to consider two factors: who plays a bigger part in these emissions and who has the ability to pay for the damage. After analyzing the roles played by all countries in this situation, it is clear that Global North countries are the biggest actors, and thus have the moral obligation to not only reduce their own emissions but to also promote worldwide change by incentivizing other countries to do the same.
Some systemic changes that Brazil could make that would promote climate justice are: ensure that indigenous lands are demarcated, pass more legislation that holds agricultural giants accountable to their actions, promote the education of the population on the topic of climate change.
