Racial capitalism, climate justice, and climate displacement

Abstract

This article expands our understanding of climate justice by demonstrating how racial subordination, environmental degradation, and the fossil fuel-based capitalist world economy are interrelated. It uses these insights to critique the emerging legal and policy responses to climate change-induced displacement and to examine alternative approaches emerging from climate-vulnerable states and peoples. The article argues that racialized communities all over the world have borne the brunt of carbon capitalism from cradle (extraction of fossil fuels) to grave (climate change) and that a race-conscious analysis of climate change and climate displacement can reveal the commonalities among seemingly distinct forms of oppression in order to forge the alliances necessary to achieve just and emancipatory outcomes. Este artículo amplía nuestra comprensión de la justicia climática al demostrar cómo la subordinación racial, la degradación medioambiental y la economía mundial capitalista basada en los combustibles fósiles están relacionados entre sí. Se parte de estos enfoques para criticar las respuestas emergentes de tipo jurídico y político al desplazamiento provocado por el cambio climático y para analizar abordajes alternativos provenientes de estados y pueblos vulnerables por el clima. El artículo argumenta que las sociedades racializadas de todo el mundo son las mayores damnificadas por el capitalismo basado en el carbón, desde la cuna (extracción de combustibles fósiles) hasta la tumba (cambio climático) y que un análisis del cambio climático y del desplazamiento subsiguiente que tenga en cuenta la raza revela las características comunes de formas aparentemente distintas de opresión, de cara a forjar las alianzas necesarias para conseguir resultados justos y emancipatorios.

Climate change, COVID-19, and the co-production of injustices: a feminist reading of overlapping crises

“…In broad terms, climate justice is about systems change and addressing structural inequities and power systems that uphold those inequities (Di Chiro, 2011;Forsyth, 2014;Gardiner, 2011;Gonzalez, 2021;Roberts & Parks, 2009;Robinson & Shine, 2018;Schlosberg & Collins, 2014). Critical approaches to climate justice look at issues of responsibility, exposure, vulnerability, and ethics.…”

Political ecology II: Conjunctures, crises, and critical publics

“…For instance, Indigenous tribes in Brazil self-isolated during the pandemic for protection while using the pandemic to strengthen further a collective resistance to state-sponsored industrial extraction and conflicts (Menton et al, 2020). However, resistance endeavors are frequently most visible and repressed at resource extraction frontiers, commodity frontiers, and sites of encroachment, where justice is either delayed, denied, or ignored (Gonzalez, 2021). Resistance movements that challenge capitalism’s fixes demonstrate the overarching importance of collectivizing and solidarity-building as strategies and lived experiences of resistance and for envisioning alternative futures and more just relationships with nature (Dunlap and Jakobsen, 2020).…”

Improving women's energy access, rights and equitable sustainable development: a Ghanaian perspective

“…Drawing on these observations, gender and sustainability should therefore be implemented as shared and complementary processes. To do so, however, it is necessary to establish a common conceptual framework to ensure gender equality through the promotion of energy justice at the policy level (Bulkeley et al, 2014;Whyte, 2020;Gonzalez, 2021). Such methodology should draw upon locally relevant best practices.…”