Rising sea levels, increased storm and hurricane activity, prolonged drought in water-stressed areas or other climate related impacts are making it harder and harder for small-scale farmers to grow the food that they need to feed their families and communities.
While Global North corporations directly engaged in the industries that emit the most greenhouse gases associated with climate change make record profits, peasants, Indigenous Peoples, women and youth throughout the Global South are among the hardest hit by its effects.
But that’s not the end of the story. The collective experiences, analyses, voices, and action of people from impacted communities – including peasants, Indigenous Peoples, women, and youth – are working to create real solutions to the climate crisis. Those same frontline movements draw a clear line between the loss of resource rights and the rise of climate change. They experience first-hand the impacts of intense weather events, as well as the relentless incursions of chemical companies like Monsanto and other industrial giants that poison water systems and grab land. And they offer grassroots solutions that are viable, scalable and urgent.
The message “Small Farmers Cool the Planet,” coined by Grassroots’ partner La Via Campesina, summarizes that food sovereignty, seed sovereignty, agrarian reform, and water rights are in fact needed to prevent further greenhouse gas emissions. Studies show that small, sustainable agriculture does in fact cool the planet. In fact, small farmers using agroecology offer the best solutions that both feed the world and cool the planet. That’s why Grassroots International’s focus on resource rights is more relevant than ever, and it leads to the next step: climate justice. Climate justice operates at the intersection of racial and social rights, environmental and economic justice. It focuses on the roots causes of climate change, and calls for a transformation to a sustainable, community-led economy.
Like resource rights, climate justice also means that those most impacted offer the most effective solutions. And for these frontline communities, the solution starts with defending land and rivers from mines, mega-projects and industrial agriculture; and expanding agroecology, transformative economies, and building community-controlled energy and food systems. Grassroots International is proud to stand up for these very solutions, along with allies in the US and around the world.
You can watch May 2017 Grassroots International Climate Justice Forum featuring Naomi Klein, Tom Goldtooth, Carlos Marentes, Sr., and Jade Percassi:
Coming Clean, a BEAI Fund grantee, surveyed nine communities across the United States for their study Life at the Fenceline. Their report reveals how impoverished communities, especially Black and Latinx ones, have borne the brunt of health hazards from toxic pollution.
These five narrative frames and their embedded assumptions determine how billions of dollars in climate philanthropy and finance are spent. Without mapping and exposing these frames we cannot engage in honest conversation about the role of philanthropists in supporting transformative change.