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Envisioning environmental equity: climate change, health, and racial justice

Deivanayagam, Thilagawathi Abi; English, Sonora; Hickel, Jason; Bonifacio, Jon; Guinto, Renzo R; Hill, Kyle X; Huq, Mita; ... Devakumar, Delan; + view all (2023) Envisioning environmental equity: climate change, health, and racial justice. Lancet 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00919-4. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

Climate change has a broad range of health impacts and tackling climate change could be the greatest opportunity for improving global health this century. Yet conversations on climate change and health are often incomplete, giving little attention to structural discrimination and the need for racial justice. Racism kills, and climate change kills. Together, racism and climate change interact and have disproportionate effects on the lives of minoritised people both within countries and between the Global North and the Global South. This paper has three main aims. First, to survey the literature on the unequal health impacts of climate change due to racism, xenophobia, and discrimination through a scoping review. We found that racially minoritised groups, migrants, and Indigenous communities face a disproportionate burden of illness and mortality due to climate change in different contexts. Second, this paper aims to highlight inequalities in responsibility for climate change and the effects thereof. A geographical visualisation of responsibility for climate change and projected mortality and disease risk attributable to climate change per 100 000 people in 2050 was conducted. These maps visualise the disproportionate burden of illness and mortality due to climate change faced by the Global South. Our third aim is to highlight the pathways through which climate change, discrimination, and health interact in most affected areas. Case studies, testimony, and policy analysis drawn from multidisciplinary perspectives are presented throughout the paper to elucidate these pathways. The health community must urgently examine and repair the structural discrimination that drives the unequal impacts of climate change to achieve rapid and equitable action.

Type: Article
Title: Envisioning environmental equity: climate change, health, and racial justice
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00919-4
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)00919-4
Language: English
Additional information: © 2023 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY 4.0 license Attribution 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10171666
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