Climate Action
The Climate Crisis Is Personal: Hearing the Voices of Underserved Communities
July 18, 2025
This World Listening Day, we are tuning in to listen to the communities disproportionately impacted by climate change.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), environmental justice means ensuring that all people, regardless of income, race, color, or national origin, have meaningful involvement in and fair treatment by environmental laws, regulations, and policies. This concept recognizes that environmental hazards often disproportionately affect certain communities. Climate justice is a related idea that focuses specifically on the fair treatment of people and communities regarding the impacts of climate change, rather than environmental issues more broadly.
Regarding climate change specifically, disadvantaged groups also often face a “triple injustice”: they contribute the least to greenhouse gas emissions, benefit the least from climate actions, and are most vulnerable to impacts.
But there are possible solutions. For example shifting workforce demography to better serve vulnerable communities. Diversifying the environmental workforce helps to better reflect and serve vulnerable communities. This approach builds trust and improves communication with the communities most impacted by environmental injustices. For instance, programs that recruit, train, and retain workers from underrepresented groups help ensure that they have a real voice. Plus, they benefit from new green job opportunities, ensuring equity is at the forefront of green initiatives and citizens’s deliberation processes. Other solutions include listening to specific groups, like Indigenous communities, to better understand sustainable practices that date back centuries and have pedigree.
Back to Basics: Indigenous Practices Work
“Interconnectedness”, the deep relationship between people and Earth, is central to why Indigenous peoples are ideal stewards of the land. This sense of connection fosters positive environmental emotions and supports practices, in contrast to colonial and capitalistic ideals, which prioritise exploitation and profit over a duty of care. Institutional barriers, such as systemic racism, have historically marginalized Indigenous voices and hindered broader adoption of these sustainable approaches.
An example of listening to indigenous people successfully can be seen with the Māori of Aotearoa in New Zealand. Although historical tensions have made them cautious about the national government’s long-term commitment, the Māori have collaborated well with local governments. Guided by their connection to the sea (moana), land (whenua), and sky (rangi), the Māori stewards (kaitiaki) have focused on restoring the environment by cleaning waterways and reintroducing native plants.
Other practices can be found in South America in the form of milpa, a millennium-old agricultural system used in the Yucatán which is essential for forest conservation. With milpa, multiple rotating crops allow for natural forest regeneration, which promotes diverse environments for countless species.
Meanwhile, Aboriginal people in Australia have long practiced controlled burns called “cool” or “cultural burning” to promote biodiversity and prevent wildfires. These low-intensity burns also manage vegetation and reduce fuel loads.
While leaders acknowledged the essential role of Indigenous Peoples in climate action at COP26, with a $1.7 billion pledge by governments and private philanthropies, more inclusion is necessary.
People With Disabilities Are Integral Voices
As oceans rise and forests burn, millions of people are displaced by climate change. But while the fortunate few can relocate and start anew, thousands are left behind. And this struggle is exacerbated for people with disabilities (PWDs), who represent 15% of the global population.
In fact, those with disabilities are four times as likely to perish due to climate disasters. Thus, they are best equipped to propose strategies and remove barriers, which makes their inclusion in legislation vital.
Specifically, this knowledge is essential for expanding educational opportunities, understanding the impacts of climate change on disabled people, increasing their inclusion in decision-making and access to information, and empowering them to know and exercise their rights. Furthermore, addressing three key leverage points—re-connect, re-structure and re-think—can foster more sustainable and inclusive relationships.
Finally, by including and focusing on the capabilities of PWDs we can help eliminate discrepancies and victimization, while at the same time addressing the intersectionality essential for the nuances of climate justice. All of this provides a pathway of sustainability that would not be possible without accurate representation.
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Environmental Impact
A study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) projects that Black and African Americans are 40% more likely to live in areas with the highest increases in temperature-related deaths if global temperatures rise by 2 degrees Celsius. The same study found that Latinos and Hispanics are 43% more likely to live in regions where extreme heat will cause the greatest reductions in labor hours. These disparities highlight how climate change impacts different communities unevenly, with minority populations facing greater health and economic risks from rising temperatures.
This environmental injustice is deeply rooted in institutional racism. Beginning with slavery in the U.S., land, water, and other systems were disrupted to exploit both the land and people of color.
After slavery, discriminatory policies such as redlining, exclusion from land ownership, and segregation confined Black communities to polluted and underserved areas. These practices limited economic opportunities and access to clean environments.
Today, people of color continue to face subtle forms of discrimination, such as microaggressions, that undermine their knowledge and participation in climate and environmental decision-making. This ongoing marginalization contributes to the persistence of environmental disparities affecting these communities.
Solutions
It is clear inclusion and equity across the board is necessary to achieve environmental and climate justice and help all of us mitigate climate change. Such perspectives and knowledge also help ensure that those part of multiple undeserved groups are represented. Often these individuals or groups face more complicated impacts, due to the intersection of injustices. For example, women with disabilities face compounding conditions compared to their male counterparts. Many of these issues are then further compounded for those in developing countries that have less access to vital resources and higher levels of displacement.
Luckily, a variety of solutions are available. For example, an ongoing community-owned solar cooperative in Sunset Park is the first of its kind in New York. The utility is owned by the community, and therefore so is the energy it generates.
Citizen Assemblies in the Global South and at the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) are paving the way for more voices at the table. The permanent Global Citizens’ Assembly for People and Planet includes a bottom-up and top-down structure that puts people ahead of politicians, allowing millions of citizens to lead the way for change. Like those with disabilities, undeserved, marginalized, and minority groups and individuals have essential input and knowledge that can inform policies so that they adequately address all of the issues in hand.
However, with all this we must remember that change and knowledge cannot rest solely on the shoulders of underserved communities. Join us in writing letters to state lawmakers, pushing for a transition to clean energy. Together, we can move towards reusable energy and a just, sustainable future for all. The fight for our planet is collective, so the solutions that the battle rests on should be broad too.
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