Climate Injustice
As the clock strikes six in the evening, Monika Weinrichter is starting her journey home from work, carefully making her way through the bustling streets of Vienna. For most people, this is a routine task, but for Monika, it requires specific precautions. In fact, Monika is blind. The tram station is the easiest way home, but with the city structure the station is surrounded by streets and not a single tree is decorating the area.
I'm standing in the blazing sun, waiting for the tram in the summer. Monika explains.
Despite her best efforts to ecape the heat, the sun beats down relentlessly.
When it's really hot outside Monika goes into Lidl to get som shade and cool down. Unfortunately she can't hear when the Tram arrive from inside the store, so she can't use that ecape as a permanent solution.
For Monika, the oppressive heat is more than just an annoyance—it's a serious issue that can affect her health and well-being. This is just one example on how climate injustice can affect vulnerable people, and for Monika, this injustice has a huge impact on her everyday life.
The concept of climate justice is an approach to defining global warming within the limits of human rights, ethical and political issues, as well as within the limits of physical and environmental dimensions.
The climate crisis affects different segments of the population in different ways. Vulnerable groups are perhaps the biggest victims of climate change, and climate injustice is largely linked to social and economic inequalities in society. Vulnerability is a person's inability to face external and internal social challenges and problems.
Simon Tschannett, meteorologist & CEO of Weatherpark in Vienna, says:
Simon Tschannett, CEO Weatherpark
In the city it's especially the heat waves that are causing troubles for all of us. Vulnerable groups of people after affected particularly. And with climate change, heat waves are getting longer and happen more often.
Climate injustice makes a difference between countries, it also affects people - but vulnerable population groups the most, making them even more exposed to climate crisis. The main idea of climate justice is to eliminate inequalities and fight against new climate challenges.
In our project, we offer you to familiarize yourself with how the climate crisis affects people, namely vulnerable population groups. While it presents some solutions to the matter.
The facts
It is natural to change. This can be changes in ocean currents, or volcanic activity, tropical rains, or an average change in weather conditions.
But the global warming we are facing today is not just a natural process. Due to the large concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, we face the problem of climate change.
Climate change is the result of human activity. CO2, a greenhouse gas, is released when humans burn fossil fuels. At the same time, vulnerable populations face greater and more severe challenges from the climate crisis than others. Scientists agree on the fact that climate change extends social inequality.
Increasingly, scientists prefer to use the term "climate crisis" instead of "climate change" to emphasize the extreme climate situation. The climate crisis is a rapid change in the climate due to an increase in the global average temperature. The global average temperature is the average value of all annual temperatures on Earth.
Video by NASA showing the change in temperature from 1880 to 2022
Anthropogenic climate change has led to an increase in temperature by 1.5ºC compared to pre-industrial temperature levels. The temperature change on the planet is not uniform, in some arctic regions it has already increased by 2°C.
Video from NASA showing the climate spiral of changing temperature levels from 1880 to 2021.
Human-induced warming reached approximately 1°C (likely between 0.8°C and 1.2°C) above pre-industrial levels in 2017, increasing at 0.2°C (likely between 0.1°C and 0.3°C) per decade (high confidence) - The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
NASA - Joshua Stevens, using GEOS-5 data from the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office at NASA GSFC.
Scientists emphasize the importance of keeping the average temperature level no more than 1.5-2ºС to prevent catastrophic consequences. The climate consequences that humanity is already facing are significant. And still vulnerable population groups are victims of even greater challenges caused by climate change. Some of the current consequences are:
In today's world, it is important to consider the issue of climate change in the light of economic, political and social processes. Using the example of climate change, we can follow how new and deepening existing inequalities in society may happen leading to climate injustice.
Children
Almost every child on the planet is already affected by climate change. Natural disasters, environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss can devastate agriculture, cutting children off from nutritious foods and safe water. They can lead to dangerous environments and disease outbreaks, and destroy the safe shelter, quality health care and education systems children need to survive and thrive.
According to UNICEF, an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide, approximately 1 billion children — nearly half the world's 2.2 billion children — live in one of the 33 countries classified as "extremely high-risk".
By: UNICEF
These children face a deadly combination of exposure to multiple climate and environmental shocks with a high vulnerability due to inadequate essential services, such as water and sanitation, healthcare and education. The findings reflect the number of children impacted today — figures likely to get worse as the impacts of climate change accelerate.
An estimated 850 million children — one in three worldwide – live in areas where at least four of these climate and environmental shocks overlap. As many as 330 million children — one in seven worldwide — live in areas affected by at least five major shocks.
Without the urgent action required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, children will continue to suffer the most. Compared to adults, children require more food and water per unit of their body weight, are less able to survive extreme weather events, and are more susceptible to toxic chemicals, temperature changes and diseases, among other factors.
UNICEF, Franco
On 24 January 2021 in Sofala Province, Mozambique, a woman carries a child on her back, walking with other children through a flooded area at Tica Relocation Center, 80 kilometers from the city of Beira. Families affected by Tropical Cyclone Eloise have moved here from surrounding neighborhoods, seeking shelter and aid. The majority left their destroyed houses behind, making their way here in rudimentary boats.
UNICEF, Billy/AFP-Services
Damage to a school, after the flooding and the overflow of the Motagua River due to storms Eta and Iota, the school of the Community of El Tenedor, in Guatemala, suffered damage to its perimeter wall and mud is still visible inside the classrooms.
UNICEF, Ocon/AFP-Services
A girl protects herself from the heavy rains by wearing a raincoat as she returns home from a shelter after the passage of Hurricane Iota in Nicaragua, in Bilwi, on November 16, 2020.
UNICEF, Billy/AFP-Services
On December 3, 2020. The school of Campur village underwater. An aerial view of the Campur village, San Pedro Carchá, Alta Verapaz, 270 kilometers north of the Guatemalan capital. It is estimated that 70 percent of the town is submerged after the devastating passage of the Eta and Iota storms.
Women
Climate changes are a global problem and affect populations around the world. Women are more vulnerable than men doing climate crises, according to research. The problem stems from an old-fashioned view of women, which is reinforced by gender roles, social constructs and expectations.
Henriette Laursen is the head of the Danich company KVINFO (women-info), which is Denmarks knowledge centre for gender and equality. She shares some of her perspectives on why women are more affected by climate changes:
If we look at some of the poorest countries, the people are already vulnerable and more exposed to climate crises in general. For example, being driven from one's home increases the risk of what women are already exposed to, such as gender-based violence, rape, human trafficking, etc.
One of the biggest reasons for the issue is the fact, that women are more exposed, arcording to Henriette:
When you are already exposed, the consequences of the climate crisis are also more severe - which represents the increased vulnerability of women.
We have asked women to share their view on how they are affected by climate change:
When women as a group are more affected by climate change, gender inequality grows. Therefore, it’s important to be aware of how crises affect the world and the population. Consider how to be more eco-friendly and aware – the women in the video are great examples on how awareness can make a change. Start today, not tomorrow.
People with disabilities
The UN estimates that about 650 million people worldwide are living with a disability. Their participation in the measures to tackle the climate crisis is essential to change our society to a climate-friendly one.
If our measures to manage climate crisis is not including those people, it´s lacking out ten percent of the worldwide population. A tenth of the society wouldn't be able to switch to a climate-friendly behavior. Already people with disabilities are facing the climate crisis on different levels more often than people without disabilities do.
Monika Weinrichter is one of the individuals who are more exposed to climate change due to her lack of vision. In the video below you can get some insights on one of the biggest issues in her everyday life:
Simultaneously, people with disabilities, who are most exposed to climate change, contribute the least to the emission of greenhouse gases. According to the British journal 'The Lancet', these statistics also include 800 million people with disabilities who live in low-income countries. Climate change adaptation furnishes a worldwide opportunity to enlarge health equality for people with disabilities as required by the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Elderly people
Older persons, including particularly older persons with disabilities and older women, are among those most affected by climate-related harms such as the increasing spread of vector-borne diseases, heat stress, and the increasing frequency and intensity of sudden- and slow-onset disasters which can impact their physical and mental health and wellbeing.
According to The National Council on Aging (NCOA), аmong the unique circumstances that may make it more difficult for adults 60 and older to prepare for, respond to, or survive a climate change event:
We have asked people within this group how they personally experience the climate change:
Solutions
It would be easy if we could change everything overnight, get the climate changes under control, help the most vulnerable groups and give the Earth its strengths back. The big solutions to contain the climate crisis needs to be done in a global context, and it will take years, a lot of resources and it will be an uphill battle.
Simon Tschannett, CEO of Weatherpark in Vienna, has provided us with some insights on the solutions to the issue:
Heat needs to be fought by strategic measures based on a city-climate-analysis. And based on local nature- and urban circumstances. A mix of measures that has to be done.
Luckily there's a number of small solutions which can be the start of restoring the climate and hopefully provide a helping hand to the vulnerable groups. This video represent some of the solutions - watch, enjoy and learn:
This project was developed by: Anastasiia Krupka, Diana Dadak, Kirstine Marie Nielsen & Lukas Köppl-Haslinger
A huge thanks to our mentor: Jens Lang.