Global Climate Change, Collective Action and Citizenship Subject
INTRODUCTION
According to united nations, climate change is the shifting of weather patterns which threatens food security and its production as the rise of sea level increases the catastrophic flooding risks. Climate change is a global issue which led to the establishment of “The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)” by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and United Nations Environment has it was created to provide policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options (Hasegawa, et al., 2018, p. 703).
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report concurred that change in ice, snow, and glaciers would have a tremendous impact upon Arctic people’s subsistence (IPCC 2014). Climate change is one of the major concerns among Arctic residents. It challenges the people by transforming their homeland, hampering access to animals, and influencing physical and spiritual well-being. the Arctic peoples are standing on the northernmost frontier of global climate change.
How does climate change affect people’s cultures, political situations and economies?
Climate change has affected people as follows; Many Inupiat, their indigenous neighbors in the Arctic and sub-Arctic, and most climate scientists agree that anthropogenic climate change is the major cause of recent alterations in physical, biological, cultural, and social systems across the Arctic. In Arctic Alaska, climate change increases environmental uncertainties and intensifies human attachment and emotional investment to the bowhead whales. According to the Inupiaq creation story, their land was once a bowhead whale whose death resulted in the birth of the human habitat. Humanistic research and community-based projects in rural and indigenous communities often produce understandings of climate and climate change that are incompatible with statistical findings of climate science (Gergel, Nijssen, Abatzoglou, Lettenmaier, & Stumbaugh, 2017, p. 290).
When one looks at the issue of climate change, the consequences of deforestation and mining are significant. The indigenous communities in Latin America are in many ways victims of these policies, lacking a separate, sovereign voice within the domestic political structure. The impact of capitalist economics for instance deforestation, water pollution, land clearing for large scale farming and urbanization disrupts the ecosystems as they ‘contain’ indigenous peoples by limiting them on the abundance of plants, animals and habitats as they are destroying for observance of capitalist economics.
Investment on carbon-intensive economic activities which is a form of recognition that redefine indigenous people’s government as capitalist enterprises whose goal is to copy a U.S economy. some of them involve in coal fire energy and governments inhabit local seasonal and basing on clan cultural and political institutions by creating a profit dependent entity for citizens to rely on its income for their well-being. these investments affect the livelihood of the indigenous people in native nations as the climate changes.
Impact of global climate changes include the following; climate change impacts, for example sea level rise, are predicted to displace millions of people around the world, as places become either temporarily or permanently uninhabitable. In particular, people living in coastal and low-lying areas increasingly face the reality of displacement. Entire tribal communities in Alaska, Louisiana, and the Pacific Islands, among others, are being forced to relocate due to accelerated sea level rise, erosion, extreme weather events, and/or permafrost thaw, as well as a lack of resources to cope with these impacts in-situ.
In the United States, as well as globally, communities facing the likelihood of relocation are also often those that have experienced systemic impoverishment and injustice, such as coastal tribes of Alaska and Louisiana.
Climate-induced displacement does not only sever the physical ties and rights indigenous peoples have to their land and resources, but also the spiritual relationship they have with their traditionally-occupied places Climate change and its impacts reflect Farmer’s discussion of human rights violations as “symptoms of deeper pathologies of power.”
What is UNDRIP and how do Indigenous peoples use it for the sake of
protecting their cultural integrity?
UNDRIP is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which has stipulated recommended human rights (Gilbert & Lennox, 2019, p. 120). It has articles that support the rights of indigenous peoples for instant article 1 talks about right to the fully enjoyment, Article 2 talks of “Indigenous peoples and individuals are free and equal to all other peoples and individuals and have the right to be free from any kind of discrimination, in the exercise of their rights, in particular that based on their indigenous origin or identity.” Then if one is discriminated in the exercise of his/her rights, UNDRIP protects him/her as he/she can use it for the sake of
protecting their cultural integrity. Therefore, indigenous people can use it aske protection of their human rights if their cultural integrity is being abused.
Why is climate change an issue of human rights (Indigenous rights) for
Indigenous peoples?
Indigenous people have a ‘special interest’ in this climate change not only because, through their physical and spiritual relationships with land, water and related ecosystems, they are particularly vulnerable to climate change, but also because they have a specialized ecological and traditional knowledge relevant to finding the ‘best fit’ solutions to climate change.
Declaration of Indigenous Peoples on Climate Change at the Hague sets out the position of Indigenous peoples on the UNFCCC as they are most affected people under global climate change.
What is climate justice?
Climate justice is a term used for framing global warming as an ethical and political issue, rather than one that is purely environmental or physical in nature. A fundamental proposition of climate justice is that those who are least responsible for climate change suffer its gravest consequences (Robinson & Shine, 2018, p. 564).
Also, climate justice is a development of the environmental justice movement, gaining traction within the last five years. Justice in relation to climate change is hence related to the spatial distribution of climate change exposure, vulnerability and capacity. Justice is typically divided into three types: Procedural Justice, Distributive Justice and Justice as Recognition.
Why are Indigenous peoples concerned about climate injustice?
Indigenous peoples are concerned about climate injustice since their government doesn’t recognize them fight against climate change since they are the one who have experienced gravest consequences. They have also lost their traditional subsistence practices resulting from the history of reservations and western land expansion as it leads to tribes experience increased vulnerability to changing weather patterns and climate impacts in 48 contiguous states in U.S.A.
What is colonialism? What is capitalism? How are they related to climate
change (in relation to industrialization)?
Colonialism is the policy of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically which requires erasing of indigenous population. Colonial strategy of ‘containment’ that engenders cultural and political systems designed to inhibit indigenous capacities to adapt to environmental change. the strategy was used by U.S. to facilitate the proliferation of extractive industries for instance mining and drilling oil, deforestation and creation of large urban areas.
Capitalism is a political and economic system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, and not by the state. Investment on carbon-intensive economic activities which is a form of recognition that redefine indigenous people’s government as capitalist enterprises whose goal is to copy a U.S economy. some of them involve in coal fire energy and governments inhabit local seasonal and basing on clan cultural and political institutions by creating a profit dependent entity for citizens to rely on its income for their well-being.
Today’s capitalist-based social and economic processes have severe consequences for
communities’ adaptive capacities, shaping their social vulnerability, which is defined as “a
combination of factors that determine the degree to which someone’s life and livelihood is put at
risk by a discrete and identifiable event in nature or in society.
What is climate relocation (or resettlement)?
Resettlement is a migration of a group of people from one place to another location and settle them. The history of government-mandated tribal climate relocations that occurred throughout the United States from the early 1800s well into the 20th century where Forced relocations have continued into recent times. For example, in Alaska, Aleut communities were compulsorily moved during World War II.
Climate change has led to Forced relocation is compounded by the current lack of governance mechanisms or budgets to support the communities, which intensifies community impoverishment, negative economic and health impacts, and loss of place, social networks, and culture. Kivalina and Newtok in Alaska and Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana are three of the communities facing similar issues and leading their own relocation efforts, and in doing so are trying to forge needed policies for relocation. As Kivalina residents tried to relocate, however, they found that there was no designated government body to assist communities with the process, and that many disaster programs and funds are available only after a disaster occurs, limiting the ability of both the relevant US government agencies and Kivalina residents to begin relocation.
The Isle de Jean Charles Forcibly displaced from their original lands by European settlers, and the Isle served as a refuge for Natives to escape to the end of the bayous in densely forested swamps to avoid being forcibly relocated or killed. Today, the communities’ culture and water-based settlements and livelihoods threaten by both the causes and consequences of climate change.
Conclusion
In conclusion, global climate change is a serious issue that needs to addressed to look for a stable solution. UNDRIP is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples should continue helping indigenous people on matters to do with human rights. For the case of ‘climate refugee,’ a good plan should be established to cater to their needs and a good relocation plan to be in place.
References
Gergel, D. R., Nijssen, B., Abatzoglou, J. T., Lettenmaier, D. P., & Stumbaugh, M. R. (2017). Effects of climate change on snowpack and fire potential in the western USA. Climatic Change, 290.
Gilbert, J., & Lennox, C. (2019). Towards new development paradigms: the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a tool to support self-determined development. The International Journal of Human Rights, 120.
Hasegawa, T., Fujimori, S., Havl{\’\i}k, P., Valin, H., Bodirsky, B. L., Doelman, J. C., . . . others. (2018). Risk of increased food insecurity under stringent global climate change mitigation policy. Nature Climate Change, 703.
Robinson, M., & Shine, T. (2018). Achieving a climate justice pathway to 1.5 C. Nature Climate Change, 564.