Last week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), America’s environmental regulation body, released guidance on the legal pathways through which environmental justice can be provided to regions severely affected by environmental racism.
In America, Black, Latino and Indigenous communities have faced out-sized health risks from the effects of historically poorly maintained infrastructure, underfunding and unchecked industry pollution. Environmental “Sacrifice zones” are established in low income, predominantly non-white areas. In Louisiana’s notorious Cancer Alley for example, black people are disproportionately affected.
Cancer Alley got its name from the cancer-risks endured by its mostly low-income residents, who live amidst staggering levels of pollution. In the town of Reserve, located in the region, the EPA has reported the risk of cancer to be 50 times the national average.
The case for environmental justice has also been gaining traction on the global stage. Last year David Boyd, the special rapporteur on human rights and the environment, presented a report to the UN Human Rights Council, drawing attention to the continued existence and creation of “sacrifice zones” across the world.
In the words of the report, these are “extremely contaminated areas where vulnerable and marginalized groups bear a disproportionate burden of the health, human rights and environmental consequences of exposure to pollution and hazardous substances.”
Environmental racism is a phenomenon that has long been attributed to the US, both on a global and domestic scale. The global South, despite its relatively small carbon footprint, bears the brunt of climate change related disasters. America, historically one of the biggest polluters, bears responsibility for climate change fueled displacement in places like Central America, which has contributed to increased migration towards the US-Mexico border.
However, according to the UN report presented by Boyd, the discriminatory effects of pollution and the industrial production of toxic substances are observed worldwide: “the burden of contamination falls disproportionately upon the shoulders of individuals, groups and communities that are already enduring poverty, discrimination and systemic marginalization.” The report pointed to examples of sacrifice zones in almost every continent, drawing attention to the global and pervasive nature of the phenomenon.
The issue of pollution, as demonstrated by the existence of sacrifice zones, intersects with a number of other issues related to the UN’s sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Apart from race, this includes issues related to labour rights, access to education, access to health care and disparities between economic classes.
Workers, for example, according to Boyd’s report to the UN, particularly in “low- and middle-income nations, are at risk because of elevated exposures on the job, poor working conditions, limited knowledge about chemical risks and lack of access to health care.”
In fact, “over 750,000 workers die annually because of exposure to toxic substances on the job, including particulate matter, asbestos, arsenic and diesel exhaust.” The ILO also reports that, “Every year more than 1 billion workers are exposed to hazardous substances, including pollutants, dusts, vapours and fumes in their working environments.”
Pointing to research published by The Lancet, the UN report also highlights that “One in six deaths in the world involves diseases caused by pollution, three times more than deaths from AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined and 15 times more than from all wars, murders and other forms of violence.” Low and middle income countries account for 92% of these pollution related deaths.
Sacrifice zones like Cancer Alley, which hosts over over 150 petrochemical plants, are created as the result of industrial planning. However, disaster prone areas across the globe, where residents experience disastrous damage to their homes and food supplies, as well as poor health and death, could also be considered sacrifice zones.
These areas are found mostly in the global South. This point should be considered alongside data published by the Center for Global Development early last year, comparing the CO2 emissions of UK & US citizens with those from low- and middle-income countries. The data re-affirmed the outsized carbon emission of citizens in the UK and the US, which should be remembered when considering the fact that citizens of low and middle income countries bear the brunt of the costs of climate change.
The fact that poorer nations bear the brunt of climate change’s impact is long documented. The G20 group, which includes 19 countries plus the EU, represents 90% of global GDP. They are responsible for 75% of the world’s total emissions. Research from a 2009 report from the Global Humanitarian Forum also suggested that 99% of climate change related deaths occur in developing countries.
The UN Human Rights Council, acknowledging this inequality, established in October 2021 that “having a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a human right.”
The dramatic 5-fold increase in recorded weather-related disasters over the past 50 years in the wake of increasing global temperatures has also provided challenges that the developing world is far less equipped to meet. Of the 2 million documented deaths arising from these events, 90% have been in the developing world.
Low- and middle-income countries suffer from a lack of disaster prevention infrastructure, including early warning systems, which have proven highly effective in mitigating the loss of life and economic losses that drive vulnerable countries further into poverty.
Bangladesh is an important example of the way in which climate change resilience requires funding, and is tied to the alleviation of poverty.
The country, dubbed “ground zero for climate change,” has seen rural families spend almost $2 billion dollars a year in protection against climate damage, and in efforts to recover from it. This accounts for not only more than what the government spends, but also what international donors have contributed.
Driving home further the link between poverty and climate vulnerability, is that fact that climate change fuelled disasters in Bangladesh, fuels mass displacement, a widely seen phenomenon in poorer nations. In 2020 alone 4.4 million Bangladeshis were displaced by disasters according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.
Those displaced often migrate towards city slums, which places further economic strain on people who are faced with lack of employment, poor healthcare and housing. The economic impact of movement away from the coasts is exacerbated by the strain on the fishing and agriculture sectors.
According to Our World in Data, based on production-based emission data, in 2020, the average carbon dioxide output of a Bangladeshi citizen was about 0.56 tons, whilst a UK citizen’s output was around 4.85 tons, and a US citizen’s output was around 14.24 tons, based on “Carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from the burning of fossil fuels for energy and cement production.”
The World Bank estimated last year that “climate change may push over 130 million into poverty by 2030.” The effect of poverty is indeed cyclical, given the way in which money affects preparedness for disasters, both on an individual and government level.
Whilst governments in low and middle income countries have often failed to fund the installation of expensive warning systems, their impoverished citizens have often had to finance their own disaster protection.
Further issues to consider, when looking at the question of environmental justice and responsibility, is the way in which countries responsible historically for climate change have responded to migrants from areas severely affected by droughts and other disasters.
Also of key concern is the way in which the funding of climate-friendly projects abroad by richer countries often take the form of supporting carbon mitigation projects, which although give the impression of meaningful action, are less important than actual infrastructure building and poverty-alleviating measures.
Carbon mitigation or offsetting projects, funded by western corporations in order to meet climate related goals, have also resulted in displacement and disruption of local communities in the poorer nations they are based in.
With increased understanding of the role of climate change in perpetuating worldwide inequalities, which have been increasing according to the latest Oxfam inequality report, and as climate related disasters increase in frequency, it is becoming increasingly clear that climate change efforts should begin to reflect a holistic understanding of responsibility, poverty and justice.
The existence of sacrifice zones across the globe requires an intersectional approach, using legal frameworks designed to protect the rights of systematically marginalized communities, and to protect workers from unsafe working conditions. In addressing the inequalities and hardships exacerbated by discriminatory state and industrial practices, human rights law may be an essential tool.
