A key component of building solidarity in the fight for climate injustice is recognizing and uplifting the crucial on-the-ground work being done in communities all over the world. Asad Rehman, executive director of War on Want, co-founder of the COP26 Coalition, and organizer for climate, racial, economic, and social justice, is a leader on the frontlines of the climate justice movement. Recently, he spoke with Adele Walton from the Tribune on how global inequality is reproduced by colonial legacies, and the need for an anti-colonial climate justice movement. 

There are close ties between the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and climate justice. Rehman points out that, in a global crisis where no one is safe until everyone is safe, the Global North has instead competed with the Global South for personal protective equipment and vaccines. Compounding upon the preexisting climate, poverty, and healthcare crises founded upon debt-creating, exploitative infrastructure, the Global South was left to spiral further into the pandemic. 

Yet, this pandemic is just one of many cases of global inequality originating from colonialism. The very economic systems, institutions, and policies that constitute our world overwhelmingly benefit the richest, a flow of money which has been created and continued through the eras of slavery, colonialism, imperialism, and now neoliberalism. These systems “also created a colonial mindset which is that some parts of the world and people — overwhelmingly Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor — can be sacrificed. And it is this logic that underpins the crisis of inequality, the COVID pandemic, and now the climate crisis,” said Rehman. 

Rehman also recounted his experience at COP26, calling the international summit a “betrayal of the people, a betrayal of science, and a betrayal of justice.” It was deliberately structured in a way that was inaccessible and inequitable particularly for the Global South. With these historically oppressed populations physically barred from negotiation rooms and unable to voice their demands, the Global North was able to manipulate the outcome of COP26 in their favor. In this way, COP26 was a perpetuation of power imbalance and inequity. 

In order to solve the climate crisis, we must also conscientiously address the crises of inequality. Rehman calls for reparations through rebalancing the world economy, an equitable sharing of resources, and for the Global North to pay their fair share. “This call for reparations is recognition not only for the need for transition,” said Rehman, “but also for the harm that the Global North has done on the Global South and that it needs to repair that harm.”

Here at the Center, we recognize that these struggles are all deeply linked and are dedicated to advancing a truly intersectional climate justice perspective. Climate justice cannot exist without economic, racial, and social justice, and we grow our power by analyzing the linkages between them. The solutions we need are already out there, created and advocated for by this diverse movement — and our work begins by elevating their voices. 

Arielle Lee

Editor-in-Chief