BaCCC/Video Summaries/Is Climate Change Racist?

Video Summary

Is Climate Change Racist? (6:26)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PxniT7G9nU

• People of colour have often been on the frontline of climate-related disasters.
• For centuries, the lives of people in countries across Africa and Asia and Indigenous people all over the world have been ignored and devalued by massive corporations and countries in the West.
• Extreme effects of climate breakdown are mostly felt in developing countries, such as Indonesia, Colombia and Kenya – the Global South.
• Extreme weather events are getting more frequent and intense as a result of climate breakdown.
• The low-lying coast of Bangladesh has made it prone to flooding and cyclones, and climate breakdown has meant these events are happening more often and more severely.
• The people most affected are also much less likely to have contributed to the problem in the first place.
• There are several companies causing the vast majority of damage to the planet, with some of the worst offenders being BP, Shell and ExxonMobil.
• The Global North, including countries such as the US and the UK, is creating this mess, and the Global South has to deal with it.
• To address racism and climate change, we should start to address the huge inequalities and injustices that people of colour face.
• While people in the Global South are at the frontline of climate-related impacts, they have also been the first to resist environmental destruction.
• The legacy of colonialism is alive and well today.
• Structural inequalities have left countries in the Global South less able to deal with climate disasters when they happen, so race is a big factor in how people experience climate change.
• The climate crisis is affecting people who are already marginalised far more; therefore, it is impossible to talk about the climate breakdown without talking about inequality.
• We must call on governments and corporations to take on the climate emergency urgently and to help correct the grave inequalities to create better, more equal societies.
• Climate change is not racist, but people still are.
• Politicians, corporations and countries in the Global North have been and continue to be responsible for people of colour paying the price for the climate emergency, which is why the climate crisis is a race issue.