What is Climate Justice?

Climate justice is a vision to dissolve and alleviate the unequal burdens created by climate change. As a form of environmental justice, climate justice is the fair treatment of all people and freedom from discrimination with the creation of policies and projects that address climate change and the systems that create climate change and perpetuate discrimination.

WHO is climate change affecting the most? 
Global warming, or climate change, is fundamentally an issue of human rights and environmental justice. With rising temperatures, human lives—particularly in people of color, low-income, and Indigenous communities—are affected by compromised health, financial burdens, and social and cultural disruptions. These communities are the first to experience the negative impacts of climate change such as heat-related illness and death, respiratory illness, infectious diseases, unaffordable rises in energy costs, and extreme natural disasters. Not only do they bear disproportionate burdens from climate change itself, but also from ill-designed policies to prevent climate change and the side effects of the energy systems that cause it as well. Moreover, those who are most affected are least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that cause the problem—both globally and within the United States. EJCC member organizations work on the ground with and within these very communities to address the negative impacts and develop positive solutions.

WHERE do we need climate justice?
Climate justice organizers are working strategically at the centers of injustice, in cities and communities across the U.S. Climate injustice affects communities both locally and globally. In the U.S., a vast majority of low-income, communities of color are concentrated in urban centers in the Southern United States and along coastal regions–areas at high risk of flooding and major storms, and that have a history of substandard air quality.

The solutions-based fight for climate justice rests in the HOW: 
As a movement, climate justice advocates are working from the grassroots up to create solutions to our climate and energy problems that ensure the right of all people to live, work, play, and pray in safe, healthy, and clean environments. We envision a just transition to a future free from fossil fuels that protects the most vulnerable from the impacts of climate change.

(taken from the EJCC - Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative)

Read EJCC’s 10 Principle for Just Climate Change Policies in the US.