Environmental Justice For All—Even Tuvalu!
Special to
Outreach
A
Daily Publication from the Stakeholder Forum
At
the Fourth Preparatory Meeting of the World Summit on Sustainable Development
(WSSD)
(Bali, Indonesia)
By Michael K. Dorsey,
Thurgood Marshall Fellow, Dartmouth College
7 June 2002
(unedited version)
The delegation from Tuvalu has passionately argued during the WSSD preparatory process that disproportionate action and steps must be taken to prevent the imminent and real negative impacts of global climate change. The response by the international community, especially delegations from the OECD countries, is that reality is otherwise. These countries, the biggest contributors to global warming by far, argue that climate is a “global” issue, “affecting everyone equally.” It seems nothing could be further from the truth.
The idea that environmental degradation, pollution—or in this case the adverse effects of climate change--is equitably distributed pervades the rhetoric and policies of too many institutions charged with protecting the “global” environment. Notions like “we are all in this together,” “the circle of poison,” and especially “Our Common Future” distract policymakers and scholars from realizing that there is a pattern of disproportionate exposure to environmental hazards and degradation among the marginalized.
Globally, those on the margins tend to be racial and ethnic minorities, poor, less educated, politically powerless, or all of the above. Also the marginalized can include states like Tuvalu, where the early effects of northern, OECD greenhouse gas emissions are already been seen and felt—more so than in other parts of the world.
The fact that those on margins--people or nations--bear the brunt of environmental degradation should be no surprise. Yet, the idea that those on the margins are intentionally targeted for pollution and purposely forgotten during mitigation efforts is a relatively new and, for some, a controversial notion. In the United States, scholars, policymakers, and activists have referred to this phenomenon as “environmental racism.” It is defined succinctly by environmental justice intellectual and activist Benjamin Chavis as:
“Racial discrimination in environmental policymaking and the enforcement of regulations and laws, the deliberate targeting of people of color communities for toxic and hazardous waste facilities, the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in [those] communities, and the history of excluding people of color from the leadership of the environmental movement.”
Attempts to address environmental racism had come largely under the rubric of the U.S.-based movement for environmental justice. This movement has been principally led by researchers, scholars, community activists, and policymakers, who have argued in countless studies, reports, congressional testimonies, theoretical and lay books and journals—as well as in print and broadcast media—that environmental racism is a real problem that must be addressed.
More recently and significantly, the US based movement for environmental justice has massively grown, outstretching its borders. The movement and call for environmental justice is now definitively global. Activists from as far afield as Scotland, Ecuador, Thailand and South Africa worked hard to get the issue of environmental racism (in terms of new manifestations of racism) and environmental justice on the agenda of the World Conference Against Racism (UNWCAR). Placing issues of environmental racism on the UNWCAR agenda was significant inasmuch as it raised the profile and legitimacy of environmental racism as a global problem. Just before the official UNWCAR meetings UNRISD held a special policy conference on Race and Public Policy, which discussed the implications of environmental racism.
During the entire WSSD process an environmental justice caucus has convened a broad coalition of NGO representatives from around the world. In South Africa the Environmental Justice Networking Forum (EJNF) is steadfastly preparing to welcome colleagues and comrades working for environmental justice who will participate in official and unofficial events in Johannesburg Summit.
The global environmental justice movement compels us to rethink our understanding of global environmental problems and existing proposals to solve them. One lesson to be learned from environmental justice activists is that justice is an essential demand, in the aftermath of historic, systematic discrimination and disproportionate environmental degradation of those on the margins.
The demand for justice denies proposals that posit remedies to environmental degradation must be equitable. Instead advocates of environmental justice say something radically different—that has tremendous consequences on a global scale. Allow me to elaborate below.
Beyond a doubt, environmental racism manifests itself in numerous ways globally. Ethnic and racial minorities have borne the brunt of nuclear testing. The Western Shoshone in the United States, ethnic minorities in the Central Asian Republics, Australian Aborigines, ethnic minorities in Algeria, and indigenous people in the South Pacific have all suffered acute and prolonged health problems caused by radiation from testing (1). Indigenous people in the upper Amazon basins of Ecuadorian, Colombia and Peru have suffered tremendously from the horrendous practices of the petroleum industry. In another example of environmental injustice, the benefits of biodiversity conservation in protected areas tend to be lowest at the local level and highest at the national and global level; while the costs are the highest at the local level and the lowest at the national and international levels (2). Similarly, in the context of determining national contributions to global climate change, methane emissions of draft animals and naturally decaying areas are unjustly given parity with carbon dioxide emissions from luxury automobiles and inefficient power plants (3).
Often the proposed remedy to these and other incidents of environmental racism and discrimination is not justice but “equity.” UN Convention after UN Convention propose “equitable benefit sharing,” “equitable access,” or other forms “equitable solutions”, in an effort to instantaneously make level playing fields for all actors at the table. Yet, in the face of systematic and historical injustice (e.g., oil companies have been operating in the Ecuadorian rainforest for three-quarters of a century) “equity” after the fact cannot be enough.
To establish equitable anything (i.e., trade, technology transfer, or a climate development mechanism) by fiat (or Treaty—processual fiat), is an ahistorical, dangerous move, that leaves past injustices effectively unresolved. Indeed such a procedure institutionalizes injustice, by not addressing, or worse, disregarding, past harms or environmental degradation.
Realizing the inequitable distribution of environmental degradation and mitigation efforts compels us to propose just solutions to environmental problems in lieu of equitable ones. Such a proposal has serious implications for institutions that work on global environmental problems. Equitable benefit-sharing schemes—within the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change—become questionable and perpetuate injustice when we recognize historical patterns of injustice.
If local communities benefit the least and incur the greatest costs from biodiversity conservation, “fair and equitable” sharing of “the benefits arising from the commercial and other utilization of genetic resources” ex post facto may only serve to maintain inequalities. This is the essential theoretical argument that emerges out of the environmental justice movement for myriad international conventions. The extension of the argument means that if the international community seeks to resolve any form of injustice anywhere it must always include some form of compensation or retribution for past damage done--in addition to establishing a framework for more equitable conduct in the future.
The
environmental justice movement represents the ultimate resistance not only to
pernicious environmental racism, but also a viable crucible of resistance to
the devastating social, economic and cultural consequences of economic
globalization. NGO representatives calling for environmental justice also
present a sufficient challenge to the WSSD Secretariat. If there is to be real sustainable
development, a significant emphasis must be placed on ending discriminatory
environmental practices, and policy making.
Disproportionate resources will have to be committed, directed and
released for those harmed the most—those on the margins, whether they be racial
or ethnic minorities, the poor, or even states like Tuvalu. Voluntary, public-private partnerships—the
much-lauded Type IIs, must be based on human rights for people and real
rules—especially binding liability--for big business, not the other way
around. These are the preliminary
minimums not only for sustainable development but also for justice for all—even
in Tuvalu!
References and
Notes
1. Dana Alston and Nicole Brown, “Global Threats to People of Color,” in Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots, Robert Bullard, ed. (South End Press, Boston, 1993), p. 183.
2. Michael Wells, “Biodiversity Conservation, Affluence, and Poverty: Mismatched Costs and Benefits and Efforts to Remedy Them,” Ambio, Vol. 21 (1992), pp. 237–43.
3. Steven Yearley, Sociology, Environmentalism, and Globalization: Reinventing the Globe (Sage Publications, London, 1996), pp. 103–107.