How To Centre Racial Justice in the European Green Deal: 5 Proposals from Union of Justice
At Union of Justice one of the things we’ve been doing is building a vibrant people of colour network made up of European activists, campaigners, researchers, artists and changemakers. We’ve been creating this network because if we really want to defeat the climate crisis, we must urgently place the people on the frontline of its harshest effects at the heart of the conversation. And to do this we have to empower and equip them with the skills and knowledge to bring about change in their communities. We’re proud to say we currently have 1200+ members and are still growing. We consulted our network and got their thoughts on the European Green Deal and what they would like to see from it.
One thing that was made clear was that we believe the European Green Deal should fundamentally be about winning a lasting justice. This means rooting out, taking responsibility for, and fixing inequality and injustice wherever it exists in our society. Economic, social and environmental justice are inextricably linked with racial justice.
Therefore, the European Green Deal must deliver justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing the historic oppression of communities of colour, migrant communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and the youth.
The effects of the climate crisis everywhere are massively unequal and unfair. It was created by the privileged few, but hits communities of colour and marginalised communities the hardest. And without a radical and rapid change of course, this unjust trend adds itself to all the other profound historic injustices people of colour across Europe face.
We can’t appreciate the real toll of the fossil-fuel sector visits on populations if we’re not looking at it through the combined lenses of environmental devastation, racial justice, economic inequality, and public health. Communities of colour and marginalised communities are more likely to live near power plants and other highly polluting factories, and they suffer higher levels of asthma (especially among children) and greater risks of early death from air pollution. Marginalised communities and communities of colour, often concentrated around main roads in major cities, suffer the terrible consequences of decisions made by people who often have little to no idea of their plight.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also exacerbated the disproportionate impacts of fossil-fuel pollution. People of colour have been more likely to die from the disease. Preliminary science indicates that long-standing inequalities in exposure to air pollution could be an especially deadly risk factor for COVID19. The European respiratory review has reported that studies have pointed out that air pollution may be a contributing factor to the coronavirus disease. As well as a recent study by the University of Denmark finding that people living in areas with dirtier air had a higher level of inflammatory cytokine cells, leaving them more vulnerable to the virus.
As ambitious as it is at the moment, the European Green Deal has many flaws and we believe that it does not meet the challenge at hand, because it leaves intact the basic economic architecture that has created the social and ecological crises we face today - an economy centred on growth and profit rather than people and planet. The model presented in the European Green Deal assumes the fantasy that we can achieve increased rates of economic growth while at the same time dramatically reducing our CO2 emissions. We, in response, maintain that we must abandon GDP growth as the primary measure of progress and instead maintain that we need to focus on what matters directly to human wellbeing and flourishing: equal access to health, education and a stable and rich natural environment.
Since the European Green Deal is only, at best, a partial solution to the climate emergency, and given the short timeline we have to put the brakes on to avert the worst effects of the climate catastrophe, we call for improving the existing European Green Deal while simultaneously proposing a more radical restructuring of our economy that addresses global and racial inequalities. Below are our five demands that we will be taking to policy makers, elected representatives, representatives of EU institutions, and to anyone who is willing to work with us in building a greener Europe and world that is truly equitable, just, and sustainable.
1) Social & Economic Equity
A concentrated proportion of the benefits of the European Green Deal must go to the marginalised communities that have endured and continue to endure disproportionate economic and environmental hazards. The European Green Deal must therefore seek to counteract systemic racism and economic exploitation by giving hard-hit communities priority access to new job opportunities, job training resources, cost savings technologies, pollution cleanup projects, community grant funding, and climate resilience initiatives. This also includes ensuring equal access to clean energy, electrification, efficiency, and transportation funding, grants, and other incentives. Funding from the European Green Deal for parks and public lands must be distributed equitably between urban, suburban, and rural areas.
2) Fully Survey & Track Pollution in Marginalised Communities
We call on the European Commission to provide comprehensive reports on the cumulative environmental impacts on marginalised communities, on a bi-yearly basis. Member states must also be required to report progress made on environmental justice every two years. All surveys and research must be co-produced with marginalised communities. In addition, it is important that researchers and scientists represent a broad cross section of diverse disciplines and communities, so that research studying frontline communities involve researchers and scientists who understand and are from those same communities. On the back of this, marginalised communities must receive significant public education, technical assistance, as well as generating public-facing data and platforms to help communities learn about the impacts of the climate emergency.
3) Establish an Office of Climate Justice Accountability
The challenge of confronting the climate crisis cannot be separated from the question of social justice. The European Green Deal must ensure that marginalised communities don’t get left behind in the green transition while at the same time taking action to redress inequality, exploitation and extraction in Europe and around the world. To ensure this, the commission will establish an office of Climate Justice Accountability. The office will identify and eliminate barriers to inclusion, investigate dubious practices, monitor the progress of the green transition and require all environmental legislation or regulation introduced by the European Union to receive an equity score created by climate experts and community organisers. It will also make sure that all facets of the EU commission are being held accountable for climate equity.
4) Coordination & Democratic Accountability
Each government actor involved in carrying out the European Green Deal must be required to coordinate through a European-level interagency process to ensure that marginalised communities are consulted and actively involved in carrying out this plan. In addition, the European Climate Pact must be scaled into a mass citizen consultation where voices from marginalised communities are supported and amplified.
5) Climate Reparations
The European Green Deal must build bridges of cooperation and coordination between countries, not walls between them. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, nation-states that have now joined the European Union were some of the world’s biggest emitters of carbon pollution and, as a direct result, have become some of the world’s wealthiest nations. This largely happened at the expense of the Global South as a result of colonial and post-colonial relations. Europe therefore has a moral obligation to compensate those countries and communities negatively impacted by climate change due to European Member States’ collective failure to take reasonable steps to limit their emissions in the past and today. The European Green Deal must thus compensate countries for past wrongs, through reparations that unlock funds and resources to the benefit of front-line communities affected by centuries of colonial rule and the legacies of extraction and exploitation it left behind. A first step and essential step towards repairing this historic injustice is for European member states to immediately engage in a wide ranging programme of debt cancellation towards nations in the Global South, so as to break at least one link in the long history of extractive exploitation.