Australia must do more to empower communities of colour in its response to climate change.
In late February, the Multicultural Leadership Initiative hosted its Our Common Future summits in Sydney and Melbourne. These summits focused on the importance of multicultural climate advocacy, the disproportionate impact of climate change on people of colour and the need to build climate resilience at a grassroots level.
These summits brought together a range of First Nations, Pasifika, people of colour, and culturally and linguistically diverse advocates and stakeholders. The need for a conference of this nature is clear: although climate change threatens us all, people of colour are often marginalised within mainstream climate-change discourse. As highlighted by Minister for Climate Change Chris Bowen in his keynote speech at the Sydney summit, we need to dispel the myth that climate change is only ‘a concern for inner-city Anglo-Celtic elites’.
The inclusion of people of colour in this conversation is an ethical imperative, as climate change often disproportionately affects people of colour. In Western Sydney, for example, more than half of the population speaks a language other than English at home and the proportion of low-income earners is higher than the rest of Sydney. This area is typically six to 10 degrees hotter than the rest of the city during extreme heat events. These events therefore pose a significant challenge to low-income migrants with English as a second language, who often lack access to quality healthcare and housing.
This is also evident in developing countries. Although the Global South contributes a relatively small amount to global greenhouse gas emissions, these countries are on the frontline of climate change. One only has to look at international headlines to see the severity of climate disasters, including floods in South Asia and rising sea levels in Pacific island countries such as Tuvalu.
These are not one-off events. They are emblematic of a broader trend of climate injustice: rich, developed countries are doing relatively little to respond to climate events, despite contributing more to climate change. In her report to the General Assembly, UN special rapporteur E Tendayi Achiume highlighted that ‘discrimination at the core of environmental and climate justice’ means that ‘race, ethnicity and national origin continue to result in the unjust enrichment of some, and the utter exploitation … and even death of others’.
International climate negotiation forums have also faced criticism for marginalising specific racial groups. At COP26 in 2021, many African voices were underrepresented due to limited funding and difficulty securing Covid-19 vaccines, both of which were necessary for in-person participation. This undermined the ability of African advocates to highlight the severity of domestic climate effects, such as prolonged drought in Zambia, which left about one million people in need of food assistance in 2021.
If Australia and Pacific island countries are successful in their joint bid to host COP31 in 2026, Australia will have the opportunity to address these inequities in climate negotiations. Discussions must focus on improving climate financing for the Global South, especially countries that are industrialising and therefore need access to energy sources. As green energy solutions are often costly, uptake in developing countries will require financial support from wealthier, developed countries.
Centring communities of colour within the climate movement will also help build grassroots resilience to climate impacts. As seen during the Covid-19 pandemic, governments often struggle to reach multicultural Australians, especially community members with limited English language proficiency or those who are recent arrivals. As climate effects become more frequent and severe, empowering multicultural community leaders to act as climate spokespeople at a grassroots level will improve Australia’s broader climate resilience.
While governments have traditionally relied on directly translating messages into community languages, multicultural leaders can more effectively influence their respective communities. Religious leaders, business owners, youth leaders and other prominent figures in multicultural communities are best placed to distil climate messaging.
Community leaders can tangibly illustrate the impacts of climate change on the wellbeing of multicultural communities. For example, they could point to increasingly common pollution-related health effects and highlight the effect of climate change on grocery and fuel prices.
During climate disasters, such as floods, bushfires and cyclones, these same community leaders are already well-placed to conduct tailored outreach to community members in line with government messaging, building community resilience.
Centralising the voices of communities of colour in the climate movement is integral to building national resilience and addressing the disproportionate effects of climate change on people of colour. The Multicultural Leadership Initiative’s summits in Sydney and Melbourne were the first of their kind, shedding light on issues faced by many in the multicultural climate advocacy space. The conference paved an optimistic path forward by finally centring people of colour as autonomous and empowered actors within the climate movement.