an intersectional climate movement

Kedar Maddali, USyd Ethnocultural Officer 2020, exposes the whiteness of the climate movement

Recently a press conference took place in Switzerland with a panel of young climate activists from all across the world. Perplexingly, during the Associated Press coverage of the event, 22 year old Ugandan climate activist (the only person of colour on the panel) Vanessa Nakate was conveniently cropped out. Though this post was later taken down, this incident is indicative of the malicious paradigm of racism and erasure of PoC (people of colour) and Indigenous voices from the climate movement.

This incident is neither isolated nor unprecedented as it is a part of a systemic enfetterment of Indigenious and PoC voices which has been used to silence generations of activists in environmental movements. Unfortunately the communities most affected by environmental crises are disproportionately from the voiceless global south and marginalised people in the global north, who continue to be the victims of climate violence.

Indigenous and marginalised people of colour have been on the front lines of climate violence and “understand climate violence not as a threat of a future apocalypse but as the wind that fans the flames of existing injustices.” Given Indigenous people have been outright refused help from so called “charities” in bushfire devastated areas, and black communities of New Orleans, whose homes were lost during Hurricane Katrina and then demolished to build a new highway, racism during a climate crisis is a very profitable venture. Further alienation of PoC and Indigenous voices from what can only be described as ‘privileged’ protest groups is indicative of the deep and systemic racism that is rooted within the climate movement. The global south is constantly sidelined in climate conversations, disasters such as the Jakarta Floods which killed tragically 66 people (and were happening at the same time as the Australian

bushfires) and Cyclone Idias in Mozambique in 2019 which took over 1000 lives. These disastrous events would be making headlines all over the world if they had happened in the global north. Thus all climate movements must centre around marginalised voices who struggle not only to be understood, but heard.

A clear indication of a dysfunctional environmental movement is the lack of marginalised communities taking part, and no other group personifies the petite bourgeois idealism and race exclusionary politics better than the burgeoning Extinction Rebellion movement (XR). Drawing the ire of many activist groups, XR has continually shown to be a non inclusive space for PoC with brazenly racist statements suggesting that PoC could rest assured when they are arrested as “most prison officers are black and do not wish to give you a hard time”. A few days later a figure head for the movement, Rupert Read stated strict immigration laws are needed for a successful climate movement; statements eerily similar to ones of eco fascists suggesting that the once most affected by the climate crisis (namely immigrants) are the ones to blame. This divisive agenda by an outwardly “politically neutral’ group is extremely detrimental to the climate movement as it suppresses the people who need representation the most.

The deep seated and systemic racism must be erased from the climate movement if there is any real progress to be made. We must centre our activism around peoples and communities which are most prone to the effects of climate violence and do our best to educate the movements which attack the people who are most affected by climate change. The climate movement will be intersectional or it will be bullshit.