Environmental Justice

Promoting Environmental Justice

Environmental justice seeks to ensure that all communities have access to a healthy environment regardless of race or income. To achieve this goal several policies and programs have been put in place such as

• The EJSCREEN tool from the Environmental Protection Agency areas with high environmental burdens and vulnerable populations so that targeted investments and actions can be taken.
• The Green Jobs Act provides funding for job training programs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors creating opportunities for low-income and minority workers.
• The Clean Air Act and Water Act have provisions that protect vulnerable populations from pollution and environmental hazards.

In the USA, people of colour make up nearly half of the population in fence-line zones (areas closest to hazardous chemical facilities.) They’re almost twice as likely as white people to live in these zones.

In many counties around the world, governments are implementing subsidies for clean cars (for example eclectic, hybrid or low-emission cars) and adding fees on dirty cars.

Greenhouse Gas emissions started rising steadily in the 1940s, meaning that many people responsible for that damage will not be alive to suffer the full consequences. But children born today will spend most of their lives dealing with the impact. They’ll have to emit 9 times less carbon than their grandparents just to keep us at the 1.5-degree increase in global temperature.

Countries like Niger, Chad, Somalia and Malawi are among those hardest hit by climate change and yet are all members of the 10 lowest emitting countries in the world.