In order to obtain climate justice, there is a need for recognising recognition. In the new article for the upcoming IDS-Bulletin special issue on climate justice we show how powerful actors exercise their power in ways that cause climate injustice for poor and vulnerable groups in the global South. We distinguish between formal and discursive misrecognition, and discuss how this misrecognition takes place in three cases: Reducing Emissions from De-forestation and forest Degradation (REDD+), the Great Green Wall in Sahel, and the Syrian war and refugee crisis.
The power of recognition
Misrecognition takes place through ignoring certain people’s interests, livelihood priorities and knowledge. Leading discourses on causes of climate change as well as on choices of climate mitigation alternatives often reflect such misrecognition. These discourses are social constructions that influence policies and practice.
There is a myriad of interests associated with the causes and solutions to climate change. Those with the power to influence, or even manipulate, discourse and practice are the obvious winners. The losers are those misrecognised, and thus deprived of agency and climate justice.
Climate justice instead of climate colonialism
To truly tackle the crisis of global warming in a just manner, there is a need to first of all recognise the needs of those who are most vulnerable. Thus, climate justice in time implies to quickly stop climate emissions to ensure basic livelihoods for future generations, and to recognise that countries with the largest contribution of climate emissions so far also have the strongest obligations to stop their emissions.
Climate justice in space implies that groups of people who live in vulnerability and poverty in the Global South today, and who hardly contribute at all to climate emissions, should not have to experience increased hardship through climate mitigation schemes from wealthy countries and interests. Expropriating land and resources for climate mitigation is the opposite of climate justice; it is climate colonialism.
Climate injustice in practice
Some claim to have win-win solutions to climate change. An example is REDD+ interventions that assert they provide cost-effective climate mitigation alongside community benefits. One REDD+ pilot project in Tanzania commenced in 2010 with an aim of reducing climate emissions through strict forest conservation and at the same time reduce poverty. Through research we found that three overlapping groups were adversely affected by restrictions that the project placed on forest use. These were 1) people living close to the forest who depend on forest resources for their livelihoods; 2) villagers with relatively small farms or without farmland at all; and 3) women because of the gendered division of labour and who relied on the forest to collect firewood for preparing their families’ daily meals.
Donors and the facilitating NGO celebrated the pilot as a successful win-win scenario, seemingly oblivious to the climate injustice bestowed on the surrounding communities, who probably have some of the smallest carbon footprints in the world.
Another claimed win-win project is a visioned 15km-wide wall of trees in the Sahel spanning territory from Senegal to Djibouti; the so-called “Great Green Wall”. Spearheaded by a group of African heads of state and supported by Western aid, the project objectives encompassed restoring degraded land, creating 10 million jobs and sequestrating 250m tonnes of carbon by 2030. In this way, the project also hopes to reduce migration from the Sahel as well as recruitment to jihadist groups. The outputs of the Great Green Wall are after more than 10 years mainly visible in an area in Senegal where the local population consists predominantly of pastoralists whose interests were entirely neglected in the initiative’s design, planning, and implementation. The result is dispossession and loss of pastureland to the afforested areas. This is another example of climate injustice producing climate winners and climate losers.
Discursive invisibility
Misrecognition occurs also in discourses about climate change even if the subject is not on mitigation measures. This we find for example in what has been termed the “Syria-climate-conflict thesis” which is a theory suggesting that the Syrian conflict and refugee crisis was partly climate-induced. The core idea – that climate change fuels conflict (and migration) – spread like wildfire in policymaking and media channels around 2015 and onwards. Headlines and popular media have built on the idea that climate change is a truly urgent and global problem primarily because of the massive threat it poses to national and global security.
The idea itself is fair enough, even though the empirical evidence so far suggests otherwise, but the way the narrative developed is certainly cause for concern. Nobody bothered to ask what Syrian refugees actually thought before establishing the theory. When we interviewed Syrian refugees, several reacted with fury or amusement in hearing the suggestion that climate change played an important role in triggering the war. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed and over half the population has been displaced, and yet there is a theory and discourse about the war’s origins that almost entirely ignores the perspectives of Syrians themselves.
Recognition is key
To achieve climate justice, recognition is key. Recognition is an important aim for justice in itself, but it is also fundamental to achieving distributive justice and justice as participation in decision-making. Without proper understanding and meaningful inputs from the people most seriously affected by climate mitigation measures and discourse we miss out as to how to approach and tackle climate change.
Misrecognition constitutes a clear injustice of which the empirical examples are numerous. The three examples here and in our IDS Bulletin article demonstrate this and urge action on climate change that simultaneously ensures climate justice. At stake for those with the most modest climate footprints are life’s barest necessities and rights – livelihoods, homes, and dignity. It’s time to recognise recognition in climate justice.
Iselin Shaw of Tordarroch recently graduated from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences with an MA in International Environmental Studies. Hanne Svarstad is Professor of Development Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet). Tor A. Benjaminsen is Professor of Environment and Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
