03 Nov 2025 Let’s not forget that climate change is a justice issue

Over the past few years, climate change has become a lighting rod issue in many countries of the Global North.

Populist right-wing figures like Donald Trump (USA), Nigel Farage (UK), Alice Weidel (Germany) and Santiago Abascal (Spain) have either denied climate change, sought to undermine its importance, or claimed that focusing on it undermines their countries’ prosperity. In doing so, these claims have fueled a narrative that seeks to absolve polluter countries of their historical responsibility for the climate crisis.

These narratives are tempting to follow for many people in Northern countries, many of whom are already dealing with many other issues like the high cost of living or limited access to housing. But that does not make them true.

As leaders from around the world gather in Brazil at the United Nations COP 30 climate summit (Nov 10–21), it is worth remembering that climate change is and will continue to be a justice issue that requires justice-oriented solutions.

Climate change is a phenomenon caused by historically wealthy industrialized nations, especially in the North, and more recently by large emitters like China and India. However, a lot of its effects, like changing weather patterns and unpredictable droughts and floods, are being felt primarily by communities in South. There is no denying this.

As former Irish President Mary Robinson says: “The most disadvantaged across the world are suffering the effects of climate change. Though these communities have been the least responsible for the emissions causing climate change, they have been, are being, and will be, disproportionately affected because of their already vulnerable geographic locations and their lack of climate resilience.”

Solutions that take a climate justice lens include debt forgiveness, energy justice, and enhanced Indigenous and peasants land rights. From WACC’s perspective of communication rights, in addition to these aforementioned and very relevant demands, the world also needs to pay attention to how communication and information deficits are undermining the fight for climate justice.

These deficits – including limited access to information, a dearth of public interest journalism, a generalized lack of critical media literacy, and undemocratic media structures – mean that the knowledge and ways of thinking and knowing of communities at the forefront of the climate crisis are rarely heard in public debate and are absent in policymaking.

For example, as Naomi Klein notes in This Changes Everything, “Indigenous people might get media attention for their clothes, culture, or spirituality but rarely for their political actions or traditional knowledge… Corporate media often presents Indigenous people as ‘living in the past’ and enjoying undeserved special rights.” This constitutes a serious barrier to the “parity of participation” needed so that communities affected by climate degradation can effectively influence policymaking. These deficits also allow for climate disinformation to go viral and for politicians whose main modus operandi is lying to continue to win elections.

WACC believes that integrating communication and information justice issues into climate justice struggles is essential. While in theory everyone has equal human rights related to communication (access to information, freedom of expression, etc.), in practice the most marginalized people – those who often are the most affected by climate change – face significant economic, political, and cultural barriers to exercise these rights and have their voices not only heard but taken seriously.

In practice, we must tackle these deficits by

• supporting efforts to enable grassroots climate activists and media houses to build connections and trust
• promoting greater access to media, the internet, and ICTs (information and communications technologies) among Indigenous and marginalized communities
• advocating for the allocation of broadcasting licenses to community-based groups affected by climate change
• building the capacity of Indigenous and other grassroots communities to engage with media
• enhancing intercultural dialogue initiatives and promoting Indigenous languages
• supporting grassroots communities to systematize and share traditional ecological knowledge that help theirs and other communities adapt to climate change

WACC will be present at COP30 with a team of grassroots journalists from across the Amazon basin to present the case for communication rights as building blocks of climate justice – because climate change demands that the voices of communities at the forefront of the climate crisis are heard.

Photo: Children take refugee above flood waters in their home in Santa Cruz, Laguna, in the Philippines. Paul Jeffrey/Life on Earth