As COP 26 gets underway, let’s remind ourselves of the stakes of the climate crisis and who has the most to lose from inaction

‘Uniting the world to tackle climate change’. The COP26 slogan offers a vision of global solidarity in the face of the staggering challenge that cutting carbon emissions poses to humanity. Despite this aspirational message, though, COP is far from a fully representational event. Although indigenous and developing communities are disproportionately affected by climate inaction, they are also the least represented. Frequently this is a result of COVID-19: less developed nations have been unable to vaccinate their communities’ climate leaders, and therefore cannot attend. As Greta Thumberg pointed out in a tweet in April, ‘if people can’t be vaccinated and travel to be represented equally, that’s undemocratic and would worsen the problem.’

Undeniably, global superpowers are the most responsible for carbon emissions. A 2021 report from Climate Transparency proves what many of us already knew, that G20 countries, the world’s most developed nations, are responsible for a majority of emissions - 75% to be exact. However, while it is crucial that G20 nations act immediately in order to mitigate global heating, the testimony of smaller communities, the most vulnerable to climate change, desperately need to be heard. Their voices are the most powerful in addressing the urgency of the problem, and in ensuring global justice while transitioning to a zero-emission world. Therefore, anticipating the exclusion of indigenous and community voices from COP, here are some of the communities who would be most affected by a failure of the conference’s stated goal to ensure global warming is limited to below 2 degrees celsius:

Small Island States

Rising sea levels is one of the more distinct features of climate change, and few communities are more vulnerable to these variations than low-lying, small island states. Although all coastal regions are affected by sea rise, these islands are particularly at risk due to the totality of the destruction that they face as a result of climate inaction. The AOSIS, Alliance of Small Island States, an organization that represents many island communities, issued a declaration on September 22nd 2021 that ‘climate change continues to pose the most serious threat to our very existence, territorial integrity, viability and survival’. The groups represented by AOSIS are similarly vulnerable to extreme weather, an issue intensified by climate change, as many of these islands are frequently in the path of weather events such as hurricanes.

Indigenous Peoples in the Arctic Circle

Those that live within the Arctic Circle, many of whom are indigenous peoples, are on the frontline of the accelerated melting of polar ice caps as a result of global warming. Many of these communities rely on subsistence fishing and hunting - that is, hunting in order to feed the community rather than trading with the meat - and the loss of sea ice frequently makes it more difficult for indigenous people to hunt. In The Arctic Program’s 2019 Arctic Report Card, elders from indigenous tribes in the Bering Sea gave testimony as to how sea ice ‘provides access to seals, whales, walrus, fish, crabs, and other marine life for our subsistence harvests’. Therefore, the accelerated melting of arctic ice in this region has a direct impact on these communities’ ability to survive in an already hostile environment.

Central African Communities

According to Turn the Tide, WaterAid’s report on the state of the world’s water in 2021, 785 million people do not have access to a regular supply of clean water. This number will only be increased as a result of a failure to mitigate further climate change, and WaterAid emphasises how landlocked Central African nations such as Eswatini and Burkina Faso will be some of the worst hit. As global temperatures rise, and exceptional heatwave events become more common, greater quantities of water will be evaporated. Burkina Faso already loses 60% of its reservoir water to evaporation, and this number will only increase with rising temperatures, making huge swathes of land completely uninhabitable due to drought. As well as death due to dehydration, poor water supplies lead to disease due to a reliance on less clean sources, and intensify existing conflicts and inequalities.

Indigenous Communities in North America

Although the increasing prevalence of wildfires in California has been reported on extensively - a direct result of longer, hotter summers caused by climate change - the disproportionate effects that wildfires have had on indigenous peoples’ ways of life are less focused on. Native American people are more than six times more likely to live in areas prone to wildfire than white communities, according to the University of Washington. In the past, indigenous communities in North America have been forced to relocate to reservations, typically in rural areas, after their lands were colonised. As a result of this historical injustice, indigenous people in even the most developed countries continue to bear the brunt of climate inaction.

Scott Thomson

'Scott is an English student at the University of Exeter, and is passionate about documenting cultural, humanitarian, and political responses to the climate crisis. In his free time, Scott loves to immerse himself in media, especially Gothic and Dystopian literature, and is interested in how fictional narratives can represent climate issues and inspire future change. He is also Chief Lead Writer at the Falmouth Anchor student newspaper, and can be found on Twitter at @ScottThomson135.'

The Communities Most Affected by Climate Inaction

As COP 26 gets underway, let’s remind ourselves of the stakes of the climate crisis and who has the most to lose from inaction

Scott Thomson