Working together towards Climate Justice and Climate Equity

Bringing together landscape practice and citizen energy is essential to achieving justice and equity, argues Judy Ling Wong.

Judy Ling Wong

President Black Environment Network

Minorities in the UK are local and global people, in touch with the reality of lives across the world through consistent contact with our countries of origin. We have yet to fulfill our natural role of bringing the story of the world to the table to set the agenda for climate justice and climate equity. The principle is that affected communities should lead.

We are living in extraordinary times. The death of George Floyd has sent a wave of emotion across a multicultural world, giving historically significant impetus to action for diversity, equality and inclusion. COVID confronts us with the dire outcomes of ignoring global interconnectedness. Minorities in the UK are representatives of the ethnic majorities of the world. White people make up only 11% of the world’s population. Layers of awareness are shifting the status of ethnic minorities.

Climate justice and climate equity are core to the critical negotiations at COP26 to endeavour to ensure a positive future for all of us. The presence of minorities inform negotiations with a mix of vulnerability and strength, fears and hopes that reflect the precarious position of processes that should take into account the legacy of racism and colonialism. Looking into the deep heart of climate change, I see a moral and spiritual failure of two pivotal relationships: the relationship of people with nature, and the relationship of people with each other. If we love nature deeply enough, we cannot damage it to the extent that we do, and if we love people deeply enough, we cannot damage them as we do. Against the bleak language of policy, the human face of minorities urges the integration of social, cultural, environmental and economic concerns through people-centered environmental policy.

The local and the global are one in the hearts and minds of ethnic minorities. Our impassioned personal stories can stimulate the identification of the UK mainstream population with the world at large. A shift of the atmosphere within which vital policy decisions are framed cannot be underestimated as we move towards hosting COP26 in the UK.

Who we are and what we can achieve depends on how we see ourselves against the enormous pressure of how others see us. COP26 challenges all of us to confront ourselves with the fact of the power of gatekeepers in an unequal world. The goal posts need to move. We know enough to recognise that our survival is not about “them” and “us”, Global North versus Global South. It is about a common fate. We need to move faster as one. We are one race, the human race, on a single shared earth.

On home ground, the UK’s ethnic minorities are generally urban people, with a substantial stake in action for greening cities, with the prime target of transforming where we live and work for the better. Against the fact that cities do not have substantial space to create more public parks, gardens or green spaces, seeking out other opportunities to reimagine a range of spaces within the built environment is part of the solution.

The landscape profession is uniquely placed to make a contribution to the multifaceted manipulation of urban spaces. While other sectors struggle to break out of their silos, landscape practice, having to work across many sectors to respond to the needs of the environment and of people, has a broad approach. It is ahead of the game. In addition, beyond the ringfenced arena of design, professionals are citizens that can be active in their chosen focus of grassroots action. The combination of wide-ranging expertise and communal energy can be a formidable force for addressing climate justice and climate equity.

We are far from being at square one: there is a rising generation of multicultural activists. A hundred of us are listed in the open database Climate Reframe. Over 30 years ago, in 1987, Black Environment Network posed the challenge that “there is no such thing as a purely environmental initiative. A so-called purely environmental initiative is one that has rejected its social, cultural and economic dimensions.” This was recently echoed at the UN Habitat Assembly 2019 in Nairobi, with the formation of the First Global Stakeholders Forum to strategically underpin the New Urban Agenda that links the theme of the natural environment to human settlements. At the World Urban Forum in Abu Dhabi, I witnessed the declaration of culture as the fourth pillar of sustainability. What drives humans to achieve more goes far beyond the bare bones of mere survival. It extends into the richness and beauty of being fully human, expressed through culture. The hunger for nature unleashed by the COVID experience confirms this. However, even as there is movement in the right direction, we need a greater sense of urgency.

The landscape profession can make a vital contribution to climate justice and climate equity on two significant fronts. The first is to give a focus to improving the environments where minorities live and work to counter the impact of climate change and deliver better health, the basis for resilience and adaptation. The second is to play a role in building the overall framework for diversity, equality and inclusion, meeting the challenge of Black Lives Matter to address structural change to facilitate the meaningful co-creation of policies, strategies and actions.

To escape the smell of diesel and the noise of huge rumbling lorries, I often walk off the A3 into a side street that I know, quickly emerging into a local green oasis. This is a residential area with typical old houses that we see all over London in deprived areas. Ordinary people have worked a miracle here: front garden plants are allowed to spill onto the pavement, bushes grow out of old garbage cans and large pots, there are flowers in tree pits, paving stones have been lifted up for giant bushes, and there are chairs and benches outside front doors. This is reclaimed green outdoor territory. A tolerant and flexible local authority has made the agency of people possible. As long as a buggy and wheelchair can get through, there is no problem. The lushness of the place is such that one hardly notices the parked cars – one’s senses are too occupied with the colour and the birdsong.

Movable skip gardens extend opportunities within meanwhile spaces

© Judy Ling Wong

We often talk about the canopy of the urban forest, but here is some food for thought: let’s be excited about such projects that can inspire efforts to visualise and develop the potential forest floor of our great city too. Biodiversity, sustainability, COP26, local and global action, mental and physical health, wellbeing, climate justice, and climate equity are all words that come to mind as I wander. The driving force is hearts and minds set within a communal vision, a little imagination and support from public bodies and time for places to mature. Every single residential area of London can be like this! All of us can hone our ability to read the urban landscape differently.

There are alternatives for so many bleak spaces. It is well known that in many boroughs, the area of the poor-quality green space around social housing exceeds that of all the public parks and gardens put together. There are acres of hard spaces too, waiting for transformation right outside the windows of our most deprived populations. They can be multiuse spaces, spaces for food growing, container gardens, wildflower meadows, with facilities for play and social interaction. Increasing biodiversity, countering the heat island effect, providing enjoyment or informal learning can all be on the agenda. Lambeth Plots is a great example. Myatt’s Fields Park is working with ARUP, combining GIS mapping and citizen-led investigation to identify land for increasing food growing and addressing food insecurity. We need a bank of good ideas to fuel the replication of solutions on a grand scale.

Partnerships, bringing the expertise embodied within landscape practice and the energy and ideas of citizens together, can be formidable. Seeking out grassroots movements such as London National Park City, backed by over 50% of London’s wards, or Camden’s Think & Do community space with its direct link to the local council, can unlock the power and agency of citizens. They are shortcuts to effective engagement frameworks that are already in place. Whether it is at the local or international level, underpinning people-centered environmental policy with the necessary structures for diversity, equality and inclusion lays down the foundation for effective actions for climate justice and climate equity. The key themes are representation, engagement and provision. The following actions apply to any disadvantaged group, as we have much in common: – A principle of representation is that affected communities should set the agenda. High profile diversity champions within organisations can forge policy and release the needed resources. Established multicultural voices need to be given platforms, while emerging voices need training and support.

– Engagement will unlock a vast missing contribution. Ongoing relationships with local minorities are core to building trust and enabling meaningful co-creation. True equal partnership with powersharing enables culture-specific dimensions to reveal themselves. Cultural visions and indigenous knowledge should be valued.

– Provision moves on various fronts. Cross-sector collaboration facilitates integrated policies and actions, recognising the interconnectedness of environment, health, diversity, equality and inclusion. Information can enable people to act to protect themselves against the impact of climate change, and improving places where minorities live and work lays down the foundation for good health, the ultimate basis for resilience and adaptation. We should be looking forward to a wave of new green jobs as part of the UK’s legal pledge to achieve net zero. Minorities need access to their fair share of the cake. We know so much of what we need to do. The local and global are of equal importance. The point is to act – at scale.

Temporary installations bring life to urban spaces

© Judy Ling Wong

Judy Ling Wong CBE is a poet, painter and environmentalist best known as the Honorary President of Black Environment Network. She was awarded an OBE for pioneering multicultural environmental participation and a CBE for services to heritage.

Resources

Links to multicultural environment participation on Black Environment Network website http://www. ben-network.org.uk/resources/ publs.aspx

Climate Reframe open database of multicultural activists https:// climatereframe.co.uk/

Think & Do community space, Camden https://www. thinkanddocamden.org.uk/

London National Park City https:// www.nationalparkcity.london/

Declaration of the First Global Stakeholders Forum. UN Habitat https://unhabitat. org/sites/default/files/ documents/2019-07/20190529_ new_clean_first_global_ stakeholder_declaration_un_ habitat_assembly_1.pdf

Green Jobs Taskforce Report https://www.gov.uk/government/ groups/green-jobs-taskforce

Culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development. World Urban Forum 10 https:// www.global-taskforce.org/ sites/default/files/2020-02/ Statement%20of%20the%20 World%20Assembly%20of%20 Local%20and%20Regional%20 Governments%20in%20Abu%20 Dhabi_0.pdf