For good: Climate activist Greta Thunberg joins pro-Palestinian supporters in Stockholm during their demonstration against Israel Defence Forces attacks on the Gaza Strip in which thousands of people have been killed. Photo: Narciso Contreras/Getty Images
What is climate justice? It recognises that climate change doesn’t affect people equally. People who are disadvantaged and marginalised are affected more by climate change. It is seeking justice for people who have very little to do with the problems associated with climate change, yet are suffering its effects the most.
It is something associated with groups in the civil society space; these groups are advocates for rights and better lives for people who are set to suffer the harshest impacts of climate change.
Climate change is a hot topic at the moment as the UN Climate Change Conference (COP) unfolds in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. For me, the conference often lacks credibility, especially because richer countries are usually unwilling to make serious financial commitments to help developing nations deal with the climate mess they have caused.
COP28’s president is Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, a chief executive for the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. He also recently said there is no science to suggest phasing out fossil fuels will reach the targeted goal of 1.5°C. Bye-bye to the little bit of credibility the event might have had.
Climate activists are usually seen protesting at these events, demanding an end to fossil fuels and fighting for the rights of indigenous groups who barely have a voice on the global stage.
The famous climate justice activist Greta Thunberg recently said that there can be no climate justice on occupied land. She also questioned why a certain country was given a space at the event to greenwash while waging a war, a war where thousands of innocent people are dying.
Do you see where this is going?
The issue of climate justice hits particularly hard when looking at the Palestine situation. How can Palestinian people be afforded any sort of climate justice when they are facing genocide. They don’t have any normal justice in the first place.
How can one consider fighting a climate extinction when a human extinction is happening in front of our eyes?
Israel commits atrocious crimes against Palestinian people without any repercussions yet they have a stand at COP28 greenwashing (deceptively persuading everyone that they are environmentally conscious) while denying people the right to water, electricity, gas, fuel and other such crucial elements.
The fact that Israel has a stand at COP28 is highly questionable. What is the point of giving the country a space to engage in climate dialogues and technology to lower carbon emissions when children in Palestine are dying because incubators can’t work after fuel ran out thanks to the blockade of Gaza. People are suffering, dehydrated and starving and the stench of corpses fills the air. Yet, Israel features on the pavilions at COP28.
People cannot fish beyond a certain point and their crops are damaged by occupation forces. Until those disasters are remedied, the world should not give attention to their spiel on green initiatives, desalination projects or that they plan to go carbon neutral by 2050.
We care about the genocide; we care about more than 6 500 children who have died in the last month and a bit.
If climate justice is your thing but you have nothing to say on the plight of the Palestinians, I suggest you take up a new civil rights movement.
There is a colonial power taking someone else’s land with violence and force. The resources are taken, there is land grabbing happening at scale and human life has no value.
The issue of land and the climate crisis is not one that is extensively discussed. Land can be highly valuable and profitable, depending on what is found underneath it. Land, and the resources it has, for decades has been the cause of death and wiping out of people. Look at colonialism, look at the African continent and the plundering of its resources.
Now land is a massive talking point in Palestine. The land has steadily shrunk since 1948 when Israel was dispatched to the region. There is very little room for people in Gaza and Palestine, that land is all they have and they are not so subtly being moved out of it.
If you look a little closer at credible media outlets, you’ll see that under Palestinian land, there are vast swathes of oil and gas reserves. Israel is very keen to get its hands on this land. Various media reports have indicated that the end goal of the Palestinian bombardment is to have the people displaced and shifted into the Sinai desert so that proper exploration can take place.
Licenses have already been issued for exploration to companies like BP. There is widespread belief that Israel wants to be a major player in oil and gas.
Climate justice and the Palestinian justice situation are linked.
You cannot be an advocate for one and not the other.
Groups such as the Climate Justice Coalition have been vocal about the injustice. This is what they had to say in a statement:
“Palestinian liberation, like all anti-colonial struggles, is a climate justice issue. The colonial and neocolonial dispossession of peoples to facilitate resource and land grabs is a key driver of climate injustice. It contributes to the climate crisis by facilitating the extraction of polluting resources like oil and gas, and degrading lands which might otherwise serve as climate sinks.
“It also makes people, especially indigenous, poor, and black communities, increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis by displacing them from their homes and starving them of access to vital resources like water, food and land.”
In a piece for The Guardian Greta Thunberg recently wrote, “We won’t stop speaking out about Gaza’s suffering — there is no climate justice without human rights.”
Take Israel out of COP28, it has no regard for human life and climate justice. At least leaders of South Africa, Turkey and Colombia, for example, took the time to blast Israel for its genocidal behaviour.
But I still can’t shed the question what the point of such a conference is, while innocent people are being slaughtered.