Content warning: This piece discusses police brutality, murders by police, and state violence. Please use discretion in reading and sharing.
Around the country and around the world, Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color are leading movements, sharing wisdom, and producing joy in order to create sustainable livelihoods and build a better world. As emphasized by this year’s IPCC report, it is essential to uplift these communities and center environmental justice to best reduce the devastating implications of climate change.
Recently, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a body of experts convened by the United Nations, released their latest report on the condition of the planet regarding global warming and climate change. This year, the message is clear: 1) no more fossil fuels 2) now. Given that all planetary degradation disproportionately impacts Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color in the United States and around the world, and is linked to crises of public health, food security, and migration, we stand firm in our call that the leadership of these communities must be centered in addressing these urgent concerns. There are none more familiar with the devastating impacts of environmental degradation on communities of color, and it is therefore these very communities that hold the knowledge and expertise and continue to be at the frontlines of the work needed to address the problem.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was created in 1988 with the objective of “provid[ing] governments at all levels with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies.” The IPCC includes 195 member countries and uses the scientific knowledge from thousands of papers to provide Assessment Reports. In 2015, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21), the Paris Agreement was signed by 196 parties. This document popularized the IPCC’s recommendation of curbing global warming below 1.5° Celsius, which would mean saving drastically more ecosystems, environments, and life from degradation, disasters, adaptations, and loss compared to 2°C or higher.
This year’s IPCC report established that the global average temperature has risen to around 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels, arising from unsustainable use of our planet’s land, while emphasizing the unequal contribution of greenhouse emissions globally. Currently, CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions account for about 76 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions and the report highlighted the need for net-zero CO2 emissions, which is decisive to staying below the 1.5°C threshold. It also stated that projections of CO2 emissions from existing and planned fossil fuel infrastructure will lead to the global average temperature to go over 1.5°C. While emphasizing the narrowing window of opportunity humanity has to take immediate mitigating action, the panel advised that “prioritising equity, climate justice, social justice, inclusion and just transition processes can enable adaptation and ambitious mitigation actions and climate resilient development.”
Alarmingly, in the same week the IPCC synthesis report was released, the Biden administration approved the ConocoPhillips’ Willow Project, an oil drilling project on Alaska’s North Slope on federal lands, despite the strong opposition of the nearest village, Nuisqut. In contrast, the Indigenous village has expressed concerns over health and environmental impacts and tirelessly advocated for the government to prevent its implementation. Furthermore, this project contradicts the administration’s prior promises to end new oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters, as well as the IPCC’s latest recommendations meant to limit environmental loss and harm. The approval of the Willow Project is the continuation of colonial and extractivist legacies of the country in which profit is prioritized over the wellbeing of our planet and its life.
It is the shameful truth that the United States has the highest cumulative CO2 emissions on our planet than any other country to date, and is responsible for a quarter of all historical emissions. In the Environmental Protection Agency’s latest breakdown of sources of greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, the largest sources were transportation (27%), electricity (25%), industry (24%) and commercial and residential (13%), with the primary cause for each sector identified as the burning of fossil fuels for energy, fuel, and more. The United States’ emissions go beyond those emitted domestically; the U.S. military emits more CO2 than many nations. According to the research from Brown University, the Pentagon would be the world’s 55th largest CO2 emitter if it was a country. At this intersection of capitalism, imperialism, and planetary devastation, we know that global Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color are most impacted.
Such militarization is also ongoing within the United States. In Atlanta, the escalation of state violence that has resulted in the murder of Indigenous forest defender Manuel Esteban Paez “Tortuguita” Terán, 23 activists being charged with terrorism, and daily intimidation of activists is dedicated towards ensuring the construction of Cop City. However, the Stop Cop City movement has bravely stood their ground against state violence and environmental degradation, joining the frontline communities of Jackson, Mississippi; the island of Puerto Rico; Flint, Michigan; and others in demanding justice in the forms of care and action that centers the abundance and sacredness of life in all forms.
Around the country and around the world, Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color are leading movements, sharing wisdom, and producing joy in order to create sustainable livelihoods and build a better world. As emphasized by this year’s IPCC report, it is essential to uplift these communities and center environmental justice to best reduce the devastating implications of climate change. To do so, it is also necessary to deconstruct systems of capitalism, white supremacy, colonialism, and imperialism that gave rise to global warming to begin with. This looks like investing in Black, Indigenous, and Communities of Color, divesting from fossil fuels, demilitarization, and giving land back to Indigenous communities. These measures seem extreme, because the extreme situation we are in demands it—that is justice.
The United States has long been at the forefront of these oppressive systems and it is past time we uplift the communities dismantling them and producing life-centered alternatives and worlds; we are our future. It’s time for each of us to do our part in building up the movement for environmental justice by critically reflecting on the world we inhabit and hope-fully imagining better worlds. Let’s ask ourselves: Which forms of abundance can we build? What life can we sustain? What joy can we produce? How can we center the voices and leadership of Indigenous communities and people of color in the conversation about environmental degradation? And then, let’s take the lead, together.
Featured graphic is by Celeste Byers.