jrturyakira@gmail.com (+256783001913).
The heatwave currently sweeping through Uganda and across Eastern Africa is worsening the environmental health situation of the already vulnerable poor people and marginalized farmers who are already severely suffering from the blunt of climate change!
The World is grappling with the triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss. We all must come together and renew our demands for climate justice where people are prioritized. The catastrophic climate scenario that we are living in is the result of centuries of exploitation and oppression through colonialism, extractives and capitalism, an essentially flawed socioeconomic model which urgently needs to be revisited and replaced.
The climate and biodiversity crisis is leading to the unprecedented extinction of local vegetation and animals, and destroying entire ecosystems. Deforestation alone is currently responsible for around 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions because forests are major natural carbon sinks. Deforestation remains the elephant in the room we must urgently confront.
Indigenous peoples who especially have relied on nature and natural resources for centuries are being heavily affected and threatened by climate change and the extractives industry, which steals their land and erases their culture by promoting deforestation and destroying the natural world.
To achieve climate justice, we must protect the natural world by making Ecocide an International Crime. In order to do this, we must stand with indigenous peoples, who protect over 80% of the global biodiversity, and unite in the fight for their rights to land, resources, livelihoods and life. An unsustainable and unfair system where rich nations are responsible for about 92% of global emissions, and the richest 1% of the world population are responsible for double the pollution produced by the poorest 50%. Guided by historical struggles and lived experiences, led by the most affected people and areas we all must demand climate reparations and obligatory support towards mitigation and adaptation initiatives defined and led by frontline affected communities.
Reparations were initially demanded by the racial justice movement, and therefore one cannot exist without the other. Climate reparations imply that those with greater responsibility for the climate crisis must pay compensation to the most affected for the damages and losses of livelihoods, infrastructure, and communities’ lives caused by the impacts of climate change. Focusing on adaptation funds and letting the most affected decide how the reparations will be used, which starts with canceling debt of the most affected countries, is the bare minimum that Global North countries must do in order to pay their debt for the damage and trauma caused in Global South countries.
Climate reparations not as charity, but as a transformative justice process in which political power will return to the people. This should not be in the form of loans, but a follow through on the demands from Indigenous, black, anti-patriarchal and diverse marginalized communities to get their lands back, giving resources to the most affected communities by the climate crisis for adaptation, loss and damages a redistribution of wealth, technology, information, care work, and political power both from the north to the south, and from top to bottom. History shows that things work better when more ordinary citizens at the grassroots get involved in issues directly affecting them especially our gallant vibrant young people.
The climate struggle has become a class struggle, for years, the ruling class, primarily through corporations and governments from the Global North dominated by the affluent, have exercised their power, gained through slavery, colonialism, capitalism, patriarchy, and exploitation, to destroy the earth and its occupants with no remorse. Countries in the Global North are responsible for most of the greenhouse gas emissions and are seen by many in the Global South as having deliberately sacrificed the Global South’s ecosystems and peoples for the sake of their development and economic growth. However, time has come for us as a people to pose and reflect on how long this “us versus them” will go on! The Paris Agreement signed by 193 countries ten years ago in 2015 emphasized the common but differentiated principle which calls for collective responsibility by both developed and developing countries towards global carbon neutrality.
Secondly, around 40% of the world’s plant species are currently at risk of extinction due to anthropogenic Carbon dioxide emissions. If we as Ugandans are to avoid the worst impacts of the climate and environmental crises, we must drastically invest in interventions that will reduce the emissions that we are going to contribute to as a country. There is no comprise, we must preserve our environment now. As a country we have already committed ourselves to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 24.7%, other East African countries have equally voluntarily set ambitious carbon reduction targets achievable by 2030.
We must advocate for the need to create concrete plans and detailed annual carbon budgets with roadmaps and milestones for Uganda and the rest of the World. Let us call for meaningful involvement of the most vulnerable communities in adaptation and mitigation planning and implementation. We cannot allow the world to continue to ignore the social impacts of the climate triple planetary crisis, because all social inequalities are exacerbated when climate and environmental conditions impact local communities, mostly hitting already marginalized and vulnerable communities.
The Global North who are largely responsible for the climate crisis, should use the tool of climate reparations, as the best kind of climate action. The richest capitalist 1%, should take responsibility for their actions through the polluter pays principle. Their profit is the death and suffering of hundreds of millions of climate change victims in the Global South.
Together with different sectors of society across the world, led by the most marginalized, let’s bring back the power to the people whose power has been stolen. We must fight for a just future where no one is left behind, because our liberations are tied together. Together, let’s build a system and a future where people and the planet are prioritized over greed and profit.
Progressive young people in millions across Africa have been loudly calling for urgent climate action because to them, the issue of climate change is personal. Let us all call for inclusive and sustainable growth by building more robust economic and climate financing mechanisms especially for the vulnerable poor and marginalized communities here in the Global South. We urgently need accessible low carbon energy sources for poor communities. We need to reverse our forest cover loss, and wetlands in order to reverse the devastating effects of climate change, everybody of us to must get on the front lines to salvage the only place we all call home.
We need a fundamental paradigm shift towards a cleaner, greener and healthier future. Political leaders, policy makers, religious and cultural leaders, civil society and private sector, ordinary citizens, together must step forward and make our contribution and build a safer, sustainable and livable planet especially for our children. This is our collective responsibility rich or poor, young or old, to repair our planetary health!
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