Notions of ecological citizenship in climate justice campaigns

Abstract

In the climate change debate, organisations within the environment movement who stress a specific type of differentiated approach have come to be referred to as climate justice campaigns. These campaigns advocate an approach based on the recognition of historical contributions to the problem, an awareness of the colonial past, and current resource extraction. Thus they advocate solutions to the problem that recognise these inequities. Through the embrace and application of the environmental justice “lens” to the issue of global warming, these groups advocate a very particular position on global environmental issues. The criteria of justice necessitates that groups and movements who subscribe to this viewpoint reconsider important questions re-presented by shared ecological issues. Thorny challenges around individualism versus community, disjunctures between human beings and their consumption, issues around the displacement of environmental damage (physical and temporal), as well the human relationship with the environment is re-problematised. In doing so, this paper argues, climate justice campaigns have contributed to the discussion around an “ecological citizenship”. A distinct conception of what this citizenship might entail is implicit in the work of climate justice groups. This notion of ecological citizenship includes a right to sustainable and equitable consumption and environmental space, as well as the recognition of ecological debt and borrowing, the importance of compensation and protection, as well as respect for sovereignty, human, cultural and identity rights in relation to the consideration of environmental issues.