How does the Climate Majority project relate to global justice?
Striving for the best outcome without letting perfection be the enemy of the good.
At its core, the CMP is pragmatic: we strive for the best outcome possible at a given time, without “letting perfection be the enemy of the good”. Loss and damage payments from rich, high-emitting countries to those vulnerable to climate impacts are essential, yet total global or climate justice is unlikely – in current timeframes, perfect righting of wrongs is an unrealistic goal.
Nonetheless, tackling dangerous climate change requires the whole world to work together, an achievement hard to imagine without attention to every nation’s concerns, and to building common understanding. Certainly a legitimate and credible global process is necessary to do so, but likewise many actions are possible without shared understanding of global justice.
Without acknowledging the aspect of human nature that instinctively protects family and kin before the rest, it will be difficult to work towards a more just society for everyone. Most nations and societies have perpetrated murder and abuse of ‘outgroups’ over millennia - including nations and peoples currently in less powerful positions. Fortunately humans also possess remarkable capacity for care and collaboration. To reach global agreements widely accepted as fair and just, we need to speak honestly to both the altruistic impulses that underpin the world’s great moral/spiritual traditions, and to enlightened self-interest.
While ingroup-outgroup biases are common to humanity, today increasingly polarised and polarising forms of discrimination and bias continue, with regards to gender, race, class, faith, political orientation, and beyond. These issues can’t properly be separated from climate: the way we harm the environment reflects our tendencies to deprioritise and externalise the ‘other’. Conversely, while some populations for geographic and/or socioeconomic reasons are hit much harder and sooner by environmental impacts, seeking to preventing further damage is beneficial not just to “them”, but to everyone living on this planet.
Finally but perhaps most importantly, while we fail to admit the damage already done by our failures on climate, very little progress will be made on justice. To maintain the illusion that we can limit warming to 1.5°C and still have time to avoid natural calamities is to delay compensation for loss and damage and the cost of adaptation. Pursuit of global justice then depends on letting go of ‘stubborn optimism’.
Given the many difficult questions that plague the climate space, we have brought our team and collaborators with a variety of opinions together to see what answers we could agree on. These have been posted as FAQs on our website, but will also be sent out as blogposts on this newsletter and beyond.
Thank you, thank you, for consistently finding the courage to write on the hard truth! I live in Asheville, and I'm trying to unpack the connections between Hurricane Helene and climate change, as well as my community's reluctance to stare them down. I continue to be encouraged in this effort by the work that you all do! If you're interested in reading some of what I've been working on, you can find it here. https://substack.com/home/post/p-152848352?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web