Undoubtedly Climate Change is the global challenge of the generation I belong to. During Semester at Sea I took a class called Global Change Ecology, Impacts and Mitigation, where we learnt about the science of Climate Change, we learnt abut its causes and its impacts in the countries we were visiting, and what can we do about it to slow it down, prevent catastrophes, and adapt when climate disasters do occur; this class opened my eyes to the realities that Climate Change is creating in the world, and it brought a me a sense of urgency to work on it. Then during June, as I have been commenting on previous posts, I had the opportunity to go to the UNFCCC Climate Conference in Germany, and I had an opportunity to know about international efforts to address the issue. This gave me a frame of reference to see the discourses that organizations that work in climate action, climate justice, and sustainability have - and that have used to elevate the relevance of the topic to social discourse. The two experiences combined have got me reflecting upon Climate Change, quiet a bit, and here are some thought I wanted to share.
Climate Change is going to affect everyone. Although not everyone will be affected equally, for the same reasons that, not everyone holds equal responsibility for it. The world is deeply unequal, its realities are happening asynchronically. Some countries were decolonized centuries ago, some others only decades. Some countries had war only 20 years ago, some other are having one right now. The development of technology, the spread of capitalism, and religion seem to be a driver in bringing these realities to synchrony (maybe a few). The process is not an easy one, and it has been achieved by violence, war, and oppression - from a few to the world. The magnitude of the impacts of Climate Change requires - for the first time in our history - a global coordinated effort, and to my eyes it poses a lot of very important questions:
When thinking on the accountability of those responsible for the majority of the destruction. And the urgent need for deep systemic change. Will the philosophical frameworks of justice that we have created all throughout history prevail, or will we create new ones to deal with the implications of our actions?
When thinking about the millions of climate migrants, and the difference of capital and resources of each country, will the lives of people conserve their value under Human Rights, or will they change again according to their identities and their places of birth?
Will we be able to transition globally peacefully? Or will tensions scale to another global war?
I see this questions thinking in the context of peace education and social change. On the one hand, I think that peace education can be used as a preventive method to war, by equipping young leaders with knowledge on Human Rights, values of equality, skills on nonviolent conflict resolution, etc. On the other hand, I see it as a responsive measure to work on the social and cultural reconstruction after a war.
On its framework for peace education, UNESCO identifies peace with nature as one of the sources for peace addressed in peace education. The two other sources this framework describes are inner, and social peace. Peace education programs implemented in regions with ongoing or recent conflict seem to be strongly addressing the latter two, and not having solid frameworks for climate action and climate justice issues. On the climate side of things, programs seem to be oriented to the technical side of climate resilience, adaptation, and sustainability; or on activism for climate change.
I think we need to have young leaders who can elaborate on Climate Change; and be equipped with tools on nonviolent conflict resolution, empathy, compassion, and equality. I think the more that we integrate the two, we can create more possibilities future international collaboration, and better odds that our climate change transitions will be peaceful ones. Both peace and climate change are fundamentally intersectional issues, they are caused by a combination of factors that have been building for decades, and they impact people based on the overarching structures of a society. The place class, race, religion, sexual orientation, political affiliations, have in society have a direct impact on the experiences of violence a person suffers, potentially magnified by the impacts of Climate Change.
I think is important that leaders can recognize the structural and cultural violence happening in a community (locally and globally), and keep that in mind when fighting against Climate Change, otherwise we might end up with a very unequal climate action front that fails to address the histories of violence and oppression that led us to this place. I also recognize the danger of falling in the trap of privileging a group of people because of accessibility and feasibility, over the rest of the world; perpetuating the already existing violence. I don't think this will happen, but I think it is important that we consider it in the equation as a potential outcome of the global crisis, so that we can work to prevent it.