Climate Justice in the Anthropocene: An Introductory Reading List – JSTOR Daily

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Climate Justice

Introduction

Humanity has breached planetary boundaries, causing anthropogenic climate change and environmental disaster across the world. The effects of climate change are experienced unevenly, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communities within and between nations. It is crucial to address climate change while considering environmental justice and equity.

The Concept of Climate Justice

Climate justice is a movement that aims to re-center communities most vulnerable to the climate crisis in decision-making processes. It assigns responsibility to oppressive systems and actors that have fueled the crisis. This movement challenges dominant discourses of climate change and advocates for a more inclusive and equitable approach.

Key Readings on Climate Justice

1. Defining the Climate Crisis

   This reading explores key discourse, questions, issues, and framings around the anthropogenic climate crisis. It critically examines the universalization of the climate crisis and the exclusion of certain forms of knowledge generation.

2. Negotiating Global Warming Targets

   This reading delves into the negotiation of global warming targets by organizations like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and explores their disparate impacts on developing countries. It highlights the distributive dilemma posed by climate change.

3. Challenging the Concept of Non-Life

   This reading challenges the distinction between life and non-life and examines how colonialism and Indigenous erasure have shaped governance over nature. It provides a historical context for understanding the destructive governance of non-life.

4. Addressing Climate Debt

   This reading explores the concept of climate debt, which argues that those historically responsible for the climate crisis should pay those on the frontlines of disaster. It calls for equitable distribution of the carbon budget.

5. Degrowth as a Path to Climate Justice

   This reading discusses the degrowth movement, which calls for a reduction in consumption in developed nations while investing in social services and the care economy. It explores the complexity and nuance of degrowth as a call for climate justice.

6. Indigenous Communities and Climate Change

   This reading highlights the vital role of Indigenous communities in addressing the anthropogenic climate crisis. It examines how climate change threatens Indigenous relationships with nature and the intersectional experiences of Indigenous women.

7. Gender and Water Resource Management

   This reading explores the gendered dimensions of water resource management and its connection to climate justice. It analyzes the impact of disparate access and use of water on society and gender relations.

8. African Women and Climate Concerns

   This reading uses an ecofeminist lens to examine the positions of African women in climate concerns. It explores the impact of neo-colonialism and globalization on the maldevelopment of the African continent and its unique effects on African women.

9. Small Island Developing States (SIDs) and Climate Change

   This reading focuses on the vulnerability of Small Island Developing States (SIDs) to the anthropogenic climate crisis. It highlights the need for climate reparations, loss and damage funding, and climate migration planning for SIDs.

10. Environmental Displacement and Reparations

    This reading explores the displacement of communities due to natural hazards caused by anthropogenic climate change. It challenges the notion of monetary compensation as an acceptable form of reparations for environmental refugees.

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SDGs, Targets, and Indicators

SDG 13: Climate Action

• Target 13.1: Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters
• Target 13.2: Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies, and planning
• Target 13.3: Improve education, awareness-raising, and human and institutional capacity on climate change mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction, and early warning
• Target 13.b: Promote mechanisms to raise capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management in least developed countries and small island developing states

SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities

• Target 10.2: By 2030, empower and promote the social, economic, and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status
• Target 10.3: Ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies, and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies, and action in this regard
• Target 10.4: Adopt policies, especially fiscal, wage, and social protection policies, and progressively achieve greater equality

SDG 5: Gender Equality

• Target 5.1: End all forms of discrimination against all women and girls everywhere
• Target 5.4: Recognize and value unpaid care and domestic work through the provision of public services, infrastructure, and social protection policies and the promotion of shared responsibility within the household and the family
• Target 5.a: Undertake reforms to give women equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to ownership and control over land and other forms of property, financial services, inheritance, and natural resources, in accordance with national laws

SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

• Target 6.1: By 2030, achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all
• Target 6.2: By 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations
• Target 6.4: By 2030, substantially increase water-use efficiency across all sectors and ensure sustainable withdrawals and supply of freshwater to address water scarcity and substantially reduce the number of people suffering from water scarcity

SDG 1: No Poverty

• Target 1.4: By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular, the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership, and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology, and financial services including microfinance
• Target 1.5: By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social, and environmental shocks and disasters

SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions

• Target 16.7: Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory, and representative decision-making at all levels
• Target 16.8: Broaden and strengthen the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance
• Target 16.10: Ensure public access to information and protect fundamental freedoms, in accordance with national legislation and international agreements

Table: SDGs, Targets, and Indicators