Environmental Racism and Policy Responses: Lessons for Brazil from the US
by Marina Marçal*
In 2022, during my period studying at Columbia Law School, as the only black woman in the environment and energy program as visiting scholar, I aimed to analyze how public climate policies in Brazil can be more inclusive, considering the concepts of intersectionality (Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw ) and environmental racism (Dr. Robert Bullard), both from U.S. And it is from this reflection that I propose this article.
The term environmental racism is a concept that was coined for the first time in the United States in the 1980s by the American pastor Benjamin Chaves Jr, but certainly finds the greatest scientific collection in the country in the studies of Dr. Robert Bullard, popularly known around the world as the “father of environmental racism”.
This concept basically points to the unequal division of bonuses and burdens of “development” in a capitalist society in which black, indigenous, Latin Americans and social minority populations tend to be mostly affected by environmental degradation, such as floods, pollution of the air, proximity to the disposal of solid and/or toxic waste, among others.
Dr. Bullard was initially heard as a sociologist expert in demonstrating the frequency with which the crime of environmental racism occurred in Texas. This was the basis for a series of court decisions in the US and I hope that one day in Brazil, which is why, as a lawyer, I have encouraged so much exchange between Brazil and the US on this issue. Brazil needs to recognize in the formulation of its environmental and climate policies the existence of environmental and climate injustice resulting from racism.
More recently, the literature even understands climate racism as a complement to environmental racism, understanding that the history of colonialism and slavery makes these populations subject to the greatest impacts of climate change, as a consequence of the lack of public policies to dealing with environmental racism.
Experts from the United Nations have highlighted that Afro-descendants and Africans will be some of the groups most affected by climate change. For the UN Working Group on African and Afro-Descendants, although there have been advances in combating racism and racial discrimination, Afro-descendants are often among the poorest and most marginalized groups in societies, often living in communities disproportionately affected by decades of environmental degradation, such as air pollution and toxic waste.
The exploitation of our planet's natural resources has always been linked to the exploitation of black and/or indigenous people. The logic of colonization was to extract valuable resources from our planet by force, without paying attention to their secondary effects. Thus, for the English parliamentarian David Lammy, the climate crisis is “the natural conclusion of colonialism”, he explains in his TED talk that:
“We need to recognize that the climate movement is not just about protecting the planet. It’s mostly about caring about the people who live in it. Globally and nationally, we must recognize structural imbalances and inequalities. A radical green recovery plan must create jobs for people who have been marginalized for centuries, jobs planting trees, cooling buildings, working on green technologies. We cannot deal with the climate crisis without dealing with racial inequalities. We cannot solve racial inequalities without fixing the economic system. The new deal the economy needs isn’t just green; it is green and black”
With President Lula at the helm of the new Brazilian government, we are seeing the climate agenda play a central role. The Ministry of the Environment is now called the Ministry of the Environment and Climate, a transversal climate governance is being established with the climate agenda also being part of the Ministry of Finance; Mines and Energy; Science, Innovation and Technology; Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Cities; Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, among others. However, it is important that this new climate governance structure is not only transversal, but also inclusive.
Important specialists were appointed to integrate the Ministry of the Environment and Climate in Brazil, but it is important that there is diversity not only in the figure of Minister Marina Silva or in the composition of social agendas such as the Ministry of Racial Equality, Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples. The technical staff of the Ministry of the Environment and Climate also need to be diverse so that we can reduce the emission of greenhouse gases and deal with global warming, creating public policies that do not accentuate the existing inequalities in the daily lives of those who suffer most from climate change, whose color and race are well defined.
Photo shows the author of the article, Marina Marçal (in blue clothes and a white coat) at a meeting on the Brazil Climate Action HuB at COP27. The first person on the left is Peggy Shepard. The only man in the photo is Robert Bullard. The fourth person, from left to right, is Beverly Wright. The three are White House environmental advisers. The third person from left to right is indigenous Brazilian Narubia Werreria. In the center, Minister Marina Silva.
Brazil, which is the country with the largest black population outside the African continent and with a female majority, deserves to have environmental decision makers that reflect this demographic profile. In its latest report on adaptation, the IPCC itself suggests that decision makers implement this purpose by transforming systems that perpetuate inequality and renegotiating imbalanced power dynamics. Among the possible solutions, it even points to the need to ensure a fair representation of genders in environmental decision-making.
It is also important to recognize intersectionality, because we already have scientific data that demonstrate how meteorological extremes have especially harmful effects on women, aggravating the reality in which they live. When the Paris Agreement was signed, world leaders recognized the need for a gender-adaptive approach to climate change adjustments.
Another IPCC report from 2022 demonstrated that, across the world, women are prioritizing climate change in the way they work, engage in their communities and, according to Minal Pathak, one of the IPCC's scientific directors, intensifying the women's political access and participation, climate action gains momentum, as “in countries where women have a stronger voice – a more political voice – they drive climate action faster”.
Today, however, the technical and management staff of the Ministry of the Environment and Climate in Brazil are composed almost exclusively of white people, except for the Minister, and with over 90% of men. Just follow the nominations in the official publications. Can we deal with environmental racism if we practice institutional lack of representation?
Bullard understands that environmental racism also refers to environmental policies, practices or guidelines that differently or disadvantageously affect - whether intentionally or unintentionally - individuals, groups or communities based on color or race, and may be reinforced by governmental, legal, economic, political and military. Meanwhile, structural and systemic damages are not foreseen and not even repaired in the same proportion. This is because, in economically unequal societies, institutions and legal-political mechanisms can serve both as democratic instruments for conflict resolution and as legitimizing tools for perpetuating inequalities.
Just as Bullard is now a member of the advisory council on the environment at the White House in the United States, like other black American environmental activists, I hope that the Lula government, over the next 4 years, will be able to draw up a list of representatives and advisors to the Ministry of Environment and Climate in an inclusive and not only discursive way. It is important to create structures that can deal with the vulnerabilities that the black population is experiencing in Brazil, based on the experiences of those who are actually dealing with the severity of global warming in the country in their daily lives.
Marina Marçal is a specialist in Climate Policy, Legal and Social Sciences, Gender and Ethnic-Racial Relations. She coordinated the Climate Policy Portfolio of the Climate and Society Institute (iCS). She was a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School's Environment and Energy program (Spring 2022) under the guidance of Professor Jedediah Purdy with a focus on Climate Policy and Equity. She is a black ecofeminist and a lawyer, studying for her doctorate and master's degree in Sociology and Law in the line of research on Socio-environmental, Rural and Urban Conflicts at the Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF-RJ), where she graduated. She is also a master in Ethnic-Racial Relations at the Federal Center for Technological Education Celso Suckow da Fonseca (CEFET-RJ). Has experience in academic environmental research for over 11 years by PROEX-UFF, FAPERJ and FIOCRUZ (including the Map of Conflicts of Environmental Injustice in Brazil) and field work involving indigenous peoples, quilombola communities and populations in the vicinity of mineral activity in Minas Gerais and Pará, as well as rural workers in the northeast. She was cited in 2018 on The Intercept Brasil's list of black experts. In addition to law firms, she worked with Policy and Advocacy in the Private Sector, Human Rights and Inequalities area at Oxfam Brasil. At ICS, Marina worked on projects such as the Subnational Platform for the Climate, Brazil Climate Action HUB, ACA Brasil working with the multisectoral implementation of the Brazilian NDC, including articulation with subnational actors and the National Congress, in addition to the Brazilian mobilization for the COPs (Climate Conference ). She is also a member of Women Leaders in Planetary Health, the Climate Reality Project, the Concertation for the Amazon, and the Columbia Women Leadership Network Program.
