Environmental Justice

Achieving equity within climate policy, at its core, requires the centering of the perspectives and leadership of marginalized communities in climate governance. Over the past decade, there has also been a growing recognition that, to be effective, climate responses must be informed by how impacted and threatened communities understand problems; define and prioritize potential costs and benefits; and view potential interventions.

Expert: Clement Loo, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies and the Coordinator of the Gateway Program, University of Minnesota Morris

There’s really no way to disentangle global politics, climate change and environmental justice. The international system is hierarchical in so many ways – from the development of the state system to the design of international laws and institutions to which wars tend to attract the most attention from rich countries. We know that richer countries are most responsible for climate change, but poorer countries are feeling its brunt “first and worst.” A key question going forward is whether and to what extent richer countries will accept responsibility (per the recent opinion from the International Court of Justice) and offer compensation (via platforms like the Loss & Damage Fund) to poorer countries.

Expert: Tanisha Fazal, Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Political Science, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

My work is primarily based within the 1854 Treaty Territory in northeastern Minnesota, which means I am obligated to incorporate environmental justice into it. I find this obligation to be clarifying, motivating and empowering. Until the 1854 Treaty, northeastern Minnesota was cared for exclusively through the governance of the Bois Forte, Fond du Lac and Grand Portage Bands of Ojibwe. The Treaty added a shared governance layer of U.S. jurisdiction across the region and included vital provisions ensuring that signatory Tribal nations continue to have access and authority over natural and cultural resources. In my view, this compels the U.S. and all people and institutions under the jurisdiction of the U.S. – including the University of Minnesota – to engage in environmental stewardship in alignment with Tribal priorities. We must avoid any activity that might harm or misappropriate Tribally reserved resources, and we must be responsive to Tribal leadership, staff and community members as they identify environmental challenges and opportunities that can benefit from the University’s educational, research and outreach capacities.

Expert: Joseph Bauerkemper, Professor of American Indian Studies and Director of the UMD Tribal Sovereignty Institute, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Minnesota Duluth

Communities most impacted by the climate crisis are the least resourced to respond to the threats imposed by extreme weather and the collateral consequences. Community-led climate action looks like building the knowledge and power of climate vulnerable communities to self-determine resilience pathways under their ownership and leadership and to build their power to lead partnerships thoroughly committed to climate justice.  We are doing this work by building awareness through climate resilience education, organizing strategies with climate resilient planning, raising long-term funding mechanisms that support communities in shaping their own climate resilient futures and bringing climate vulnerable communities together as partners for climate justice.

Climate justice demands that what is too often ignored: the best way to respond to the climate crisis is to attend to the long history of ecological apartheid and structural violence that created the pattern of safe operating climates in the midst of the climate crisis for some at the direct and indirect expense of destroyed and degraded ecological habitats for people long-starved of wellbeing on their own terms. These people are now forced to survive in previously unimaginable landscapes or be climate-coerced to move to new places where they will most likely not be made to feel very unwelcome by current inhabitants doing what they can to sustain their “lifeboat.”  

Expert: Sam Grant, Executive Director, Rainbow Research

At the core of my work is “systems-thinking,” the kind of thinking that sees interconnectedness between people, institutions, the decisions they make and the world we live in.  The decisions we make about the food we eat have implications for our health, our environment and our connections to other people. The laws our governments pass about energy have implications for our environmental and economic sustainability. I approach work with a passion for health, economic and environmental justice across Minnesota communities: urban and rural, immigrant and Indigenous.  My work integrates art and story alongside data and science because I want us to be able to make decisions for a sustainable future together. 

Expert: David Beard, Professor of Rhetoric, University of Minnesota Duluth