Sources: Environmental Injustice

Particularly influential and summary pieces are marked with a *

General

Reliance on hi-tech solutions to climate crisis perpetuates racism, says UN official (2022, article in The Guardian)

Confronting injustice: racism and the environmental emergency (2022, report by Greenpeace and The Runnymede Trust)

Inaction on global warming amounts to racism – let me tell you why (2022, article in The Guardian)

Unequal Exposure to Hazards

Related to geography

African nations can’t ‘adapt’ to the climate crisis. Here’s what rich countries must do (2022, article in The Guardian)

Africa is being devastated by a climate crisis it didn’t cause. Cop27 must help (2022, opinion article in The Guardian)

Why is Africa bearing the brunt of the climate crisis? – video explainer (2022, video by The Guardian)

‘Africa is on the frontlines but not the front pages’: Vanessa Nakate on her climate fight (2022, article in The Guardian)

Rich nations owe reparations to countries facing climate disaster, says Pakistan minister (2022, article in The Guardian)

Unequal adaptation costs

‘Climate carnage’: UN demands funding surge to save millions of lives (2022, article in The Guardian)

Rich countries must urgently help poor nations hit by climate crisis, says V20 (2022, article in The Guardian)

Pakistani PM says he should not have to beg for help after catastrophic floods (2022, article in The Guardian)

Why should we in Pakistan pay for catastrophic floods we had no part in causing? (2022, opinion article in The Guardian)

Vulnerable countries demand global tax to pay for climate-led loss and damage: Poor nations exhort UN to consider ‘climate-related and justice-based’ tax on big fossil fuel users and air travel (2022, article in The Guardian)

UN chief appeals for ‘massive’ help as flood-hit Pakistan puts losses at $30bn (2022, article in The Guardian)

Eleven nations least responsible for global heating must spend up to 22% of GDP on dealing with effects of it – nations across Sub-Saharan African must spend 5 times the amount they spend on healthcare on climate adaptation (2022, article in The Guardian based on study by Tearfund)

Footing the Bill: Fair finance for loss and damage in an era of escalating climate impacts (2022, report by Oxfam)

Lower income countries are spending over 5 times more on external debt payments than projects to protect people from the impacts of climate change. (2021, report by Jubilee Debt Campaign)

Related to race/ethnicity & income

‘Our community is wiped out’: low-income Americans likely to be hit hardest by Hurricane Ian (2022, article in The Guardian)

UK people of colour four times more likely to live in areas ‘at higher risk from heatwaves (2022, article in The Guardian based on study by University of Manchester and Friends of the Earth)

Millions suffering in deadly pollution ‘sacrifice zones’, warns UN expert – Businesses blamed for rise of toxic hotspots hitting poor communities hardest (2022, article in The Guardian)

Disparities in air pollution exposure in the United States by race/ethnicity and income, 1990–2010 (2021, article in Environmental Health Perspectives)

Related to age/generation

Virtually all children on Earth will face more frequent heatwaves by 2050: New Unicef report finds that in even best-case scenario 2 billion children will face four to five dangerous heat events annually (2022, article in The Guardian based on report by Unicef)

As a science journalist I’m reconsidering having kids. I’m not the only one (2022, article in The Guardian)

Younger generations are expected to face more extreme heat events across their lifetimes compared with older generations (2021, article in Science)

One billion children at ‘extremely high risk’ of the impacts of the climate crisis (2021, report by UNICEF)

Related to abilities

Disabled people being ‘systematically ignored’ on climate crisis, says study (2022, article in The Guardian based on study by the International Disability Alliance and the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism)

Related to gender

The hospital has nothing’: Pakistan’s floods put pregnant women in danger (2022, article in The Guardian)

Interspecies injustice

Justice for Animals (2023, book by Martha Nussbaum, reviewed here in The Guardian)

Unequal Environmental Footprints

The Climate Inequality Report 2023

The World Inequality Report 2022 – featuring videos, statistics and figures on carbon inequality

Emissions Inequality Dashboard – showing inequalities in CO2 emissions across the world and by income groups (e.g. richest 10% produced more than 49% of global carbon emissions in 2015)

Who Is Responsible For Climate Change? – Who Needs To Fix It? (video by Kurzgesagt in collaboration with Our World in Data)

Geographically

Climate Equity Reference Calculator – tool and database that systematically applies a transparent equity reference framework with the goal of quantitatively examining the problem of national fair shares in a global effort to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions

A Good Life for All Within Planetary Boundaries – data and visuals to compare how different countries compare in overshooting planetary boundaries

West accused of ‘climate hypocrisy’ as emissions dwarf those of poor countries (2022, article in The Guardian, based on study by the Center for Global Development)

Nearly $2tn of damage inflicted on other countries by US emissions (2022, article in The Guardian, based on article in Climate Change)

National attribution of historical climate damages (2022, article in Climate Change)

Three Americans create enough carbon emissions to kill one person, study finds (2021, article in The Guardian)

*Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: an equality-based attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary – e.g. the Global North responsible for 92% of all excess cumulative emissions (2020, article in The Lancet Planetary Health)

Related to income

Emissions divide now greater within countries than between them – study (2023, article in The Guardian, based on Climate Inequality Report 2023)

Super-rich’s carbon investment emissions ‘equivalent to whole of France’ (2022, article in The Guardian, based on study by Oxfam)

Enormous emissions gap between top 1% and poorest, study highlights: The top 1% of earners in the UK are responsible for the same amount of carbon dioxide emissions in a single year as the bottom 10% over more than two decades (2022, article in The Guardian)

Scaling Behaviour Change (2021, report by the Cambridge Sustainability Commission)

Carbon emissions of richest 1 percent more than double the emissions of the poorest half of humanity (2020, article by Oxfam)

‘Carbon footprint gap’ between rich and poor expanding (2022, article in The Guardian)

The richest 10% produce about half of greenhouse gas emissions. They should pay to fix the climate (2021, article in The Guardian)

*Confronting Carbon Inequality (2020, report by Oxfam)

Through flying

A 17-minute flight? The super-rich who have ‘absolute disregard for the planet’ (2022, article in The Guardian)

Elite Status: How a small minority around the world take an unfair share of flights (2021, report by Possible)

1% of world population emits 50% of CO₂ from commercial aviation (2020, article in Global Environmental Change)

Unequal Use of Land & Water

Why are we feeding crops to our cars when people are starving? (2022, opinion article in The Guardian)

*NOT ZERO: How ‘net zero’ targets disguise climate inaction and driving huge land grabs, particularly in the global South (2021, joint technical briefing by climate justice organizations)

How much of the world’s land would we need in order to feed the global population with the average diet of a given country? (2017, analysis by Our World in Data)

Extractivism

Illegal fishing spurs billions in losses for developing countries, study says (2022, article in The Guardian, based on report by Financial Transparency Coalition)

Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015 (2022, article in Global Environmental Change)

Tracking human rights violations & environmental impacts in lithium batteries supply chains in China, DRC & So. America (2017, collection of resources by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre)

Profiting from Environmental Injustice & Destruction

Calls for bigger windfall tax after Shell makes ‘obscene’ $40bn profit (2023, article in The Guardian)

Revealed: How world’s biggest fossil fuel firms ‘profited in Myanmar after coup’ (2023, article in The Guardian)

Lula’s victory in Brazil is a relief but it won’t solve the problem of globalised greed (2022, opinion article in The Guardian)

Super-rich’s carbon investment emissions ‘equivalent to whole of France’ (2022, article in The Guardian, based on study by Oxfam)

ExxonMobil’s record-breaking $20bn profit nearly matches Apple’s (2022, article in The Guardian)

‘Polluters must pay’: UN chief calls for windfall tax on fossil fuel companies (2022, article in The Guardian)

It’s plunder’: Mexico desperate for water while drinks companies use billions of litres (2022, article in The Guardian)

The world is ablaze and the oil industry just posted record profits. It’s us or them (2022, opinion article in The Guardian)

Oil sector’s ‘staggering’ $3bn-a-day profits for last 50 years – Vast sums provide power to ‘buy every politician’ and delay action on climate crisis, says expert (2022, article in The Guardian)

Largest oil and gas producers made close to $100bn in first quarter of 2022 (2022, article in The Guardian)

Little of record profits going to UK taxpayers as fossil firms claim cash is needed for move to low carbon (2022, article in The Guardian)

Harming of Indigenous Communities

The ‘carbon pirates’ preying on Amazon’s Indigenous communities: Selling credits should fund forest protection, but unscrupulous firms are making deals where land stewards lose out, say local leaders (2023, article in The Guardian)

Illegal logging threatens Cambodia’s indigenous people, says Amnesty (2022, article in The Guardian)

Harming of Environmental Activists

Protesters who targeted Girl with a Pearl Earring jailed by Dutch court (2022, article in The Guardian)

Government to unveil crackdown on climate activism and strike action (2022, article in The Guardian)

‘I have a voice’: African activists struggle to attend UN climate talks in Egypt (2022, article in The Guardian)

UK climate activists held in jail for up to six months before trial (2022, article in The Guardian)

Environmental defenders are being killed (2021, article in The Guardian)

Anti-Environmentalist Bias & Culture War

The Contours of Anti-Environmentalism (2022, chapter in Handbook of Anti-Environmentalism)

‘Reality is scary’: climate culture war heats up for UK meteorologists (2022, article in The Guardian)

Redefining Environmentalists (episode in Drilled podcast)

It ain’t easy eating greens: Evidence of bias toward vegetarians and vegans from both source and target (2015, article in Group Processes and Intergroup Relations)

Inter-Species Injustice

Farmed fish feel pain, stress and anxiety and must be killed humanely, global regulator accepts (2022, article in The Guardian)