Delay in helping the poorest at COP27 broadens debate on environmental racism

At the end of COP27, the UN climate conference (United Nations), in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, created a fund for damages — that is, a way to indemnify more vulnerable countries for damages that cannot be more to be remedied—but deferred the practical questions of how these resources will actually reach nations.

This issue entered the official COP agenda for the first time in this edition. The final agreement, even though it is a step forward, provides, however, only for a committee to be installed to define the criteria for the new mechanism, putting its operation to no earlier than 2024.

Those on the front line reminding us of the urgency of paying for damages are developing countries, especially island nations that are at risk of disappearing because of the climate crisis.

“We have been fighting for a long, long time to ensure that all countries talk about this issue,” says the head of Global Policy Strategy at the Climate Action Network organization, Harjeet Singh.

“It is racism at its core that the problems of developing nations have never been prioritized and that rich countries always push for mitigation. [das emissões]: because they know that carbon emissions anywhere will affect them too.”

Environmental racism can be defined as the structure that makes certain groups of people, defined by ethnic origins, more vulnerable to changes in the environment. This can happen on a global scale, as in the case of disputes over damages, or on a local scale.

“This happens in several ways”, explains the architect and urban planner Dulce Maria Pereira, a professor at the Federal University of Ouro Preto and a researcher at the Federal University of Maranhão. “Whether in the exposure of populations to risks, or in the constant degradation of the environment, or in the absence of public policies for environmental preservation.”

As consequences, she also mentions, there is the forced displacement of populations and a low quality of life. An example of frequent environmental racism in the Brazilian scenario is the lack of basic sanitation —instead of a right, it becomes a privilege.

According to 2019 data from the Continuous National Household Sample Survey, 41% of blacks do not have access to the sewage collection network, while among whites the number drops to 25.5%.

At COP27, conversations about environmental racism reached President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), at an event with civil society on Thursday (18). Stating that “climate justice does not exist without confronting racism”, historian Douglas Belchior handed the PT a letter from the Black Coalition for Rights, which brings together more than 200 entities.

The document calls for prioritizing the agenda of environmental racism in Brazil, a country with a black majority.

“Perdizes is a geographically rugged neighborhood, with a hill, and there it can rain as much as it will not collapse any house, because that region is adapted,” said Belchior at the event, referring to the middle-class neighborhood in the west zone of the capital. paulista.

“But when it rains in Jardim Pantanal, it floods and it takes two weeks for the water to go down. .

Pereira points out that floods are a problem that affects the black population in particular. “There is no way to say that there is no technical or technological solution for this. There is no investment, there is no application of knowledge in the use of technology and there is no political will. That’s all”, he opines.

Known as the “father of climate justice”, American theorist Robert Bullard explains that the phenomenon is replicated around the globe. “We see some of the same patterns of environmental racism as in the United States happening around the world, with those who contributed least to the climate crisis feeling the effects of the crisis first, longest and most intensely.”

The US government, the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in history, despite having agreed to the creation of the fund for damages, said, at the beginning of COP27, that it does not have the money for repairs.

“If you broke it, you are the one who should fix it. With resources, public policies, technical assistance, technology transfer. You don’t leave these countries behind”, charges Bullard. “Environmental, climatic, racial, economic justice is a single justice. A single movement.”

Environmental racism, quite visible in cities, also affects indigenous peoples and traditional communities, such as quilombolas and riverside dwellers, even far from urban centers, recalls Pereira.

These communities, points out the researcher, are often exposed to contamination by toxic waste, which comes, for example, from pesticides used in agribusiness or waste from mining and prospecting.

The general coordinator of Apoinme (Articulation of Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of the Northeast, Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo), Paulo Tupiniquim, says that there is a landfill in the village where he lives, in Aracruz (ES) —right inside the Tupiniquim Indigenous Land, Approved since 2010.

The presence of the landfill has an impact on water resources, which, in turn, harms the livelihood of families, who depended in part on fishing. “Today you can no longer do [a pesca] because of this pollution.”

In addition, several indigenous lands do not have access to sanitation, he points out. “Many territories do not even have garbage collection. We are people, we generate garbage in a certain way and it needs to be sent somewhere. And it is the government’s job to do that.”

_{Reporter Jéssica Maes traveled to Sharm el-Sheikh, in Egypt, at the invitation of Instituto Clima e Sociedade (iCS).}

_{The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.}