Climate Justice: Empowering Voices, Creating Choices

Today is World Environment Day, and not so coincidentally, Cool Earth’s 15th birthday.

Since 2007, people who live in the rainforest at the heart of everything we do. Their knowledge, their voices, and their choices have protected the rainforest for millennia and they have the stats to prove it.

• Forest loss rates in Cool Earth’s Amazon partnerships are 36% lower than those in local areas not managed by Indigenous peoples
• Forest loss rates in Cool Earth’s Papua New Guinea (PNG) partnerships are 54% lower than those in the province as a whole
• Forest loss rates in Cool Earth’s Congo Basin partnerships are on average 31% lower than the provincial rates where they are based.

Despite doing most of the work to fight environmental destruction, they are the most economically disadvantaged, marginalised and are also more likely to bear the brunt of the climate crisis.

The people of Wabumari working together to construct a new toilet.

That is where climate justice comes in.

The climate crisis is an inequality crisis. If we fail to recognise that this is about fixing injustices, we will achieve nothing.

Whilst Indigenous peoples and local communities comprise less than 5% of the world’s population, they manage at least 25% of the planet’s land surface and protect an estimated 80% of global biodiversity. Even still, Indigenous peoples receive less than 1% of climate finance.

Let’s change the record.

Adelaida gestures at a map of the area whilst working with the Forest Impacts team in Cutivireni, Peru.