View source for Environmental justice

{{Short description|Social movement}}
{{Use American English|date=November 2021}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=November 2021}}
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{{Environmental justice|sidebar|Key}}
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'''Environmental justice''' is a [[social movement]] that addresses injustice that occurs when poor or marginalized communities are harmed by [[hazardous waste]], [[resource extraction]], and other [[land use]]s from which they do not benefit.<ref name=":8">{{Cite journal |last1=Size |first1=Julie |last2=London |first2=Jonathan K. |date=July 2008 |title=Environmental Justice at the Crossroads |journal=Sociology Compass |language=en |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=1331–1354 |doi=10.1111/j.1751-9020.2008.00131.x }}</ref>{{sfn|Schlosberg|2007|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}} The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to [[environmental harm]] is inequitably distributed.<ref name="Malin-2019" /> Additionally, many marginalized communities, including the [[LGBTQ community]], are disproportionately impacted by natural disasters.  

The movement [[Environmental racism in the United States|began in the United States]] in the 1980s. It was heavily influenced by the [[Civil rights movement|American civil rights movement]] and focused on [[environmental racism]] within rich countries. The movement was later expanded to consider gender, [[LGBTQ people]], international environmental injustice, and inequalities within marginalized groups. As the movement achieved some success in rich countries, environmental burdens were shifted to the [[Global North and Global South|Global South]] (as for example through [[extractivism]] or the [[global waste trade]]). The movement for environmental justice has thus become more global, with some of its aims now being articulated by the [[United Nations]]. The movement overlaps with movements for [[Indigenous land rights]] and for the [[Right to a healthy environment|human right to a healthy environment]].{{sfn|Martinez-Alier|2002|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}

[[File:Cleaning environment.jpg|thumb|Cleaning environment]]

The goal of the environmental justice movement is to achieve [[Agency (sociology)|agency]] for marginalized communities in making environmental decisions that affect their lives. The global environmental justice movement arises from local [[environmental conflict]]s in which [[environmental defender]]s frequently confront multi-national corporations in resource extraction or other industries. Local outcomes of these conflicts are increasingly influenced by trans-national environmental justice networks.<ref name="Scheidel" /><ref name="Martinez Alier-2016" />

Environmental justice scholars have produced a large [[Interdisciplinarity|interdisciplinary]] body of [[social science]] literature that includes contributions to [[political ecology]], [[environmental laws|environmental law]], and theories on [[justice]] and [[sustainability]].{{sfn|Schlosberg|2007|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Miller |first=G. Tyler Jr. |title=Environmental Science: Working With the Earth |date=2003 |publisher=Brooks/Cole |isbn=0-534-42039-7 |edition=9th |location=Pacific Grove, California |page=G5}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Sze |first1=Julie |title=Sustainability: Approaches to Environmental Justice and Social Power |date=2018 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-1-4798-9456-7 }}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref>

== Scope ==
Environmental justice has evolved into a comprehensive global movement, introducing numerous concepts to political ecology, including ecological debt, environmental racism, [[climate justice]], food sovereignty, corporate accountability, ecocide, sacrifice zones, and environmentalism of the poor. It aims, in part, to augment human rights law, which traditionally overlooked the relationship between the environment and human rights. Despite attempts to integrate environmental protection into human rights law, challenges persist, particularly concerning climate justice.

Scholars such as [[Kyle Powys Whyte]] and [[Dina Gilio-Whitaker]] have extended the discourse on environmental justice concerning Indigenous peoples and settler-colonialism. Gilio-Whitaker critiques distributive justice, which assumes a capitalistic commodification of land inconsistent with many Indigenous worldviews. Whyte explores environmental justice within the context of colonialism's catastrophic environmental impacts on Indigenous peoples' traditional livelihoods and identities.
==Definitions==
[[File:Agbogbloshie.JPG|thumb|upright=1.5|left|Low-income workers in [[Ghana]] recycling waste from high-income countries, with recycling conditions heavily polluting the [[Agbogbloshie]] area]]
The United States [[United States Environmental Protection Agency|Environmental Protection Agency]] defines environmental justice as:<ref>{{Cite web |date=13 May 2013 |title=Environmental Justice-Related Terms As Defined Across the PSC Agencies |url=https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-02/documents/team-ej-lexicon.pdf |website=U.S. EPA}}</ref><blockquote>
the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies. Fair treatment means that no group of people, including racial, ethnic, or socio-economic groups, should bear a disproportionate share of the negative environmental consequences resulting from industrial, municipal, and commercial operations or the execution of federal, state, local, and tribal programs and policies 
</blockquote>Environmental justice is also discussed as '''environmental racism''' or '''environmental inequality'''.<ref>Environmental Inequality by Julie Gobert https://www.encyclopedie-environnement.org/en/society/environmental-inequalities/</ref>

Environmental justice is typically defined as [[distributive justice]], which is ''the equitable distribution of environmental risks and benefits''.<ref name="Schlosberg-2002">{{Cite book|last=Schlosberg|first=David|title=Moral and Political Reasoning in Environmental Practice|publisher=The MIT Press|year=2002|isbn=978-0-262-62164-9|editor-last=Light|editor-first=Andrew|location=Cambridge, Massachusetts|page=79|editor-last2=De-Shalit|editor-first2=Avner}}</ref> Some definitions address [[procedural justice]], which is the ''fair and meaningful participation in decision-making''. Other scholars emphasise [[recognition justice]], which is the ''recognition of oppression'' ''and difference in environmental justice communities''. People's ''capacity'' to convert social goods into a flourishing community is a further criteria for a just society.{{sfn|Schlosberg|2007|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}<ref name="Schlosberg-2002" /><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Zwarteveen |first1=Margreet Z. |last2=Boelens |first2=Rutgerd |title=Defining, researching and struggling for water justice: some conceptual building blocks for research and action |journal=Water International |date=23 February 2014 |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=143–158 |doi=10.1080/02508060.2014.891168 |bibcode=2014WatIn..39..143Z |s2cid=154913910 }}</ref> However, initiatives have been taken to expand the notion of environmental justice beyond the three pillars of distribution, participation, and recognition to also include the dimensions of self-governing authority, relational ontologies, and epistemic justice.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Temper |first1=Leah |title=Blocking pipelines, unsettling environmental justice: from rights of nature to responsibility to territory |journal=Local Environment |date=February 2019 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=94–112 |doi=10.1080/13549839.2018.1536698 |bibcode=2019LoEnv..24...94T |url=https://ddd.uab.cat/record/203477 }}</ref>

[[Robert D. Bullard]] writes that environmental justice, as a social movement and ideological stewardship, may instead be seen as a conversation of equity. Bullard writes that equity is distilled into three board categories: procedural, geographic, and social.<ref name=":8" /> From his publication “Confronting Environmental Racism in the Twenty-First Century,” he draws our the difference between the three within the context of environmental injustices:<blockquote>''Procedural equity'' refers to the “fairness” question: the extent that rules, regulations, evaluation criteria and enforcement are applied uniformly across the board and in a non-discriminatory way. Unequal protection might result from nonscientific and undemocratic decisions, exclusionary practices, public hearings held in remote locations and at inconvenient times, and use of English-only material as the language in which to communicate and conduct hearings for non-English-speaking publics. 

''Geographic equity'' refers to the location and spatial configuration of communities and their proximity to environmental hazards, noxious facilities and locally unwanted land uses (Lulus) such as landfills, incinerators, sewage treatment plants, lead smelters, refineries and other noxious facilities. For example, unequal protection may result from land-use decisions that determine the location of residential amenities and disamenities. The poor and communities of colour often suffer a “triple” vulnerability of noxious facility siting, as do the unincorporated—sparsely populated communities that are not legally chartered as cities or municipalities and are therefore usually governed by distant county governments rather than having their own locally elected officials. 

''Social equity'' assesses the role of sociological factors (race, ethnicity, class, culture, life styles, political power, etc.) on environmental decision making. Poor people and people of colour often work in the most dangerous jobs and live in the most polluted neighbourhoods, their children exposed to all kinds of environmental toxins in the playgrounds and in their homes. </blockquote>

=== Indigenous environmental justice ===
In non-Native communities, where toxic industries and other discriminatory practices are disproportionately occurring, residents rely on laws and statutory frameworks outlined by the EPA. They rely on [[distributive justice]], centered around the nature of private property. Native Americans do not fall under the same statutory frameworks as they are citizens of Indigenous nations, not ethnic minorities. As individuals, they are subject to American laws. As nations, they are subject to a separate legal regime, constructed on the basis of pre-existing sovereignty acknowledged by treaty and the U.S. Constitution. Environmental justice to Indigenous persons is not understood by legal entities but rather their distinct [[Culture|cultural]] and religious doctrines.<ref name=":5">{{Cite web |date=2017-03-06 |title=What Environmental Justice Means in Indian Country |url=https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/earth-focus/what-environmental-justice-means-in-indian-country |access-date=2024-05-02 |website=PBS SoCal |language=en}}</ref>

Environmental Justice for Indigenous peoples follows a model that frames issues in terms of their colonial condition and can affirm decolonization as a potential framework within environmental justice.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/as-long-as-grass-grows-the-indigenous-fight-for-environmental-justice-from-colon |title=As Long As Grass Grows The Indigenous Fight For Environmental Justice, From Colonization To Standing Rock By Dina Gilio Whitaker}}</ref> While Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences vary from place to place, David Pellow writes that there are “common realities they all share in their experience of colonization that make it possible to generalize an Indigenous methodology while recognizing specific, localized conditions”.<ref name=":6" /> Even abstract ideas like the right to a clean environment, a human right according to the United Nations,<ref>{{Cite web |date=July 28, 2022 |title=In historic move, UN declares healthy environment a human right |url=http://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/historic-move-un-declares-healthy-environment-human-right |access-date=2024-05-02 |website=UNEP |language=en}}</ref> contradicts Indigenous peoples understanding of environmental justice as it reflects the commodification of land when seen in light of property values.<ref name=":5" />

=== Environmentalism of the poor ===
[[Joan Martinez Alier|Joan Martinez-Alier]]'s influential concept of the '''environmentalism of the poor''' highlights the ways in which marginalized communities, particularly those in the Global South, are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation and the importance of including their perspectives and needs in environmental decision-making. Many wealthy countries forcibly extract resources from countries in the Global South, causing severe environmental and economic damage. For instance, companies such as [[Shell plc|Shell Oil]] have conducted drilling in [[Nigeria]], specifically in [[Ogoniland]], for decades. This drilling has required a $1 billion cleanup of the [[Niger River Delta]] due to severe pollution.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Owolabi |first=Tife |date=January 21, 2025 |title=Nigerian green groups protest at planned return of oil drilling in Ogoniland |url=https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/nigerian-green-groups-protest-planned-return-oil-drilling-ogoniland-2025-01-21/ |website=Reuters}}</ref> In response to such damage, Ogoni residents, including the [[Ogoni Nine]] and [[Ken Saro-Wiwa]], began leading large-scale protests. The Nigerian government, which was backed by Shell Oil, violently suppressed protestors through arrests and executions.{{sfn |Nixon |2013 |p= }} Martinez-Alier's work also introduces the concept of "ecological distribution conflicts," which are conflicts over access to and control of natural resources and the environmental impacts that result from their use, and which are often rooted in social and economic inequalities.{{sfn|Martinez-Alier|2002|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}

Another example of environmentalism of the poor is how low-income communities are disproportionately impacted by environmental hazards. For instance, low-income communities tend to be located closer to sources of pollution, with one study by the University of Michigan finding that more than half of those living within three kilometers of hazardous waste facilities were impoverished.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Environmental Classism: Unveiling the Link between Urban Planning and Disease Spread in Impoverished Neighborhoods of the United States {{!}} YIP Institute |url=https://yipinstitute.org/capstone/environmental-classism-the-link-between-urban-planning-and-disease-spread |access-date=2025-05-08 |website=yipinstitute.org |language=en}}</ref>  

=== Slow violence ===
The term “slow violence” was coined by author Rob Nixon in his 2011 book ''Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor''.{{sfn |Nixon |2011 |p= }}{{page needed |date=May 2024}} Slow violence is defined as “violence that occurs gradually and out of sight, a violence of delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space, an attritional violence that is typically not viewed as violence at all”.{{sfn |Nixon |2011 |p= }}{{page needed |date=May 2024}} Examples include the effects of climate change, toxic drift, deforestation, oil spills, and the environmental aftermath of war.

Slow violence exacerbates the vulnerability of ecosystems and of people who are poor, disempowered, and often involuntarily displaced, while fueling social conflicts that arise from desperation. Environmental justice as a social movement addresses environmental issues that may be defined as slow violence and otherwise may not be addressed by legislative bodies.

=== Critical environmental justice ===
Drawing on concepts of [[anarchism]], [[posthumanism]], [[critical theory]],<ref name="g978">{{cite journal | last=Vermeylen | first=Saskia | title=Special issue: environmental justice and epistemic violence | journal=Local Environment | volume=24 | issue=2 | date=2019 | issn=1354-9839 | doi=10.1080/13549839.2018.1561658 | pages=89–93| bibcode=2019LoEnv..24...89V }}</ref> and intersectional [[feminism]], author David Naguib Pellow created the concept of Critical Environmental Justice (CEJ).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Holifield |first1=Ryan |title=David Naguib Pellow, What is Critical Environmental Justice?: Cambridge UK and Medford MA, Polity Press, 2018, 206 pp. |journal=Review of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Studies |date=December 2018 |volume=99 |issue=3–4 |pages=303–306 |doi=10.1007/s41130-018-0078-5 |bibcode=2018RAFES..99..303H |url=https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/300926/files/Holifield2018_Article_DavidPellowWhatIsCritica.pdf }}</ref> Critical EJ is a perspective intended to address a number of limitations and tensions within EJ Studies. Critical EJ calls for scholarship that builds on environmental justice studies by questioning assumptions and gaps in earlier work, embracing greater interdisciplinary, and moving towards methodologies and epistemologies including and beyond the social sciences.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Pellow |first=David N. |title=What is critical environmental justice? |date=2018 |publisher=Polity Press |isbn=978-0-7456-7937-2 |location=Cambridge, UK; Medford, MA, USA}}</ref> Critical EJ scholars believe that multiple forms of inequality drive and characterize the experience of environmental injustice.<ref name=":17">{{cite journal |last1=Pellow |first1=David N. |title=Toward A Critical Environmental Justice Studies: Black Lives Matter as an Environmental Justice Challenge |journal=Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race |date=2016 |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=221–236 |doi=10.1017/s1742058x1600014x }}</ref>

Differentiation between conventional environmental studies and Critical EJ studies is done through four distinctive "pillars". These include: (1) intersectionality; (2) spatial and temporal scale; (3) working toward solutions and justice outside of the state; and (4) as beings as indispenable.<ref name=":17" />

In ''What is Critical Environmental Justice'', Pellow explains:<ref name=":1" /><blockquote>Where we find rivers dammed for hydropower plants we also tend to find indigenous peoples and fisherfolk, as well as other working people, whose livelihoods and health are harmed as a result; when sea life suffers from exposure to toxins such as mercury, we find that human beings also endure the effects of mercury when they consume those animals; and the intersecting character of multiple forms of inequality is revealed when nuclear radiation or climate change affects all species and humans across all social class levels, racial/ethnic groups, genders, abilities, and ages. </blockquote>
==== First Pillar: Intersectionality ====
The first pillar of Critical EJ Studies involves the recognition that social inequality and oppression in all forms intersect, and that actors in the more-than-human world are subjects of oppression and frequently agents of social change.<ref name=":1" /> Developed by [[Kimberlé Crenshaw]] in 1989, intersectionality theory states that individuals exist in a crossroads of all their identities, with privilege and marginalization in the intersection between their class, race, gender, sexuality, queerness, cis- or transness, ethnicity, ability, and other facts of identity.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Oglesby |first=Cameron |date=2021-02-10 |title=The generational rift over 'intersectional environmentalism' |url=https://grist.org/justice/intersectional-environmentalism-justice-language/ |access-date=2024-05-09 |website=Grist |language=en-us}}</ref><ref name=":7">{{Cite web |title=Policy Drivers for Environmental Justice: What Businesses Need to Know |url=http://www.hbs.edu/environment/blog/post/environmental-justice-Bluestein |access-date=2024-05-09 |website=Blog - Business & Environment - Harvard Business School |language=en}}</ref> As [[David Nibert]] and Michael Fox put it in the context of injustice, “The oppression of various devalued groups in human societies is not independent and unrelated; rather, the arrangements that lead to various forms of oppression are integrated in such a way that the exploitation of one group frequently augments and compounds the mistreatment of others.” Thus, Critical EJ views racism, heteropatriarchy, classism, nativism, ableism, ageism, speciesism (the belief that one species is superior to another), and other forms of inequality as intersecting axes of domination and control.<ref name=":1" />

==== Second Pillar: Spatial and Temporal Scale ====
The second pillar of Critical EJ is a focus on the role of scale in the production and possible resolution of environmental injustices.<ref name=":1" /> Critical EJ embraces multi-scalar methodological and theoretical approaches order to better comprehend the complex spatial and temporal causes, consequences, and possible resolutions of EJ struggles.<ref name=":17" /> Scale is deeply racialized, gendered, and classed. While the conclusions of climate scientists are remarkably clear that anthropogenic climate change is occurring at a dramatic pace and with increasing intensity, Pellow writes in his 2016 publication ''Toward A Critical Environmental Justice Studies'' that “this is also happening unevenly, with people of color, the poor, indigenous peoples, peoples of the global South, and women suffering the most.”<ref name=":17" />   

Pellow further contextualizes scale through temporal dimensions. For instance, Pellow observes in his 2017 publication ''What is Critical Environmental Justice'' that while “a molecule of carbon dioxide or nitrous oxide can occur in an instant, … it remains in the atmosphere for more than a century, so the decisions we make at one point in time can have dramatic ramifications for generations to come”.<ref name=":1" /> Pollution does not stay where it starts, and so consideration must be taken as to the scale of an issue rather than solely its effects. 

==== Third Pillar: Working Toward Solutions Outside the State ====
The third pillar of Critical EJ is the view that social inequalities - from racism to speciesism - are deeply embedded in society and reinforced by state power, and therefore the current social order stands as a fundamental obstacle to social and environmental justice.<ref name=":1" /> Pellow argues in his 2017 publication ''What is Critical Environmental Justice'' that social change movements may be better off thinking and acting beyond the state and capital as targets of reform and/or as reliable partners.<ref name=":17" /> Furthermore, that scholars and activists are not asking how they might build environmentally resilient communities that exist beyond the state, but rather how they might do so with a different model of state intervention.<sup>SOURCE</sup> Pellow believes that by building and supporting strongly democratic practices, relationships, and institutions, movements for social change will become less dependent upon the state, while any elements of the state they do work through may become more robustly democratic.<ref name=":1" /> 

He contextualizes this pillar with activist the anarchist-inspired [[Common Ground Collective]], which was co-created by Scott Crow to provide services for survivors of [[Hurricane Katrina]] on the Gulf Coast in 2005.<ref name=":1" /> Crow gave insight as to what change outside of state power looks like, telling Pellow:<ref name=":1" /> <blockquote>We did service work, but it was a revolutionary analysis and practice. We created a horizontal organization that defied the state and did our work in spite of the state … not only did we feed people and give them aid and hygiene kits and things like that, but we also stopped housing from being bulldozed, we cut the locks on schools when they said schools couldn't be opened, and we cleaned the schools out because the students and the teachers wanted that to happen. And we didn't do a one size fits all like the Red Cross would do – we asked the communities, every community we went into, we asked multiple people, the street sex workers, the gangsters, the church leaders, everybody, we talked to them: what can we do to help your neighborhood, to help your community, to help you? And that made us different because for me, it's the overlay of anarchism. Instead of having one franchise thing, you just have concepts, and you just pick the components that match the needs of the people there.</blockquote>

==== Fourth Pillar: Indispensability ====
The fourth pillar of Critical EJ centers on a concept Pellow calls “Indispensability”. Critical EJ builds on this work by countering the ideology of white supremacy and human dominionism, and articulating the perspective that excluded, marginalized, and other populations, beings, and things - both human and nonhuman - must be viewed not as expensable but rather an indispensable to our collective futures.<ref name=":17" /> Pellow uses racial indispensability when referring to people of color and socioecological indispensability when referring to broader communities within and across the human/nonhuman divide and their relationships to one another.<ref name=":17" /> Pellow expands writing in ''Toward A Critical Environmental Justice Studies'' that “racial indispensability is intended to challenge the logic of racial expendability and is the idea that institutions, policies, and practices that support and perpetrate anti-Black racism suffer from the flawed assumption that the future of African Americans is somehow de-linked from the future of  White communities.”<ref name=":17" />

== History ==
[[File:Afton, North Carolina 01.jpg|thumb|Highway marker in Afton commemorating the [[North Carolina PCB Protest, 1982|1982 North Carolina PCB landfill protests]]]]{{See also|Environmental racism}}
Traces of environmental injustices span millennia of unrecorded history. For instance, Indigenous peoples have experienced environmental devastation of a genocidal kind for several centuries. Origins of the environmental justice movement can be traced to the Indigenous Environmental Movement, which has involved Indigenous populations fighting against displacement and assimilation for sovereignty and [[Aboriginal title in the United States|land rights]] for hundreds of years. For instance, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a landscape that is sacred to the Diné people and part of the Navajo Nation, was once a center of uranium mining and a hotspot for oil and gas production. Although now closed, the mines continue to impact the health of the surrounding Indigenous community, leaving members continuously advocating for community protection. Ironically, the various Indigenous territories, which make up [https://www.nrdc.org/bio/giulia-cs-good-stefani/indigenous-leaders-frontlines-environmental-injustice-and-solutions 22% of the world's land surface], hold about 80% of the world's remaining biodiversity. 

The terms 'environmental justice’ and ‘[[Environmental racism|environmental’ racism]]’ did not enter the common vernacular until the first environmental justice cases were brought to court in 1979 in Texas, and in 1982 in North Carolina. The 1979 case, ''Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management Corporation'' was in response to a decision placing a garbage dump in Northwood Manor in East Houston.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Park |first1=Jenny |last2=Reid |first2=Deborah |last3=Norris |first3=Kim |title=Not in My Backyard: Executive Order 12,898 and Title VI as Tools for Achieving Environmental Justice |date=October 2003 |publisher=U.S. Commission on Civil Rights |location=Washington, D.C. |page=13 |url=https://www.usccr.gov/files/pubs/envjust/ej0104.pdf |access-date=26 January 2025}}</ref> Citing that this decision was racially motivated, R. Bullard was asked to compile data from 1970 to 1979 addressing "all landfills, incinerators and solid waste sites" located in Houston, TX at that time.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Funes |first1=Yessenia |title=The Father of Environmental Justice Exposes the Geography of Inequity |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-father-of-environmental-justice-exposes-the-geography-of-inequity/ |journal=Nature |date=October 2023 |volume=621 |issue=7979 |pages=S25–S29 |publisher=Springer Nature |doi=10.1038/d41586-023-02613-6 |pmid=37730875 |bibcode=2023Natur.621S..25F |access-date=26 January 2025}}</ref> While the case was lost, it set the legal precedent for environmental justice as a legislative term, with Bullard's findings being later confirmed in a 1983 federal report.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Borunda |first1=Alejandra |title=The origins of environmental justice—and why it's finally getting the attention it deserves |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/environmental-justice-origins-why-finally-getting-the-attention-it-deserves |website=National Geographic |publisher=National Geographic Partners |access-date=26 January 2025}}</ref>

'''Origins of the Warren County, North Carolina Environmental Justice Movement'''

Much of the thinking, language, and strategy for the environmental justice movement emerged from the rural, sparsely populated community of Afton, Warren County, North Carolina in late 1978 in response to an explosive December 21st surprise announcement by Governor James B. Hunt Jr.’s Administration that “public sentiment would not deter the state’s plan to purchase private land in Warren County.” <ref>Kertzner Ron and Bruce Siceloff (December 21, 1978). “Warren Co. site eyed as PCB burial ground.” Raleigh ''News & Observer''.</ref> to bury PCB-tainted soil that had been spewed the previous summer along some 270 miles of roadsides in fourteen counties and at the Ft. Bragg Army Base.<ref>Alamance, Chatham. Edgecomb, Franklin, Granville, Halifax, Harnett, Johnston, Lee,, Nash, Person, Wake, Warren, Wilson Counties, (1979) ''Draft Negative Declaration of Soil Contaminated with PCBs along Highway Shoulders in North Carolina''.</ref><ref>Simmons, Betsy (October 5, 1982) “Fort Brag soil To Be Brought In,” ''Henderson Daily Dispatch'', pg 1.</ref>

With the announcement came notice of an EPA Public Hearing scheduled in Warren County for January 4, 1979, where the state would present its PCB landfill plan for EPA approval. Warren County residents responded with a fury, first forming a steering committee, and then uniting on December 26, 1978, as a multi-racial coalition of some 150 citizens who formed themselves into an official body, Warren County Citizens Concerned About PCBs (WCCC).<ref>Pearsall, Chip (December 29, 1978). “PCB storage plan unearths opposition in Warren,” Raleigh ''News & Observer''.</ref>

In 1982, the residents of [[Warren County, North Carolina]] protested against a landfill designed to accept polychlorinated biphenyls in the [[North Carolina PCB Protest, 1982|1982 PCB protests]]. Thirty-thousand gallons of PCB fluid lined 270 miles of roadway in fourteen North Carolina Counties, and the state announced that a landfill would be built rather than undergoing permanent detoxification.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Geiser |first1=Ken |last2=Waneck |first2=Gerry |date=July–August 1983 |title=PCBs and WARREN COUNTY |journal=Science for the People |volume=15 |issue=4 |pages=13–17 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/244483263 }}</ref> Warren County was chosen, the poorest county in the state with a per capita income of around $5,000 in 1980<sup>[1]</sup>, and the site was set for the predominantly Black community of Afton. Its residents protested for six-weeks, leading to over 500 arrests.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Atwater |first=Will |date=2023-10-20 |title=From outliers to luminaries: Warren County's PCB protests get mainstream attention as more communities grapple with environmental justice issues made worse by climate change |url=http://www.northcarolinahealthnews.org/2023/10/20/from-outliers-to-luminaries-warren-countys-pcb-protests-get-mainstream-attention-as-more-communities-grapple-with-environmental-justice-issues-made-worse-by-climate-change/ |access-date=2024-05-02 |website=North Carolina Health News |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=From the Archives: Dumping on Warren County {{!}} Facing South |url=https://www.facingsouth.org/2022/09/archives-dumping-warren-county |access-date=2024-05-02 |website=www.facingsouth.org}}</ref> 

That the protests in Warren County were led by civilians led to the basis of future and modern-day environmental, [[grassroots]] organizations fighting for environmental justice. Rev. Benjamin Chavis was serving for the United Church of Christ (UCC) Commission for Racial Justice when he was sent to Warren County for the protests. Chavis was among the 500 arrested for taking part in the nonviolent protests and is credited with having coined the term “environmental racism” while in the Warren County jail.<ref>{{Cite web |title=VOICES: Ben Chavis on the environmental justice movement's past and future {{!}} Facing South |url=https://www.facingsouth.org/2022/09/ben-chavis-duke-environmental-justice-lecture-warren-county |access-date=2024-05-02 |website=www.facingsouth.org}}</ref> His involvement, alongside Rev. Leon White, who also served for the UCC, laid the foundation for more activism and consciousness-raising.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A Movement Is Born: Environmental Justice and the UCC |url=https://www.ucc.org/what-we-do/justice-local-church-ministries/justice/faithful-action-ministries/environmental-justice/a_movement_is_born_environmental_justice_and_the_ucc/ |access-date=2024-05-02 |website=United Church of Christ |language=en-US}}</ref> Chavis would later recall in a New Yorker's article titled “Fighting Environmental Racism in North Carolina” that while “Warren County made headlines … [he] knew in the eighties you couldn't just say there was discrimination. You had to prove it.”<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=II |first=Vann R. Newkirk |date=2016-01-16 |title=Fighting Environmental Racism in North Carolina |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/fighting-environmental-racism-in-north-carolina |access-date=2024-05-02 |magazine=The New Yorker}}</ref> Fighting for change, not recognition, is an additional factor of environmental justice as a social movement.  

In response to the Warren County Protests, two cross-sectional studies were conducted to determine the demographics of those exposed to uncontrolled toxic waste sites and commercial hazardous waste facilities. The United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice studied the placement of hazardous waste facilities in the US and found that race was the most important factor predicting placement of these facilities.<ref>{{cite report |title=Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States: A National Report on the Racial and Socio-economic Characteristics of Communities with Hazardous Waste Sites |date=1987 |publisher=Commission for Racial Justice, United Church of Christ |url=https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1310/ML13109A339.pdf }}</ref> These studies were followed by widespread objections and lawsuits against hazardous waste disposal in poor, generally Black, communities.<ref name="Perez-2015">{{Cite journal |last=Perez |first=Alejandro Colsa |date=2015 |title=Evolution of the environmental justice movement: activism, formalization and differentiation |journal=Environmental Research Letters |volume=10 |issue=10 |page=105002 |bibcode=2015ERL....10j5002C |doi=10.1088/1748-9326/10/10/105002 |s2cid=154368751 |doi-access=free}}</ref>{{sfn|Cole|Foster|2001|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}} The mainstream [[environmental movement]] began to be criticized for its predominately white affluent leadership, emphasis on conservation, and failure to address social equity concerns.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Britton-Purdy|first=Jedediah|date=December 7, 2016|title=Environmentalism Was Once a Social-Justice Movement|work=The Atlantic|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/how-the-environmental-movement-can-recover-its-soul/509831/}}</ref><ref name="Environmental elitism">{{Cite journal
| last=Morrison
| first=Denton|title=Environmentalism and elitism: a conceptual and empirical analysis
| journal=Environmental Management|location=New York
| date=September 1986
| doi=10.1007/BF01866762
| volume=10
| issue=5| pages=581–589| bibcode=1986EnMan..10..581M| s2cid=153561660}}
</ref>

The EPA established the Environmental Equity Work Group (EEWG) in 1990 in response to additional findings by social scientists that “racial minority and low-income populations bear a higher environmental risk burden than the general population’ and that the EPA's inspections failed to adequately protect low-income communities of color”.<ref name=":6" /> In 1992, the EPA published ''Environmental Equity: Reducing Risks for All Communities'' - the first time the agency embarked on a systematic examination of environmental risks to communities of color. This acted as their direction of addressing environmental justice.<ref name=":6" />

In 1993 the EPA founded the [[National Environmental Justice Advisory Council]] (NEJAC). In 1994 the office's name was changed to the Office of Environmental Justice as a result of public criticism on the difference between equity and justice. <sup>SOURCE</sup> That same year, President Bill Clinton issued [https://www.archives.gov/files/federal-register/executive-orders/pdf/12898.pdf Executive Order 12898], which created the Interagency Working Group on Environmental Justice.<ref name=":6" /> The working group sought to address environmental justice in minority populations and low-income populations.<ref name=":6" /> David Pellow writes that the executive order “remains the cornerstone of environmental justice regulation in the US, with the EPA as its ventral arbiter”.<ref name=":6" /> 

=== Emergence of global movement ===
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, grassroots movements and environmental organizations advocated for regulations that increased the costs of hazardous waste disposal in the US and other industrialized nations. However, this led to a surge in exports of hazardous waste to the Global South during the 1980s and 1990s. This global environmental injustice, including the disposal of toxic waste, land appropriation, and resource extraction, sparked the formation of the global environmental justice movement.

Environmental justice as an international subject commenced at the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in 1991, held in Washington, DC. The four-day summit was sponsored by the United Church of Christ's Commission for Racial Justice. With around 1,100 persons in attendance, representation included all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and the Marshall Islands.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Welch |first=Kaniqua |date=2021-11-17 |title=30th anniversary of 1st National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit – looking back, looking forward |url=https://kresge.org/news-views/roundtable-30th-anniversary-of-1st-national-people-of-color-environmental-leadership-summit-looking-back-looking-forward/ |access-date=2024-05-02 |website=Kresge Foundation |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":9">{{cite journal |id={{ProQuest|211519773}} |last1=Bullard |first1=Robert D |title=Confronting Environmental Racism in the Twenty-First Century |journal=Global Dialogue |volume=4 |issue=1 |date=Winter 2002 |pages=34–48 }}</ref> The summit broadened the environmental justice movement beyond its anti-toxins focus to include issues of public health, worker safety, land use, transportation, housing, resource allocation, and community empowerment.<ref name=":9" /> The summit adopted [https://www.ejnet.org/ej/principles.pdf 17 Principles of Environmental Justice], which were later disseminated at the [[Earth Summit|1992 Earth Summit]] in Rio, Brazil. The 17 Principles have a likeness in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bullard |first=Robert |date=2019 |title=Addressing Environmental Racism |jstor=26872794 |journal=Journal of International Affairs |volume=73 |issue=1 |pages=237–242 }}</ref>

In the summer of 2002, a coalition of [[non-governmental organization]]s met in Bali to prepare final negotiations for the [[Earth Summit 2002|2002 Earth Summit]]. Organizations included CorpWatch, World Rainforest Movement, Friends of the Earth International, the Third World Network, and the Indigenous Environmental Network.<ref name=":10">{{cite journal |title=Climate finance justice: International perspectives on climate policy, social justice, and capital |journal=Climatic Change |date=July 2020 |volume=161 |issue=2 |pages=243–249 |doi=10.1007/s10584-020-02790-7 |bibcode=2020ClCh..161..243. }}</ref> They sought to articulate the concept of climate justice.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-08-26 |title=Looking Back on Bali - Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung |url=https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/46926/looking-back-on-bali |access-date=2024-05-02 |website=www.rosalux.de |language=en-US}}</ref> During their time together, the organizations codified the [https://www.ejnet.org/ej/bali.pdf Bali Principles of Climate Justice], a 27-point program identifying and organizing the climate justice movement. Meena Raman, Head of Programs at the Third World Network, explained that in their writing they “drew heavily on the concept of environmental justice, with a significant contribution from movements in the United States, and recognized that economic inequality, ethnicity, and geography played roles in determining ''who'' bore the brunt of environmental pollution”. At the [[2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference|2007 United Nations Climate Conference]], or COP13, in Bali, representatives from the Global South and low-income communities from the North created a coalition titled “[[Climate Justice Now!]]”. CJN! Issued a series of “genuine solutions” that echoed the Bali Principles.<ref name=":10" />

Initially, the environmental justice movement focused on addressing toxic hazards and injustices faced by marginalized racial groups within affluent nations. However, during the 1991 Leadership Summit, its scope broadened to encompass public health, worker safety, land use, transportation, and other issues. Over time, the movement expanded further to include considerations of gender, international injustices, and intra-group disparities among disadvantaged populations.

==Environmental discrimination and conflict==
{{discrimination sidebar|Countermeasures}}
The environmental justice movement seeks to address environmental discrimination and [[environmental racism]] associated with hazardous waste disposal, resource extraction, land appropriation, and other activities.<ref name="Adeola-2001">{{Cite journal |last=Adeola |first=Francis |date=2001 |title=Environmental Injustice and Human Rights Abuse: The States, MNCs, and Repression of Minority Groups in the World System |journal=Human Ecology Review |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=39–59 |jstor=24707236 }}</ref> This environmental discrimination results in the loss of land-based traditions and economies,<ref name="Busscher-2020">{{Cite journal |last1=Busscher |first1=Nienke |last2=Parra |first2=Constanza |last3=Vanclay |first3=Frank |year=2020 |title=Environmental justice implications of land grabbing for industrial agriculture and forestry in Argentina |journal=Journal of Environmental Planning and Management |volume=63 |issue=3 |pages=500–522 |doi=10.1080/09640568.2019.1595546 |s2cid=159153413 |doi-access=free|bibcode=2020JEPM...63..500B }}</ref> armed violence (especially against women and indigenous people)<ref name="Downey-2010" /> [[environmental degradation]], and [[environmental conflict]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Lerner |first1=Steve |title=Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor |date=2006 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-25018-4 }}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref> The global environmental justice movement arises from these local place-based conflicts in which local [[environmental defender]]s frequently confront multi-national corporations. Local outcomes of these conflicts are increasingly influenced by trans-national environmental justice networks.<ref name="Scheidel">{{Cite journal |last=Scheidel |first=Arnim |date=July 2020 |title=Environmental conflicts and defenders: A global overview |journal=Global Environmental Change |volume=63 |page=102104 |doi=10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102104 |pmc=7418451 |pmid=32801483|bibcode=2020GEC....6302104S }}</ref><ref name="Martinez Alier-2016">{{cite journal |last1=Martinez-Alier |first1=Joan |last2=Temper |first2=Leah |last3=Del Bene |first3=Daniela |last4=Scheidel |first4=Arnim |title=Is there a global environmental justice movement? |journal=The Journal of Peasant Studies |date=3 May 2016 |volume=43 |issue=3 |pages=731–755 |doi=10.1080/03066150.2016.1141198 |s2cid=156535916 |url=https://pure.eur.nl/en/publications/d4e74025-4da0-4a02-8fa5-dda0fa46eae5 }}</ref>

There are many divisions along which an unjust distribution of environmental burdens may fall. Within the US, race is the most important determinant of environmental injustice.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Colquette|first1=Kelly Michelle|last2=Robertson|first2=Elizabeth A Henry|date=1991|title=Environmental Racism: The Causes, Consequences, and Commendations |journal=Tulane Environmental Law Journal|volume=5|issue=1|pages=153–207|jstor=43291103 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Skelton|first1=Renee|last2=Miller|first2=Vernice|date=March 17, 2016|title=The Environmental Justice Movement|url=http://www.nrdc.org/ej/history/hej.asp|access-date=April 23, 2011|website=[[National Resource Defense Council]]}}</ref> In other countries, poverty or caste (India) are important indicators.<ref name="Martinez-Alier-2014">{{cite journal |last1=Martinez-Alier |first1=Joan |last2=Shmelev |first2=Stanislav |title=Between activism and science: grassroots concepts for sustainability coined by Environmental Justice Organizations |journal=Journal of Political Ecology |date=December 2014 |volume=21 |issue=1 |page=21124 |doi=10.2458/v21i1.21124 |bibcode=2014JPolE..2121124M |hdl=1765/95590 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Tribal affiliation is also important in some countries.<ref name="Martinez-Alier-2014" /> Environmental justice scholars Laura Pulido and [[David Pellow]] argue that recognizing environmental racism, as an element stemming from the entrenched legacies of [[racial capitalism]], is crucial to the movement, with [[white supremacy]] continuing to shape human relationships with nature and labor.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pulido |first1=Laura |last2=De Lara |first2=Juan |title=Reimagining 'justice' in environmental justice: Radical ecologies, decolonial thought, and the Black Radical Tradition |journal=Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space |date=March 2018 |volume=1 |issue=1–2 |pages=76–98 |doi=10.1177/2514848618770363 |s2cid=149765978 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2018EnPlE...1...76P }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pellow |first1=David |last2=Vazin |first2=Jasmine |title=The Intersection of Race, Immigration Status, and Environmental Justice |journal=Sustainability |date=19 July 2019 |volume=11 |issue=14 |pages=3942 |doi=10.3390/su11143942 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2019Sust...11.3942P }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Pulido |first1=Laura |title=Geographies of race and ethnicity II: Environmental racism, racial capitalism and state-sanctioned violence |journal=Progress in Human Geography |date=August 2017 |volume=41 |issue=4 |pages=524–533 |doi=10.1177/0309132516646495 |s2cid=147792869 }}</ref>

=== Environmental racism ===
{{Main|Environmental racism}}
Environmental racism is a pervasive and complex issue that affects communities all over the world. It is a form of systemic discrimination that is grounded in the intersection of race, class, and environmental factors.{{sfn|Cole|Foster|2001|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}
At its core, environmental racism refers to the disproportionate exposure of people of color to environmental hazards such as pollution, toxic waste, and other environmental risks. Environmental racism has a long and troubling history, with many examples dating back to the early 20th century. For instance, the practice of "redlining" in the US, which involved denying loans and insurance to communities of colour, often led to these communities being located in areas with high levels of pollution and environmental hazards.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Madrigano |first1=Jaime |last2=Calvo Hernandez |first2=Carlos |last3=Stephenson |first3=Scott |last4=Chari |first4=Ramya |last5=Gahlon |first5=Grace |last6=Huttinger |first6=Alexandra |last7=Siddiqi |first7=Sameer M. |last8=Preston |first8=Benjamin L. |date=23 August 2021 |title=Environmental Racism: The Relationship Between Historical Residential Redlining and Current Environmental Hazards |journal=ISEE Conference Abstracts |volume=2021 |issue=1 |doi=10.1289/isee.2021.O-LT-061 |doi-access=free}}</ref>

These communities are often located near industrial sites, waste facilities, and other sources of pollution that can have serious health impacts. Today, environmental racism continues to be a significant environmental justice issue, with many low-income communities and communities of colour facing disproportionate exposure to pollution and other environmental risks. This can have serious consequences for the health and well-being of these communities, leading to higher rates of asthma, cancer, and other illnesses.{{sfn|Cole|Foster|2001|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}
Addressing environmental racism requires a multifaceted approach that tackles the underlying social, economic, and political factors that contribute to its persistence. In the US, The Low country Alliance for Model Communities (LAMC) combats environmental racism by empowering marginalized neighborhoods in North Charleston, South Carolina, using community-based research and collaborative problem-solving to identify solutions to health and environmental disparities.<ref name=":16">{{Cite journal |last1=Wilson |first1=Sacoby |last2=Campbell |first2=Dayna |last3=Dalemarre |first3=Laura |last4=Fraser-Rahim |first4=Herb |last5=Williams |first5=Edith |date=December 2014 |title=A Critical Review of an Authentic and Transformative Environmental Justice and Health Community - University Partnership |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1644455032 |journal=International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health |language=English |volume=11 |issue=12 |pages=12817–12834 |doi=10.3390/ijerph111212817 |issn=1661-7827 |pmc=4276648 |pmid=25514142 |id={{ProQuest|1644455032}} |doi-access=free}}</ref> These communities are often located near industrial sites, waste facilities, and other sources of pollution that can have serious health impacts.

Similarly, environmental justice scholars from Latin America and elsewhere advocate to understand this issue through the lens of decolonisation.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Álvarez, L. |author2=Coolsaet, B |title=Decolonizing environmental justice studies: a Latin American perspective |journal=Capitalism Nature Socialism |date=2020 |volume=31 |issue=2 |pages=50–69|doi=10.1080/10455752.2018.1558272 |s2cid=150320682 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author1=Rodríguez, I. |author2=Inturias, M. L |title=Conflict transformation in indigenous peoples' territories: doing environmental justice with a 'decolonial turn' |journal=Development Studies Research |date=2018 |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=90–105|doi=10.1080/21665095.2018.1486220 |s2cid=67823020 |doi-access=free }}</ref> The latter underlies the fact that environmental racism emanates from the colonial projects of the West and its current reproduction of colonial dynamics.

===Hazardous waste===

As environmental justice groups have grown more successful in developed countries such as the United States, the burdens of global production have been shifted to the Global South where less-strict regulations make waste disposal cheaper. Export of toxic waste from the US escalated throughout the 1980s and 1990s.<ref name="Clapp">{{cite book |doi=10.7551/mitpress/2097.003.0010 |chapter=The Distancing of Waste: Overconsumption in a Global Economy |title=Confronting Consumption |date=2002 |last1=Clapp |first1=Jennifer |pages=155–176 |isbn=978-0-262-28192-8 }}</ref><ref name="Adeola-2001" /> Many impacted countries do not have adequate disposal systems for this waste, and impacted communities are not informed about the hazards they are being exposed to.{{sfn|Pellow|2007|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}<ref name="Park, 1998">{{cite journal |last1=Park |first1=Rozelia |title=An Examination of International Environmental Racism Through the Lens of Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes |journal=Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies |date=April 1998 |volume=5 |issue=2 |url=https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ijgls/vol5/iss2/14/ }}</ref>

The [[Khian Sea waste disposal incident|''Khian Sea'' waste disposal incident]] was a notable example of environmental justice issues arising from international movement of toxic waste. Contractors disposing of ash from waste incinerators in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania illegally dumped the waste on a beach in Haiti after several other countries refused to accept it. After more than ten years of debate, the waste was eventually returned to Pennsylvania.{{sfn|Pellow|2007|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}} The incident contributed to the creation of the [[Basel Convention]] that regulates international movement of toxic waste.<ref name="Cunningham">{{cite book|last=Cunningham|first=William P & Mary A|url=https://archive.org/details/principlesofenvi0000cunn/page/|title=Principles of Environmental Science|publisher=McGrw-Hill Further Education|year=2004|isbn=0072919833|page=[https://archive.org/details/principlesofenvi0000cunn/page/ Chapter 13, Further Case Studies]}}</ref>

=== Land appropriation ===
Countries in the Global South disproportionately bear the environmental burden of global production and the costs of over-consumption in Western societies. This burden is exacerbated by changes in land use that shift vast tracts of land away from family and subsistence farming toward multi-national investments in land speculation, agriculture, mining, or conservation.<ref name="Busscher-2020" /> Land grabs in the Global South are engendered by neoliberal ideology and differences in legal frameworks, land prices, and regulatory practices that make countries in the Global South attractive to foreign investments.<ref name="Busscher-2020" /> These land grabs endanger indigenous livelihoods and continuity of social, cultural, and spiritual practices. Resistance to land appropriation through transformative social action is also made difficult by pre-existing social inequity and deprivation; impacted communities are often already struggling just to meet their basic needs.

=== Water ===
Access to clean water is an indispensable aspect of human life, yet it remains very unequal, disproportionately affecting marginalized communities globally. The burden of water scarcity is particularly noticeable in impoverished urban settings and remote rural areas where inadequate infrastructure, limited financial resources, and environmental degradation converge to create formidable challenges. Marginalized populations, often already grappling with systemic inequalities, encounter  heightened vulnerabilities when it comes to securing safe and reliable water sources. Discriminatory practices can further compound these challenges.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Glade |first1=Sara |last2=Ray |first2=Isha |title=Safe drinking water for small low-income communities: the long road from violation to remediation |journal=Environmental Research Letters |date=April 2022 |volume=17 |issue=4 |pages=044008 |doi=10.1088/1748-9326/ac58aa |doi-access=free |bibcode=2022ERL....17d4008G }}</ref> The ramifications of limited water access are profound, permeating various facets of daily life, including health, education, and overall well-being. Recognizing and addressing these disparities is not only a matter of justice but also crucial for sustainable development. Consequently, there must be efforts towards implementing inclusive water management strategies that prioritize the specific needs of marginalized communities, ensuring equitable access to this fundamental resource and fostering resilience in the face of global water challenges. One way this has been proposed is through Community Based Participatory Development. When this has been applied, as in the case of the Six Nations Indigenous peoples in Canada working with McMaster University researchers, it has shown how community-led sharing and integrating of science and local knowledge can be partnered in response to water quality.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Duignan |first1=Sarah |last2=Moffat |first2=Tina |last3=Martin-Hill |first3=Dawn |title=Using Boundary Objects to Co-Create Community Health and Water Knowledge with Community-Based Medical Anthropology and Indigenous Knowledge |journal=Engaged Scholar Journal: Community-Engaged Research, Teaching, and Learning |date=27 October 2020 |volume=6 |issue=1 |pages=49–76 |doi=10.15402/esj.v6i1.68178 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

=== Resource extraction ===
Resource extraction is a prime example of a tool based on colonial dynamics that engenders environmental racism.<ref name="Resource extraction as a tool of ra">{{cite journal |last1=Eichhorn, S. J. |title=Resource extraction as a tool of racism in West Papua |journal=The International Journal of Human Rights |date=2022 |volume=27 |issue=6 |pages=994–1016|doi=10.1080/13642987.2022.2036722 |s2cid=247094198 |hdl=1983/1ee30efe-5b84-4078-947a-07fb063ce883 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Hundreds of studies have shown that marginalized communities, often indigenous communities, are disproportionately burdened by the negative environmental consequences of resource extraction.<ref name="Malin-2019">{{Cite journal|last=Malin|first=Stephanie|date=June 25, 2019|title=Environmental justice and natural resource extraction: intersections of power, equity and access|journal=Environmental Sociology|volume=5|issue=2|pages=109–116|doi=10.1080/23251042.2019.1608420|s2cid=198588483|doi-access=free|bibcode=2019EnvSo...5..109M }}</ref> Communities near valuable natural resources are frequently saddled with a [[resource curse]] wherein they bear the environmental costs of extraction and a brief economic boom that leads to economic instability and ultimately poverty.<ref name="Malin-2019" /> Indigenous communities living near valuable natural resources face even more discrimination, since they are in most cases simply displaced from their home.<ref name="Resource extraction as a tool of ra"/> Power disparities between extraction industries and impacted communities lead to acute procedural injustice in which local communities are unable to meaningfully participate in decisions that will shape their lives.
[[File:Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Native American Women and Girls 2 (40933956505).jpg|thumb|Council member Debora Juarez gives a speech at the designation of May 5th as Seattle's Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.]]
Studies have also shown that extraction of critical minerals, timber, and petroleum may be associated with armed violence in communities that host mining operations.<ref name="Downey-2010">{{Cite journal|last=Downey|first=Liam|date=November 20, 2010|title=Natural Resource Extraction, Armed Violence, and Environmental Degradation|journal=Organization and Environment|volume=23|issue=4|pages=417–445|doi=10.1177/1086026610385903|pmid=21909231|pmc=3169238}}</ref> The government of Canada found that resource extraction leads to [[Missing and murdered Indigenous women|missing and murdered indigenous women]] in communities impacted by mines and infrastructure projects such as pipelines.<ref name="MMIWG_2019_vol1a">{{cite report|url=https://www.mmiwg-ffada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Final_Report_Vol_1a.pdf|title=Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls|volume=1a|page=728|isbn=978-0-660-29274-8}} CP32-163/2-1-2019E-PDF</ref> The [[Environmental Justice Atlas]], that documents conflicts of environmental justice, demonstrates multiple conflicts with high violence on indigenous populations around resource extraction.<ref>{{cite web |title=Mapping Environmental Justice |url=https://ejatlas.org/ |website=[[EJAtlas]]}}</ref>

===Unequal exchange===
Unequal exchange is a term used to describe the unequal economic and trade relationship between countries from the Global North and the Global South. The idea is that the exchange of goods and services between these countries is not equal, with Global North countries benefiting more than the others.<ref name="Dorninger2021">{{cite journal |last1=Dorninger |first1=Christian |last2=Hornborg |first2=Alf |last3=Abson |first3=David J. |last4=von Wehrden |first4=Henrik |last5=Schaffartzik |first5=Anke |last6=Giljum |first6=Stefan |last7=Engler |first7=John-Oliver |last8=Feller |first8=Robert L. |last9=Hubacek |first9=Klaus |last10=Wieland |first10=Hanspeter |title=Global patterns of ecologically unequal exchange: Implications for sustainability in the 21st century |journal=Ecological Economics |date=January 2021 |volume=179 |pages=106824 |doi=10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106824 |bibcode=2021EcoEc.17906824D |s2cid=224844527 |url=https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/158947132/1_s2.0_S0921800920300938_main.pdf }}</ref> This occurs for a variety of reasons such as differences in labor costs, technology, and access to resources. Unequal exchange perceives this framework of trade through the lens of decolonisation: colonial power dynamics have led to a trade system where northern countries can trade their knowledge and technology at a very high price against natural resources, materials and labor at a very low price from southern countries.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hickel |first1=Jason |last2=Dorninger |first2=Christian |last3=Wieland |first3=Hanspeter |last4=Suwandi |first4=Intan |title=Imperialist appropriation in the world economy: Drain from the global South through unequal exchange, 1990–2015 |journal=Global Environmental Change |date=March 2022 |volume=73 |pages=102467 |doi=10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102467 |s2cid=246855421 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2022GEC....7302467H }}</ref>  This is kept in place by mechanisms such as enforceable patents, trade regulations and price setting by institutions such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund, where northern countries hold most of the voting power.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hickel |first1=Jason |last2=Sullivan |first2=Dylan |last3=Zoomkawala |first3=Huzaifa |title=Plunder in the Post-Colonial Era: Quantifying Drain from the Global South Through Unequal Exchange, 1960–2018 |journal=New Political Economy |date=2 November 2021 |volume=26 |issue=6 |pages=1030–1047 |doi=10.1080/13563467.2021.1899153 |s2cid=233600773 }}</ref> Hence, unequal exchange is a phenomenon that is based on and perpetuates colonial relationships, as it leads to exploitation and enforces existing inequalities between countries of the Global North and Global South. This interdependence also explains the differences in {{CO2}} emissions between northern and southern countries: evidently, since northern countries use many resources and materials of the South, they produce and pollute more.<ref name="Hickel2020">{{cite journal |last1=Hickel, J. |title=Quantifying national responsibility for climate breakdown: an equality-based attribution approach for carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the planetary boundary |journal=The Lancet Planetary Health |date=2020 |volume=4|issue=9 |pages=e399–e404 |doi=10.1016/S2542-5196(20)30196-0 |pmid=32918885 |s2cid=221643616 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Dorninger2021"/>

=== Health impacts of disparate exposure in EJ communities ===
Environmental justice communities that are disproportionately exposed to chemical pollution, reduced air quality, and contaminated water sources may experience overall reduced health.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Collins |first1=Mary B |last2=Munoz |first2=Ian |last3=JaJa |first3=Joseph |title=Linking 'toxic outliers' to environmental justice communities |journal=Environmental Research Letters |date=1 January 2016 |volume=11 |issue=1 |pages=015004 |doi=10.1088/1748-9326/11/1/015004 |bibcode=2016ERL....11a5004C |s2cid=11839990 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Poverty in these communities can be a factor that increases their exposure to occupational hazards such as chemicals used in agriculture or industry.<ref name="Gochfeld-2011">{{Cite journal |last1=Gochfeld |first1=Michael |last2=Burger |first2=Joanna |date=December 2011 |title=Disproportionate Exposures in Environmental Justice and Other Populations: The Importance of Outliers |journal=American Journal of Public Health |volume=101 |issue=S1 |pages=S53–S63 |doi=10.2105/ajph.2011.300121 |pmc=3222496 |pmid=21551384 }}</ref> When workers leave the work environment they may bring chemicals with them on their clothing, shoes, skin, and hair, creating further impacts on their families, including children.<ref name="Gochfeld-2011" /> Children in EJ communities are uniquely exposed, because they metabolize and absorb contaminants differently than adults.<ref name="Gochfeld-2011" /> These children are exposed to a higher level of contaminants throughout their lives, beginning in utero (through the placenta), and are at greater risk for adverse health effects like respiratory conditions, gastrointestinal conditions, and mental conditions.<ref name="Gochfeld-2011" />

[[Fast fashion]] exposes environmental justice communities to occupational hazards such as poor ventilation that can lead to respiratory problems from inhalation of synthetic particles and cotton dust.<ref name="Bick-2018">{{Cite journal |last1=Bick |first1=Rachel |last2=Halsey |first2=Erika |last3=Ekenga |first3=Christine C. |date=December 2018 |title=The global environmental injustice of fast fashion |journal=Environmental Health |volume=17 |issue=1 |page=92 |doi=10.1186/s12940-018-0433-7 |pmc=6307129 |pmid=30591057 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2018EnvHe..17...92B }}</ref> Textile dyeing can also expose EJ communities to toxins and heavy metals when untreated wastewater enters water systems used by residents and for livestock.<ref name="Bick-2018" /> 95% of clothing production takes place in low- or middle-income countries where the workers are under-resourced.<ref name="Bick-2018" />

=== Erasure of women ===
Though the environmental justice movement seeks to address discrimination, women have historically been discriminated against as the movement evolves from advocacy to institutional change. While grassroots campaigning activities are often dominated by women, gender inequality is more prevalent in institutionalized activities of organizations dominated by salaried professionals.<ref name=":13">{{Cite journal |last1=Buckingham |first1=Susan |last2=Kulcur |first2=Rakibe |date=September 2009 |title=Gendered Geographies of Environmental Injustice |journal=Antipode |volume=41 |issue=4 |pages=659–683 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8330.2009.00693.x |bibcode=2009Antip..41..659B |url=http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/8822 }}</ref> Women have fought back against this trend by establishing their own domestic and international non-governmental organizations, such as the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) and Women's Earth Alliance (WEA). 

The US Environmental Protection Agency's definition of environmental injustice does not include gender, instead mentioning environmental injustice to concern race, color, national origin, and income. Gender inequalities in governing bodies have been noted to have an impact on the nature of decisions made, and so consequently federal legislation and discussion surrounding environmental justice often does not include factors of sex. Authors David Pellow and [[Robert Brulle]] write in “Environmental justice: human health and environmental inequalities” that environmental injustices “affect human beings unequally along the lines of race, gender, class and nation, so an emphasis on any one of these will dilute the explanatory power of any analytical approach”.<ref name=":13" /><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Brulle |first1=Robert J. |last2=Pellow |first2=David N. |title=ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: Human Health and Environmental Inequalities |journal=Annual Review of Public Health |date=April 2006 |volume=27 |issue=1 |pages=103–124 |doi=10.1146/annurev.publhealth.27.021405.102124 |pmid=16533111 }}</ref>

These inequalities have led to the establishment of the Global Gender and Climate Alliance, set up jointly by the United Nations, the [[International Union for Conservation of Nature|IUCN]] (International Union for Conservation of Nature), and [[Women's Environment and Development Organization|WEDO]] (Women, Environment and Development Organization). These have all been founded to raise the profile of gender issues in climate change policymaking.<ref name=":13" />

=== LGBTQ+ Environmental Justice ===
The [[LGBTQ community|LGBT+ community]] experiences environmental injustice in a variety of ways. For instance, the LGBT+ community experiences disproportionately worse living conditions than straight, cisgendered people, as they are more likely to experience identity-based discrimination, rejection from housing opportunities, and higher rents, compared to outside of the community.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nguyen |first=Melina |date=February 2, 2023 |title=Extreme Heat Disproportionately Impacts LGBTQIA+ Communities, Say Experts |url=https://www.pbs.org/wnet/peril-and-promise/2023/02/extreme-heat-disproportionately-impacts-lgbtqia-communities-say-experts/ |website=PBS}}</ref> These poorer housing conditions lead to higher risks of [[air pollution]] and a lack of air conditioning. For instance, one study found that neighborhoods with high concentrations of same-sex couples had greater exposure to hazardous air pollutants and a 9.8-13.3% higher risk of respiratory illness. Additionally, the LGBT+ community experiences higher rates of poverty: the poverty rate for the LGBT+ community was 17% in 2021, compared to 12% in non-LGBT+ communities.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Grubb |first=Elizabeth |date=June 26, 2023 |title=Let’s Talk About Environmental Justice this Pride Month |url=https://www.sfpuc.gov/about-us/news/lets-talk-about-environmental-justice-pride-month |website=San Francisco Water Power Sewer}}</ref>

These issues are likely to worsen with [[climate change]]. As extreme high temperatures and heat waves become more common, the LGBT+ community will be less likely to have access to air conditioning due to higher poverty rates. When there are extreme temperatures, there are higher rates of heat-related deaths through [[heat stroke]], dehydration, and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Climate Impacts on Human Health |url=https://climatechange.chicago.gov/climate-impacts/climate-impacts-human-health#:~:text=Climate%20change%20increases%20the%20risk,or%20liver%20and%20kidney%20damage. |website=City of Chicago, United States Environmental Protection Agency}}</ref> These increased health risks will lead to disparate health burdens on the LGBT+ community, as LGBT+ community members, already experiencing higher poverty and homelessness rates, will likely experience higher rates of heat-related illnesses and deaths than straight, cisgendered people.

Another way that the LGBT+ community experiences environmental injustice is through a lack of support after natural disasters. In the US, the LGBT+ community has a 120% higher risk of experiencing [[homelessness]] than those outside the community, with 40% of homeless youth identifying as LGBT.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Premkumar |first=Shanthuru |last2=Atanasova |first2=Lina |date=June 1, 2023 |title=The disproportionate impact of climate crisis on the LGBTQIA2S+ community |url=https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/60078/impact-climate-crisis-lgbtqia2s-pride-month/ |website=Greenpeace}}</ref> This leaves the community on the front lines of natural disasters.

Additionally, LGBT+ people experience discrimination from natural disaster relief programs. For instance, during [[Hurricane Katrina]], a [[Transgender|transgender person]] was jailed for showering in a women’s restroom after being permitted to do so by a relief volunteer. Similarly, after the [[2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami|2004 Indian Ocean tsunami]], the Aravanis (who do not identify as male or female) were excluded from relief programs, temporary shelters, and official death records.<ref>{{Cite web |date=June 23, 2021 |title=The Climate Crisis is an LGBTQIA+ Issue |url=https://www.climaterealityproject.org/blog/climate-crisis-lgbtqia-issue |website=The Climate Reality Project}}</ref> These instances of discrimination make it harder for LGBT+ people to recover from natural disasters.

However, LGBT+ community members have created ways to overcome discrimination during natural disasters by creating their own communities of care. For instance, after [[Hurricane Maria]] caused severe damage to Puerto Rico, LGBT+ community members created their own food collection drives to provide residents with access to healthy, culturally relevant food. This was done to reduce hunger for a community that experiences higher poverty rates and less support from disaster organization.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Fire & Flood Film {{!}} Queer Ecojustice Project |url=https://www.queerecoproject.org/firefloodfilm |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=qollective |language=en}}</ref>

== In environmental law ==
{{See also|Environmental law}}

=== Cost barriers ===
One of the prominent barriers to minority participation in environmental justice is the initial costs of trying to change the system and prevent companies from dumping their toxic waste and other pollutants in areas with high numbers of minorities living in them. There are massive legal fees involved in fighting for environmental justice and trying to shed environmental racism.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kennedy |first1=Amanda |last2=Schafft |first2=Kai A. |last3=Howard |first3=Tanya M. |title=Taking away David's sling: environmental justice and land-use conflict in extractive resource development |journal=Local Environment |date=3 August 2017 |volume=22 |issue=8 |pages=952–968 |doi=10.1080/13549839.2017.1309369 |bibcode=2017LoEnv..22..952K |s2cid=157888833 }}</ref> For example, in the United Kingdom, there is a rule that the claimant may have to cover the fees of their opponents, which further exacerbates any cost issues, especially with lower-income minority groups; also, the only way for environmental justice groups to hold companies accountable for their pollution and breaking any licensing issues over [[waste disposal]] would be to sue the government for not enforcing rules. This would lead to the forbidding legal fees that most could not afford.<ref>{{cite web |last=Jeffries |first=Elisabeth |title=What price environmental justice? |url=http://www.environmentalistonline.com/article/2011-03-09/what-price-environmental-justice |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110807163956/http://www.environmentalistonline.com/article/2011-03-09/what-price-environmental-justice |archive-date=7 August 2011 |access-date=24 April 2011}}</ref> This can be seen by the fact that out of 210 judicial review cases between 2005 and 2009, 56% did not proceed due to costs.<ref>{{cite web |title=Cost Barriers to Environmental Justice |url=http://us.practicallaw.com/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1247269202785&ssbinary=true |access-date=24 April 2011}}</ref>

==Relationships to other movements and philosophies==

=== Climate justice ===
{{See also|Climate justice}}
{{multiple image |total_width=400

|image1=20210818 Greenhouse gas emissions by income category - UN Emissions Gap Report.svg |caption1=Emissions of the richest 1% are more than twice that of the poorest 50%.<ref name=UNEmissionsGap_2020/> Compliance with the [[Paris Agreement]]'s 1.5°C goal would require the richest 1% to reduce emissions by at least 30 times, while per-person emissions of the poorest 50% could approximately triple.<ref name=UNEmissionsGap_2020>{{cite report |author1=United Nations Environment Programme |title=Emissions Gap Report 2020 - Executive Summary |date=2020 |url=https://wedocs.unep.org/handle/20.500.11822/34438 |page=XV Fig. ES.8}}</ref>

|image2=2021 CO2 emissions by income decile - International Energy Agency IEA.svg |caption2=Though total {{CO2}} emissions (size of pie charts) differ substantially among high-emitting regions, the pattern of higher income classes emitting more than lower income classes is consistent across regions.<ref name=IEA_20230222/> The world's top 1% of emitters emit over 1000 times more than the bottom 1%.<ref name=IEA_20230222>{{cite web |last1=Cozzi |first1=Laura |last2=Chen |first2=Olivia |last3=Kim |first3=Hyeji |title=The world's top 1% of emitters produce over 1000 times more CO2 than the bottom 1% |url=https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-world-s-top-1-of-emitters-produce-over-1000-times-more-co2-than-the-bottom-1 |website=iea.org |publisher=International Energy Agency (IEA) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230303032020/https://www.iea.org/commentaries/the-world-s-top-1-of-emitters-produce-over-1000-times-more-co2-than-the-bottom-1 |archive-date=3 March 2023 |date=22 February 2023 |url-status=live }} "Methodological note: ... The analysis accounts for energy-related {{CO2}}, and not other greenhouse gases, nor those related to land use and agriculture."</ref>
}}
[[File:2021 Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per person versus GDP per person - scatter plot.svg |thumb|upright=1 |Scaling the effect of wealth to the national level: richer [[Developed country|(developed)]] countries emit more {{CO2}} per person than poorer [[Developing country|(developing)]] countries.<ref name=WashPost_20230301>{{cite news |last1=Stevens |first1=Harry |title=The United States has caused the most global warming. When will China pass it? |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/global-warming-carbon-emissions-china-us/ |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=1 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230301130719/https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2023/global-warming-carbon-emissions-china-us/ |archive-date=1 March 2023 |url-status=live }}</ref> Emissions are roughly proportional to [[Gross domestic product|GDP]] per person, though the rate of increase diminishes above average GDP/pp of about $10,000.]]
[[Climate change]] and [[climate justice]] have also been a component when discussing environmental justice and the greater impact it has on environmental justice communities.<ref name="Reckien-2018">{{cite book |doi=10.1017/9781316563878.013 |chapter=Equity, Environmental Justice, and Urban Climate Change |title=Climate Change and Cities |date=2018 |last1=Reckien |first1=Diana |last2=Lwasa |first2=Shuaib |last3=Satterthwaite |first3=David |last4=McEvoy |first4=Darryn |last5=Creutzig |first5=Felix |last6=Montgomery |first6=Mark |last7=Schensul |first7=Daniel |last8=Balk |first8=Deborah |last9=Khan |first9=Iqbal Alam |last10=Fernandez |first10=Blanca |last11=Brown |first11=Donald |last12=Osorio |first12=Juan Camilo |last13=Tovar-Restrepo |first13=Marcela |last14=De Sherbinin |first14=Alex |last15=Feringa |first15=Wim |last16=Sverdlik |first16=Alice |last17=Porio |first17=Emma |last18=Nair |first18=Abhishek |last19=McCormick |first19=Sabrina |last20=Bautista |first20=Eddie |pages=173–224 |isbn=978-1-316-56387-8 |chapter-url=https://research.utwente.nl/en/publications/491b97ba-12e8-4fad-b51f-36b2e7193f4d }}</ref> Air pollution and water pollution are two contributors of climate change that can have detrimental effects such as extreme temperatures, increase in precipitation, and a rise in sea level.<ref name="Reckien-2018" /><ref name="Haines-2004">{{cite journal |last1=Haines |first1=Andy |title=Health Effects of Climate Change |journal=JAMA |date=7 January 2004 |volume=291 |issue=1 |pages=99–103 |doi=10.1001/jama.291.1.99 |pmid=14709582 |url=https://researchonline.lshtm.ac.uk/id/eprint/15217/1/Health%20Effects%20of%20Climate%20Change.pdf }}</ref> Because of this, communities are more vulnerable to events including floods and droughts potentially resulting in food scarcity and an increased exposure to infectious, food-related, and water-related diseases.<ref name="Reckien-2018" /><ref name="Haines-2004" /><ref name="Moellendorf-2015">{{cite journal |last1=Moellendorf |first1=Darrel |title=Climate Change Justice |journal=Philosophy Compass |date=March 2015 |volume=10 |issue=3 |pages=173–186 |doi=10.1111/phc3.12201 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Currently, without sufficient treatment, more than 80% of all wastewater generated globally is released into the environment. High-income nations treat, on average, 70% of the wastewater they produce, according to UN Water.<ref>{{Cite web |last=UN-Water |title=Quality and Wastewater |url=https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/quality-and-wastewater/ |access-date=2022-08-29 |website=UN-Water |language=en-US}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Wastewater resource recovery can fix water insecurity and cut carbon emissions |url=https://www.eib.org/en/essays/wastewater-resource-recovery |access-date=2022-08-29 |website=European Investment Bank |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Water and Sanitation - United Nations Sustainable Development |url=https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/water-and-sanitation/ |access-date=2022-08-29 |website=www.un.org |language=en-US}}</ref>

It has been projected that climate change will have the greatest impact on vulnerable populations.<ref name="Moellendorf-2015" />

Climate justice has been influenced by environmental justice, especially grassroots climate justice.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Schlosberg |first1=David |last2=Collins |first2=Lisette B. |date=May 2014 |title=From environmental to climate justice: climate change and the discourse of environmental justice |journal=WIREs Climate Change |volume=5 |issue=3 |pages=359–374 |doi=10.1002/wcc.275 |s2cid=145546565 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2014WIRCC...5..359S }}</ref>

=== Ocean justice ===
{{Main|Blue justice}}
The head of  "[[Ocean Collectiv]]" and "Urban Ocean Lab", marine biologist, [[Ayana Elizabeth Johnson]] describes ocean justice as: "where ocean conservation and issues of social equity meet: Who suffers most from flooding and pollution, and who benefits from conservation measures? As sea levels rise and storms intensify, such questions will only grow more urgent, and fairness must be a central consideration as societies figure out how to answer them"<ref>{{cite web |last1=BETH |first1=GARDINER |title=Ocean Justice: Where Social Equity and the Climate Fight Intersect |url=https://e360.yale.edu/features/ocean-justice-where-social-equity-and-the-climate-fight-intersect |website=Yale Environment 360 |access-date=18 December 2023}}</ref>

In December 2023 Biden's administration unveiled a whole strategy to improve ocean justice. The main targets of this strategy:

* Repair past injustice when people depending on the ocean and contributing very little to environmental destruction, suffered from the impacts of this destruction on the oceans. Those include [[Indigenous peoples]], [[African Americans]], [[Hispanic and Latino Americans]].

* Use the [[Indigenous Knowledge|knowledge of indigenous people]] and marine communities in general for restore ocean justice and help [[ocean conservation]].

Environmental groups supported the decision. According to [[Beth Lowell]], the vice president of [[Oceana (non-profit group)]]: "[[Offshore drilling]], [[fisheries management]] and reducing [[plastic pollution]] are just a few of the areas where these voices are needed".<ref>{{cite news |last1=Rice |first1=Doyle |last2=Voyles Pulver |first2=Dinah |title=Biden Administration announces first-ever Ocean Justice Strategy. What's that? |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/12/07/biden-administration-announces-an-ocean-justice-strategy/71840427007/ |access-date=18 December 2023 |agency=USA today |date=7 December 2023}}</ref>

In the official document summarizing the new strategy, the administration gave several examples of past implementation of those principles. One of them is [[Mai Ka Po Mai]] a strategy for the management of the [[Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument]] near the [[Hawaiian Islands]] conceived after consultations with native communities.<ref>{{cite book |title=OCEAN JUSTICE STRATEGY |date=December 2023 |publisher=OCEAN POLICY COMMITTEE |page=23 |url=https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Ocean-Justice-Strategy.pdf |access-date=18 December 2023}}</ref>

=== Environmentalism ===
{{See also|Environmentalism}}
Relative to general environmentalism, environmental justice is seen as having a greater focus on the lives of everyday people and being more [[grassroots]].<ref name="Environmental Justice and Environmentalism-2007">{{cite book |doi=10.7551/mitpress/2781.003.0003 |chapter=Introduction: Revisiting the Environmental Justice Challenge to Environmentalism |title=Environmental Justice and Environmentalism |date=2007 |last1=Pezzullo |first1=Phaedra C. |last2=Sandler |first2=Ronald |pages=1–24 |isbn=978-0-262-28291-8 }}</ref> Environmental justice advocates have argued that mainstream environmentalist movements have sometimes been racist and elitist.<ref name="Environmental Justice and Environmentalism-2007" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=Environmentalism vs. Environmental Justice {{!}} Sustainability {{!}} UMN Duluth |url=https://sustainability.d.umn.edu/environmentalism-vs-environmental-justice |access-date=2022-06-25 |website=sustainability.d.umn.edu}}</ref> This is because the environmental movement was originally composed of White men. People of color were banned from entering national and state parks and other public recreational sites until 1964, severely hindering their ability to participate in the environmental movement. This led to White environmental activists ignoring environmental justice issues like environmental racism.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Adisa-Farrar |first=Teju |date=2023-02-02 |title=How 600 Years of Environmental Violence Is Still Harming Black Communities |url=https://earthjustice.org/article/overlooked-connections-between-black-injustice-and-environmentalism |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=Earthjustice |language=en-US}}</ref> Although more people of color have joined the environmental movement, a 2018 study found that people of color account for only 20% of the staff of environmental organizations despite making up 36% of the overall US population, indicating that barriers still persist.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Scicchitano |first=Dominic |date=July 27, 2020 |title=No Trespassing: The U.S. Environmental Movement’s Long History of Exclusion {{!}} Environmental Law Institute |url=https://www.eli.org/vibrant-environment-blog/no-trespassing-us-environmental-movements-long-history-exclusion |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=www.eli.org}}</ref>
----<sup>[i]</sup> Added explanation for why the environmental movement has been called racist

=== Degrowth ===
{{related|[[Degrowth]]}}

Environmental justice and degrowth have been considered to be complementary movements, because they both seek a political-ecological reorganisation of societies towards sustainability and both are concerned with questions of justice.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Akbulut |first1=Bengi |last2=Demaria |first2=Federico |last3=Gerber |first3=Julien-François |last4=Martínez-Alier |first4=Joan |date=2019-11-01 |title=Who promotes sustainability? Five theses on the relationships between the degrowth and the environmental justice movements |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0921800919306160 |journal=Ecological Economics |volume=165 |pages=106418 |doi=10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.106418 |bibcode=2019EcoEc.16506418A |issn=0921-8009}}</ref> Scholars have argued that degrowth can support environmental justice by asking for resource caps and implementing policies that reduce the extraction of materials,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Martinez-Alier |first1=Joan |last2=Temper |first2=Leah |last3=Del Bene |first3=Daniela |last4=Scheidel |first4=Arnim |date=2016-05-03 |title=Is there a global environmental justice movement? |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1141198 |journal=The Journal of Peasant Studies |volume=43 |issue=3 |pages=731–755 |doi=10.1080/03066150.2016.1141198 |issn=0306-6150}}</ref> while fostering relations of care between members of both movements has been proposed as a requirement to achieve their goals.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hurtado Hurtado |first1=Joshua |last2=Hämäläinen |first2=Vilma |last3=Ruuska |first3=Toni |last4=Heikkurinen |first4=Pasi |date=2025-02-17 |title=Care as pluriversal strategy? Caring in counter-hegemonic struggles in the degrowth and environmental justice movements |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2024.2373113 |journal=Globalizations |volume=22 |issue=2 |pages=263–283 |doi=10.1080/14747731.2024.2373113 |bibcode=2025Glob...22..263H |issn=1474-7731|doi-access=free }}</ref> For these reasons, the possibility of an alliance between degrowth and environmental justice has been proposed.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Martínez-Alier |first=Joan |date=2012-03-01 |title=Environmental Justice and Economic Degrowth: An Alliance between Two Movements |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10455752.2011.648839 |journal=Capitalism Nature Socialism |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=51–73 |doi=10.1080/10455752.2011.648839 |issn=1045-5752|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Perkins |first=Patricia E. (Ellie) |date=2019-06-01 |title=Climate justice, commons, and degrowth |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0921800918303021 |journal=Ecological Economics |volume=160 |pages=183–190 |doi=10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.02.005 |bibcode=2019EcoEc.160..183P |issn=0921-8009}}</ref> 

The possibility of an alliance, however, remains contested. Scholars from the Global South identify tensions and divergences in their aims and tactics.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Rodríguez-Labajos |first1=Beatriz |last2=Yánez |first2=Ivonne |last3=Bond |first3=Patrick |last4=Greyl |first4=Lucie |last5=Munguti |first5=Serah |last6=Ojo |first6=Godwin Uyi |last7=Overbeek |first7=Winfridus |date=2019-03-01 |title=Not So Natural an Alliance? Degrowth and Environmental Justice Movements in the Global South |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0921800918307626 |journal=Ecological Economics |volume=157 |pages=175–184 |doi=10.1016/j.ecolecon.2018.11.007 |bibcode=2019EcoEc.157..175R |issn=0921-8009|hdl=10230/56881 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> Similarly, degrowth's emphasis on frugality has led to criticisms of it being a Eurocentric project and unsuitable for social groups in other parts of the world.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Muradian |first=Roldan |date=2019-07-01 |title=Frugality as a choice vs. frugality as a social condition. Is de-growth doomed to be a Eurocentric project? |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0921800919303556 |journal=Ecological Economics |volume=161 |pages=257–260 |doi=10.1016/j.ecolecon.2019.03.027 |bibcode=2019EcoEc.161..257M |issn=0921-8009|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Ultimately, scholars argue that more research is needed, for example by quantifying the ecological stressors externalized to the Global South, by estimating the effects of degrowth policies,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Gräbner-Radkowitsch |first1=Claudius |last2=Strunk |first2=Birte |date=2023-11-01 |title=Degrowth and the Global South: The twin problem of global dependencies |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0921800923002094 |journal=Ecological Economics |volume=213 |pages=107946 |doi=10.1016/j.ecolecon.2023.107946 |bibcode=2023EcoEc.21307946G |issn=0921-8009|hdl=10419/273780 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> by identifying resonant narratives shared between both movements,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hurtado Hurtado |first1=Joshua |last2=Glynos |first2=Jason |date=2025-02-23 |title=Navigating desires beyond growth: the critical role of fantasy in degrowth's environmental politics and prefigurative ethics |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09644016.2024.2353541 |journal=Environmental Politics |language=en |volume=34 |issue=2 |pages=367–389 |doi=10.1080/09644016.2024.2353541 |bibcode=2025EnvPo..34..367H |issn=0964-4016}}</ref> and by explicitly integrating an internationalist agenda in degrowth's proposals that supports environmental justice movements in the Global South <ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Schmelzer |first1=Matthias |last2=Nowshin |first2=Tonny |date=2023-06-01 |title=Ecological Reparations and Degrowth: Towards a Convergence of Alternatives Around World-making After Growth |url=https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41301-023-00360-9 |journal=Development |language=en |volume=66 |issue=1 |pages=15–22 |doi=10.1057/s41301-023-00360-9 |issn=1461-7072|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

=== Reproductive justice ===
{{See also|Reproductive justice}}
Many participants in the Reproductive Justice Movement see their struggle as linked with those for environmental justice, and vice versa. [[Loretta Ross]] describes the reproductive justice framework as addressing "the ability of any woman to determine her own reproductive destiny" and argues this is "linked directly to the conditions in her community – and these conditions are not just a matter of individual choice and access."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ross |first=Loretta |url=https://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/courses/fileDL.php?fID=4051 |title=Reproductive Justice Briefing Book; A Primer on Reproductive Justice and Social Change |date=2007 |publisher=Berkeley Law |location=Berkeley, California |pages=4–5}}</ref> Such conditions include those central to environmental justice – including the siting of toxic waste and pollution of food, air, and waterways. 

Mohawk midwife [[Katsi Cook]] founded the Mother's Milk Project in the 1980s to address the toxic contamination of maternal bodies through exposure to fish and water contaminated by a [[General Motors]] [[Superfund]] site. In underscoring how contamination disproportionately impacted [[Akwesasne]] women and their children through gestation and breastfeeding, this project illustrates the intersections between reproductive and environmental justice.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hoover |first=Elizabeth |title=The River is In Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community |publisher=[[University of Minnesota Press]] |year=2017 |isbn=9781517903039 |location=Minneapolis, Minnesota}}</ref> Cook explains that, "at the breasts of women flows the relationship of those generations both to society and to the natural world."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sillman |first=Jael |title=Undivided Rights, Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice |publisher=[[Haymarket Books]] |year=2016 |isbn=9781608466177 |location=Chicago, Illinois |pages=126}}</ref>

=== Ecofeminism ===
Ecofeminst find the intersection between environmentalism and feminist philosophy. [[Ecofeminism]] is not to be confused with movements or studies on the health impacts of women in the environment. Researcher and author Sarah Buckingham explains that the basis of ecofeminism is rooted in the argument that “women's equality should not be achieved at the expense of worsening the environment, and neither should environmental improvements be gained at the expense of women.”<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.91020-1 |chapter=Ecofeminism |title=International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences |date=2015 |last1=Buckingham |first1=Susan |pages=845–850 |isbn=978-0-08-097087-5 }}</ref> Its origins are drawn in feminist theory, feminist spirituality, animal rights, social ecology, and antinuclear, antimilitarist organizing.<ref name=":11">{{Cite journal |last=Kirk |first=Gwyn |date=1997 |title=Ecofeminism and Environmental Justice: Bridges across Gender, Race, and Class |jstor=3346962 |journal=Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=2–20 |doi=10.2307/3346962 }}</ref> On account of its range of intersectionality, ecofeminism has been criticized for its incoherency and lack of potential in addressing climate crisis.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Sturgeon |first1=Noël |title=Ecofeminist appropriations and transnational environmentalisms |journal=Identities |date=July 1999 |volume=6 |issue=2–3 |pages=255–279 |doi=10.1080/1070289X.1999.9962645 }}</ref> 

Ecofeminist concerns are taken up by feminist researchers who participate in environmental organizations or contribute to national and international debates. Examples of such include the [[National Women's Health Network|National Women's Health Network's]] research around industrial and environmental health; critiques of reproductive technology and genetic engineering by the Feminist Network of Resistance to Reproductive and Genetic Engineering (FINRRAGE); and critiques of environmental approaches to population control by the Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment.<ref name=":11" />

=== Queer Ecology ===
Queer ecology is a philosophy that aims to disrupt dominant heteronormative environmental theories and restrictive binaries. The movement began to gain prominence in the mid-1990s, when queer ecology scholarship started to become more mainstream. This research attempted to draw connections between sexual and ecological politics, often based in ecofeminist and environmental justice perspectives. Additionally, queer ecology brings attention to the racialized, gendered, and colonial frameworks that influence how sex and nature are portrayed.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sandilands |first=Catriona |date=2016-01-12 |title=Queer Ecology |url=https://keywords.nyupress.org/environmental-studies/essay/queer-ecology/ |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=Keywords |publisher=NYU Press |language=en-US}}</ref>

Many LGBT+ environmentalist movements have emerged in response to the growing prominence of the queer ecology scholarship. These include programs skill building initiatives, such as Queer Nature (an organization that provides multi-day courses for building wildlife tracking and survival skills for those in the LGBT+ community) and Out for Sustainability (an organization promotes disaster preparedness and resilience among LGBT+ people). Other LGBT+ environmentalist movements include the Queer Ecojustice Project (an organization that promotes queer ecology and queer ecojustice in communities) and Queers X Climate (an international organization that encourages members to pledge a 50 percent reduction in their carbon emissions).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Richard-Craven |first=Maya |date=June 17, 2022 |title=Check Out These 4 LGBTQI Environmental Organizations |url=https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/check-out-these-4-lgbtqi-environmental-organizations |website=Sierra}}</ref>  

Queer ecology imagines new futures in scientific research by acknowledging the diversity in the natural world that exists outside of manmade binaries and gender norms. For instance, researchers have discovered that clown fish can change their sex when needed to encourage reproduction. Similarly, researchers have found that female Laysan albatrosses enter same sex relationships to protect their chicks. These organisms existing outside of heteronormative standards can encourage future researchers to gain a better understanding of how species react to population threats, especially as climate change leads to more species extinctions.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bennett |first=Melyka |date=June 30, 2023 |title=Queer ecology – embracing diversity in the natural world |url=https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/introducing-queer-ecology-embracing-diversity-in-the-natural-world/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=15292325257&gbraid=0AAAAABL5RNTMhLxkC9aCCsKpf0LvNZkAd&gclid=Cj0KCQjwrPHABhCIARIsAFW2XBND4vsakn1INi9_QwysPGVTP7qk1-_f4vPe7XrCmvfXd-2lQULc0zsaAokgEALw_wcB |website=British Ecological Society}}</ref>

Many queer ecology movements exist around the world. For instance, one queer ecology movement in Mexico is breaking down restrictive binaries in agricultural practices. In “A Queer Ecological Reading of Ecocultural Identity in Contemporary Mexico”, author Gabriela Méndez Cota describes how plants become viewed as weeds, stating that “a cultural contempt for weeds may come not from Spain in particular but from a Christian agricultural philosophy that makes it difficult to conceive of food as proper if it does not result from an elaborate process of extraction and domestication”. However, she explains how queer ecology shifting agricultural perspectives. Due to this shift, some Mexican farmers are allowing for weeds, to continue to grow because they can lead to a healthier biome for milpa and can be used as a source of food and medicine. Queer ecology helps remove these plants from their political and agricultural ideals.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Méndez Cota |first=Gabriela |title=Routledge Handbook of Ecological Identity |year=2020 |isbn=9781351068840 |edition=1st |chapter=A queer ecological reading of ecocultural identity in contemporary Mexico}}</ref>

Similarly, queer ecology movements are gaining prominence in the United States. Many queer ecologists in the US are speaking out about how restrictive binaries have harmed scientific research; fungi are typically left out of conservation efforts due to existing outside of the binaries of plants or animals. Additionally, scientists have only recently discovered that many species exist outside of manmade gender norms and are hermaphrodites or intersex. Queer ecologists in the US are encouraging researchers to move away from placing organisms and ecosystems into manmade binaries.<ref>{{Cite web |last=McHarris |first=Susan |date=August 15, 2023 |title=Accepting a Queer Nature |url=https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/virginia/stories-in-virginia/queer-ecology-nature-biodiversity/ |access-date=2025-05-09 |website=The Nature Conservancy |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Around the world==
{{Main|List of environmental conflicts}}

Environmental justice campaigns have arisen from local conflicts all over the world. The [[Environmental Justice Atlas]] documented 3,100 environmental conflicts worldwide as of April 2020 and emphasised that many more conflicts remained undocumented.<ref name="Scheidel" />

===Africa===
{{Main|Environmental issues in Africa}}

==== Democratic Republic of the Congo ====
{{See also|Mining industry of the Democratic Republic of the Congo}}
Mining for [[cobalt]] and copper in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has resulted in environmental injustice and numerous environmental conflicts including 

* [[Mutanda mine]]
* [[Kamoto mine]]
* [[Tilwezembe|Tilwezembe mine]]

[[Conflict mineral]]s mined in the DRC perpetuate armed conflict.

==== Ethiopia ====
Mining for gold and other minerals has resulted in environmental injustice and environmental conflict in Ethiopia including 

* [[Lega Dembi Mine|Lega Dembi mine]]: thousands of people were exposed to mercury by MIDROC corporation, resulting in poisoned food, death of livestock and many miscairrages and birth defects.
* [[Kenticha mine]]

==== Kenya ====
[[Kenya]] has, since independence in 1963, focused on environmental protectionism. [[Environmental activists]] such as [[Wangari Maathai]] stood for and defend natural and environmental resources, often coming into conflict with the [[Daniel Arap Moi]] and his government. The country has suffered Environmental issues arising from rapid urbanization especially in Nairobi, where the public space, [[Uhuru Park]], and game parks such as the [[Nairobi National Park]] have suffered encroachment to pave way for infrastructural developments like the Standard Gage Railway and the Nairobi Expressway. One of the environmental lawyers, Kariuki Muigua, has championed environmental justice and access to information and legal protection, authoring the Environmental Justice Thesis on Kenya's milestones.<ref>Muigua, K., & Kariuki, F. (2015). Towards Environmental Justice in Kenya. http://kmco.co.ke/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Towards-Environmental-Justice-in-Kenya-1st-September-2017.pdf</ref>

==== Nigeria ====
{{See also|Environmental issues in the Niger Delta|Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People}}
From 1956 to 2006, up to 1.5 million tons of oil were spilled in the [[Niger Delta]], (50 times the volume spilled in the [[Exxon Valdez oil spill|Exxon Valdez disaster]]).<ref>{{Cite web |title=UNPO: Ogoni: Niger Delta Bears Brunt after Fifty Years of Oil Spills |url=https://unpo.org/article/5703 |access-date=2022-11-13 |website=unpo.org|date=November 2, 2009 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Vidal |first1=John |title=Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell |work=The Observer |date=29 May 2010 }}</ref> Indigenous people in the region have suffered the loss of their livelihoods as a result of [[Environmental issues in the Niger Delta|these environmental issues]], and they have received no benefits in return for enormous oil revenues extracted from their lands. Environmental conflicts have exacerbated ongoing [[conflict in the Niger Delta]].<ref name="HRW Nigeria952">{{cite web |date=July 1995 |title=Nigeria, The Ogoni Crisis, Vol. 7, No. 5 |url=https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1995/Nigeria.htm |access-date=December 15, 2014 |publisher=Human Rights Watch}}</ref><ref name="Osaghae 19952">{{Cite journal |last=Osaghae |first=Eghosa E. |date=1995 |title=The Ogoni Uprising: Oil Politics, Minority Agitation and the Future of the Nigerian State |journal=African Affairs |volume=94 |issue=376 |pages=325–344 |doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a098833 |jstor=723402 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref name="Agbonifo-2009">{{Cite journal |last=Agbonifo |first=John |title=Oil, Insecurity, and Subversive Patriots in the Niger Delta: The Ogoni as Agent of Revolutionary Change |date=2009 |journal=Journal of Third World Studies |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=71–106 |jstor=45194563 }}</ref>

[[Ogoni people]], who are indigenous to Nigeria's oil-rich Delta region have protested the disastrous environmental and economic effects of [[Shell Nigeria|Shell Oil's]] drilling and denounced [[human rights abuse]]s by the [[Federal government of Nigeria|Nigerian government]] and by Shell. Their international appeal intensified dramatically after the execution in 1995 of [[Ogoni Nine|nine Ogoni activists]], including [[Ken Saro-Wiwa]], who was a founder of the nonviolent [[Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People]] (MOSOP).<ref>{{cite book |last1=Spitulnik |first1=Debra |chapter=Small Media Against Big Oil (Nigeria) |page=459 |editor1-last=Downing |editor1-first=John D. H. |title=Encyclopedia of Social Movement Media |date=2011 |publisher=SAGE |isbn=978-0-7619-2688-7 }}</ref><ref name="HRW Nigeria952" /><ref name="Osaghae 19952" /><ref name="Agbonifo-2009" />

==== South Africa ====
Under colonial and [[apartheid]] governments in South Africa, thousands of black South Africans were removed from their ancestral lands to make way for game parks. [[Earthlife Africa]] was formed in 1988, making it Africa's first environmental justice organisation. In 1992, the Environmental Justice Networking Forum (EJNF), a nationwide umbrella organization designed to coordinate the activities of environmental activists and organizations interested in social and environmental justice, was created. By 1995, the network expanded to include 150 member organizations and by 2000, it included over 600 member organizations.{{sfn|McDonald|2002|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}

With the election of the [[African National Congress]] (ANC) in 1994, the environmental justice movement gained an ally in government. The ANC noted "poverty and environmental degradation have been closely linked" in South Africa.{{Attribution needed|date=March 2012}} The ANC made it clear that environmental inequalities and injustices would be addressed as part of the party's post-apartheid reconstruction and development mandate. The new South African Constitution, finalized in 1996, includes a Bill of Rights that grants South Africans the right to an "environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being" and "to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations through reasonable legislative and other measures that
#prevent pollution and ecological degradation;
#promote conservation; and
#secure [[ecologically sustainable development]] and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development".{{sfn|McDonald|2002|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}

South Africa's mining industry is the largest single producer of [[solid waste]], accounting for about two-thirds of the total waste stream.{{Vague|date=March 2012}} Tens of thousands of deaths have occurred among mine workers as a result of accidents over the last century.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Simons |first=H. J. |date=July 1961 |title=Death in South African mines |url=https://disa.ukzn.ac.za/asjul618 |access-date=2020-01-22 |journal=Africa South |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=41–55 }}</ref> There have been several deaths and debilitating diseases from work-related illnesses like asbestosis. <ref>Berman, Y., Carbone, M., & Yang, H. (2022). Asbestos exposure and mesothelioma: current trends and future outlook. Clinical Lung Cancer, 23(6), e277–e283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cllc.2022.04.005</ref> For those who live next to a mine, the quality of air and water is poor. Noise, dust, and dangerous equipment and vehicles can be threats to the safety of those who live next to a mine as well.{{Citation needed|date=March 2012}} These communities are often poor and black and have little choice over the placement of a mine near their homes. The [[National Party (South Africa)|National Party]] introduced a new Minerals Act that began to address environmental considerations by recognizing the health and safety concerns of workers and the need for [[land rehabilitation]] during and after mining operations. In 1993, the Act was amended to require each new mine to have an Environmental Management Program Report (EMPR) prepared before breaking ground. These EMPRs were intended to force mining companies to outline all the possible environmental impacts of the particular mining operation and to make provision for environmental management.{{sfn|McDonald|2002|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}

In October 1998, the Department of Minerals and Energy released a White Paper entitled ''A Minerals and Mining Policy for South Africa'', which included a section on Environmental Management. The White Paper states "Government, in recognition of the responsibility of the State as custodian of the nation's natural resources, will ensure that the essential development of the country's mineral resources will take place within a framework of sustainable development and in accordance with national environmental policy, norms, and standards". It adds that any environmental policy "must ensure a cost-effective and competitive mining industry."{{sfn|McDonald|2002|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}

{{Further|Marikana massacre}}

===Asia===
Noah Diffenbaugh and Marshall Burke in their study of inequality in Asia demonstrated the interactionalism of [[economic inequality]] and global warming. For instance, globalization and industrialization increased the chances of global warming. However, industrialization also allowed wealth inequality to perpetuate. For example, New Delhi is the epicenter of the industrial revolution in the Indian continent, but there is significant wealth disparity. Furthermore, because of global warming, countries like Sweden and Norway can capitalize on warmer temperatures, while most of the world's poorest countries are significantly poorer than they would have been if global warming had not occurred.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Garthwaite |date=22 April 2019 |title=Climate change has worsened global economic inequality |url=https://earth.stanford.edu/news/climate-change-has-worsened-global-economic-inequality#gs.gln4x0 |access-date=22 April 2019 |website=Earth.Stanford.edu}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author1=Diffenbaugh, N. |author2=Burke, M. |year=2019 |title=Global warming has increased global economic inequality |journal=PNAS |volume=116 |issue=20 |pages=9808–9813 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1816020116 |pmc=6525504 |pmid=31010922 |bibcode=2019PNAS..116.9808D |doi-access=free}}</ref>

==== China ====
[[File:Pollution of Ganga.jpg|thumb|Cattle in the [[Ganges|River Ganges]] with pollution on the bank]]In China, factories create harmful waste such as nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide which cause health risks. Journalist and science writer [[Fred Pearce]] notes that in China "most monitoring of urban air still concentrates on one or at most two pollutants, sometimes particulates, sometimes nitrogen oxides or sulfur dioxides or ozone. Similarly, most medical studies of the impacts of these toxins look for links between single pollutants and suspected health effects such as respiratory disease and cardiovascular conditions."<ref name=":6a">{{cite news |last1=Pearce |first1=Fred |title=How a 'Toxic Cocktail' Is Posing a Troubling Health Risk in China's Cities |url=https://e360.yale.edu/features/how-a-toxic-cocktail-is-posing-a-troubling-health-risk-in-chinese-cities |work=Yale E360 |date=17 April 2018 }}</ref> The country emits about a third of all the human-made sulfur dioxide ({{SO2}}), nitrogen oxides ({{NOx}}), and particulates pollution in the world.<ref name=":6a" /> The [[Global Burden of Disease Study]], an international collaboration, estimates that 1.1 million Chinese die from the effects of this air pollution each year, roughly a third of the global death toll."<ref name=":6a" /> The economic cost of deaths due to air pollution is estimated at 267 billion yuan (US$38 billion) per year.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Kao |first1=Ernest |title=1 million dead and US$38 billion lost: the price of China's air pollution |url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/2166542/air-pollution-killing-1-million-people-and-costing-chinese |work=South China Morning Post |date=2 October 2018 }}</ref>

==== Indonesia ====
[[Environmental conflict]]s in Indonesia include:

* The [[Arun gas field]] where [[ExxonMobil|ExxonMobil's]] development of a natural gas export industry contributed to the [[insurgency in Aceh]] in which secessionist fighters led by the [[Free Aceh Movement]] attempted to gain independence from the central government which had taken billions in gas revenues from the region without much benefit to the Aceh province. Violence directed toward the gas industry led Exxon to contract with the Indonesian military for protection of the Arun field and subsequent [[Accusations of ExxonMobil human rights violations in Aceh|human rights abuses in Aceh]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Aspinall |first=Edward |date=2007 |title=The Construction of Grievance: Natural Resources and Identity in a Separatist Conflict |journal=The Journal of Conflict Resolution |volume=51 |issue=6 |pages=950–972 |doi=10.1177/0022002707307120 |jstor=27638587 |hdl=1885/29992 |s2cid=145677680 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

==== Malaysia ====
Environmental justice movements in Malaysia have arisen from conflicts including:

* [[Lynas Advanced Materials Plant]]: rare earth processing plant producing over a million tonnes of radioactive waste from 2012-2023.

==== South Korea ====
{{Main|Environmental justice in South Korea}}
Environmental justice movements in South Korea have arisen from conflicts including:

* [[Saemangeum Seawall]]
* [[Seoul-Incheon canal]]

===Australia===
[[File:Environment Rally.jpg|thumb|World Environment Day, June 5, 2011; tens of thousands of people rallied around Australia to say Yes to a safe climate and in support of a carbon price.]]
[[Australia]] has suffered from a number of environmental injustices, which have usually been caused by polluting corporate projects geared towards extracting natural resources. For example, discriminatory siting of nuclear and hazardous waste facilities.<ref name="Arcioni, 2005">{{cite journal |last1=Arcioni |first1=Elisa |last2=Mitchell |first2=Glenn |title=Environmental Justice in Australia: When the RATS Became IRATE |journal=Environmental Politics |date=June 2005 |volume=14 |issue=3 |pages=363–379 |doi=10.1080/09644010500087590 |bibcode=2005EnvPo..14..363A |url=https://ro.uow.edu.au/lawpapers/20 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Radioactive waste and the nuclear war on Australia's Aboriginal people |url=https://theecologist.org/2016/jul/01/radioactive-waste-and-nuclear-war-australias-aboriginal-people |access-date=2023-02-06 |website=theecologist.org |date=July 2016 |language=en}}</ref> These projects have been detrimental to local climates, biodiversity, and the health of local citizen populations from poorer economic areas. They have also faced little resistance from local and national governments, who tend to cite their ‘economic’ benefits. However, these projects have faced strong resistance from environmental justice organizations, community, and indigenous groups.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Vachette |first1=Astrid |last2=Gulliver |first2=Robyn |last3=Boddington |first3=Sarah |date=2023-09-19 |title=Climate Justice: What does it mean? |url=https://commonslibrary.org/climate-justice-what-does-it-mean/ |access-date=2024-07-08 |website=The Commons Social Change Library |language=en-AU}}</ref> Australia has a prominent Indigenous population, and they often disproportionately face some of the worst impacts of these projects.

{{Further|Nuclear industry in South Australia|Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta}}

* '''WestConnex Highway Project, Sydney and New South Wales (NSW)''' 

The WestConnex Highway Project emerged as an answer to Sydney's lack of infrastructure to cope as a fast growing city. The highway project is currently under construction, covers 33&nbsp;km of new and improved highway, and will link up to the city's M4 and M5 highways.The newest WestConnex toll roads opened in 2019. The NSW government believe that the highway is the ‘missing link’ to the city's problem of traffic congestion, and has argued that the project will provide further economic benefits such as job creation.

The WestConnex Action Group (WAG) have said that residents close to the highway have been negatively affected by its high levels of air pollution, caused by an increase in traffic and unventilated smokestacks in its tunnels. Protesters have also argued that the close proximity of the highway will put children especially at risk.

The highway has faced resistance in a variety of forms, including a long-running occupation camp in Sydney Park, as well as confrontations with police and construction workers that have led to arrests. The WAG has set up a damage register for people whose property has been damaged by the highway, in order to document the extent of the damages, and support those who have been affected. The WAG have done this through campaigning for a damage repaid fund, independent damage assessment and potential class action.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=EJAtlas |last2=ICTA-UAB |last3=Mathies |first3=Louisa |date=2020-03-18 |title=WestConnex Highway Project, Sydney and NSW, Australia {{!}} EJAtlas |url=https://ejatlas.org/conflict/westconnex-highway-project-sydney-nsw |access-date=2023-05-18 |website=[[Environmental Justice Atlas]] |language=en |author1-link=EJAtlas }}</ref>

* '''Yeelirrie Uranium Mine, Western Australia'''

The [[Yeelirrie uranium project|Yeelirrie Uranium Mine]] was facilitated by Canadian company [[Cameco]]. The mine aimed to dig a 9&nbsp;km open mine pit and destroy 2,400 hectares of traditional lands, including the Seven Sisters Dreaming Songline, important to the Tjiwarl people. The mine has faced strong resistance from the Tjiwral people, especially its women, for over decade.

The mine is the largest uranium deposit in the country, and uses nine million litres of water, whilst generating millions of tonnes of radioactive waste. Around 36 million tonnes of this waste will be produced whilst the mine is operational, which is set to be until 2043.

A group of Tjiwral women took Cameco to court, to initial success. The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) halted the mine because it was very likely to wipe out several species, including rare [[stygofauna]], the entire western population of a rare saltbush, and harm other wild life like the [[Malleefowl]], [[Princess parrot]] and [[Greater bilby]]. The state and federal authorities, however, went against the EPA and approved the mine in 2019.<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Hanaček |first1=Ksenija |last2=ICTA-UAB |date=2019-12-08 |title=A decade longe battle against Yeelirrie uranium mine led by Tjiwarl women, Australia {{!}} EJAtlas |url=https://ejatlas.org/conflict/a-decade-longe-battle-against-yeelirrie-uranium-mine-led-by-tjiwarl-women-australia |access-date=2023-05-18 |website=[[Environmental Justice Atlas]] |language=en}}</ref>

* '''SANTOS Barossa offshore gas in Timor Sea, Northern Territory (NT)'''

In March 2021, [[Santos Limited|South Australia Northern Territory Oil Search (SANTOS)]] invested in the [[Barossa Gas Project|Barossa gas field]] in the [[Timor Sea]], [[Northern Territory]], to great reception from the NT government, saying that it will provide jobs for the local area. The move was condemned by environmental justice organisations, saying that it will have grave impacts on the climate and biodiversity. Crucially, they stressed that the [[Tiwi people]], owners of the local islands, were not adequately consulted, and were worried that any spills would damage local [[Flatback sea turtle|flatback]] and [[Olive ridley sea turtle|Olive Ridley turtle]] populations.

This disregard for the Tiwi people sparked protests from a number of groups, including one in front of the SANTOS [[Darwin, Northern Territory|Darwin]] headquarters demanding an end to the Barossa gas project. In September 2021, a coalition of environmental justice organisations from Australia, [[South Korea]] and Japan, united under the name Stop Barossa Gas to oppose the project.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Commons Librarian |date=2023-12-22 |title=Campaigns that Changed the Northern Territory |url=https://commonslibrary.org/campaigns-that-changed-the-northern-territory/ |access-date=2024-07-08 |website=The Commons Social Change Library |language=en-AU}}</ref> In March 2022, the Tiwi people filed for a court injunction to stop [[Export–Import Bank of Korea|KEXIM]] and Korea Trade and Investment Corporation (Korean development finance institutions) funding the project with almost $1bn. The Tiwi people did this on the basis of a lack of consultation from SANTOS, and the detrimental environmental impacts the project will have. In June 2022, the Tiwi people filed another lawsuit for the same reasons, but this time directly against SANTOS.<ref>{{Cite web |last=[[EJAtlas]] Team (M.L) |date=2022-07-13 |title=Santos' Barossa offshore gas "scraping the bottom of the barrel" in Timor Sea, NT, Australia {{!}} EJAtlas |url=https://ejatlas.org/conflict/santos-barossa-offshore-gas-scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel-in-timor-sea-nt-australia |access-date=2023-05-18 |website=[[Environmental Justice Atlas]] |language=en}}</ref>

===Europe===
{{Main|Environmental racism in Europe}}
The [[European Environment Agency]] (EEA) reports that exposure to environmental harms such as pollution is correlated with poverty,<ref name="Ganzleben-2020">{{Cite journal |last1=Ganzleben |first1=Catherine |last2=Kazmierczak |first2=Aleksandra |date=December 2020 |title=Leaving no one behind – understanding environmental inequality in Europe |journal=Environmental Health |volume=19 |issue=1 |pages=57 |doi=10.1186/s12940-020-00600-2 |pmc=7251658 |pmid=32460849 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2020EnvHe..19...57G }}</ref> and that poorer countries suffer from environmental harms while higher income countries produce the majority of the pollution. Western Europe has more extensive evidence of environmental inequality.<ref name="Ganzleben-2020" />

[[Romani people]]s are ethnic minorities that experience environmental discrimination. Discriminatory laws force Romani people In many countries to live in slums or ghettos with poor access to running water and sewage, or where they are exposed to hazardous wastes.<ref name="Steger, 2008">{{cite journal |last1=Steger |first1=Tamara |last2=Filcak |first2=Richard |title=Articulating the Basis for Promoting Environmental Justice in Central and Eastern Europe |journal=Environmental Justice |date=March 2008 |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=49–53 |doi=10.1089/env.2008.0501 |bibcode=2008EnvJ....1...49S }}</ref>

The European Union is trying to strive towards environmental justice by putting into effect declarations that state that all people have a [[right to a healthy environment]]. The Stockholm Declaration, the 1987 [[Brundtland Commission]]'s Report&nbsp;– "[[Our Common Future]]", the [[Rio Declaration]], and Article 37 of the [[Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union]], all are ways that the Europeans have put acts in place to work toward environmental justice.<ref name="Steger, 2008"/>

====Sweden====

Sweden became the first country to ban [[Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane|DDT]] in 1969.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hayes |first1=Wayland J. |title=Sweden Bans DDT |journal=Archives of Environmental Health|date=June 1969 |volume=18 |issue=6 |pages=872 |doi=10.1080/00039896.1969.10665507 }}</ref> In the 1980s, women activists organized around preparing jam made from pesticide-tainted berries, which they offered to the members of parliament.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aWEZCwAAQBAJ&q=sweden%20jam%20berries%20pesticides&pg=PA79|title=Women Pioneers For The Environment|last=Breton|first=Mary Joy|date=2016-02-01|publisher=Northeastern University Press|isbn=9781555538552|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |doi=10.4324/9780203084212 |title=Radical Ecology |date=2012 |last1=Merchant |first1=Carolyn |isbn=978-1-136-19015-5 |chapter=Ecofeminism |pages=193–222 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f4VCWmFUGmoC&pg=PA193 |quote-page=193 |quote=In Sweden, feminists prepare jam from berries sprayed with herbicides and offer a taste to members of parliament: they refuse. }}</ref> Parliament members refused, and this has often been cited as an example of direct action within [[ecofeminism]].

====United Kingdom====
{{Main|Environmental inequality in the United Kingdom}}
Whilst the predominant agenda of the Environmental Justice movement in the United States has been tackling issues of race, inequality, and the environment, environmental justice campaigns around the world have developed and shifted in focus. For example, the EJ movement in the United Kingdom is quite different. It focuses on issues of poverty and the environment, but also tackles issues of [[health inequalities]] and [[social exclusion]].<ref>{{citation|url=http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/reports/environmental_justice.pdf|title=Environmental justice: Rights and means to a healthy environment for all|publisher=ESRC Global Environmental Change Programme}}</ref> A UK-based NGO, named the [[Environmental Justice Foundation]], has sought to make a direct link between the need for environmental security and the defense of basic human rights.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ejfoundation.org/page231.html |title=About Us |publisher=Environmental Justice Foundation |access-date=2012-11-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120907052127/http://www.ejfoundation.org/page231.html |archive-date=2012-09-07 }}</ref> They have launched several high-profile campaigns that link environmental problems and social injustices. A campaign against illegal, unreported and unregulated ([[IUU]]) fishing highlighted how 'pirate' fisherman are stealing food from local, artisanal fishing communities.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/jun/08/pirate-fishing-eco-disaster-report "Pirate fishing causing eco disaster and killing communities, says report"] The Guardian, June 8, 2009, retrieved 8 October 2009</ref><ref>EJF. 2005. Pirates and Profiteers: How Pirate Fishing Fleets are Robbing People and Oceans. Environmental Justice Foundation, London, UK</ref> They have also launched a campaign exposing the environmental and human rights abuses involved in cotton production in [[Uzbekistan]]. [[Cotton produced in Uzbekistan]] is often [[harvested by children]] for little or no pay. In addition, the mismanagement of water resources for crop irrigation has led to the near eradication of the [[Aral Sea]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ejfoundation.org/page142.html |access-date=2009-10-08 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100410221416/http://www.ejfoundation.org/page142.html |archive-date=2010-04-10 |title=Cotton in Uzbekistan |publisher=Environmental Justice Foundation}}</ref> The Environmental Justice Foundation has successfully petitioned large retailers such as [[Wal-mart]] and [[Tesco]] to stop selling [[Uzbek cotton]].<ref name="Mathiason">{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/business/2009/may/24/retail-ethicalbusiness | title=Uzbekistan forced to stop child labor | work=[[The Observer]] | date=May 24, 2009 | access-date=May 14, 2016 | author=Mathiason, Nick}}</ref>

====Building of alternatives to climate change====

In [[France]], numerous [[Alternatiba, Village of Alternatives|Alternatiba]] events, or villages of alternatives, are providing hundreds of alternatives to [[climate change]] and lack of environmental justice, both in order to raise people's awareness and to stimulate behaviour change. They have been or will be organized in over sixty different French and European cities, such as [[Bilbao]], [[Brussels]], [[Geneva]], [[Lyon]] or [[Paris]].

=== North and Central America ===

==== Belize ====
Environmental justice movements arising from local conflicts in Belize include:

* The government of Belize began granting oil concessions without consulting local communities since 2010, with [[offshore oil drilling]] being allowed without consultation with local fishermen or the tourism sector, which are the main economic activities in the area, and affecting Mayan and Garifuna communities. Environmental advocacy group, [[Oceana (non-profit group)|Oceana]], collected over 20,000 signatures in 2011 to trigger a national referendum on offshore oil drilling; however, the government of Belize invalidated over 8,000 signatures, preventing the possibility of an official referendum. In response, Oceana and partner organizations organized an unofficial "People's Referendum," which resulted in 90% of Belizeans voting against offshore exploration and drilling. Belize's Supreme Court declared offshore drilling contracts issued by the Government of Belize in 2004 and 2007 invalid in 2013, but the government reconsidered initiating offshore drilling in 2015, with possible new regulations allowing oil and gas exploration in 99% of Belize's territorial waters. In 2022, Oceana began collecting signatures for another moratorium referendum.<ref>{{Cite web |last=EJOLT |title=Offshore Oil drilling, Belize {{!}} EJAtlas |url=https://ejatlas.org/conflict/belizean-population-against-offshore-drilling-blue-hole |access-date=2023-05-06 |website=[[Environmental Justice Atlas]] |language=en}}</ref> 
* [[Chalillo Dam]]

==== Canada ====
Environmental justice movements arising from local conflicts in Canada include:

* [[Coastal GasLink Pipeline|Coastal GasLink pipeline]]
** [[2020 Canadian pipeline and railway protests]]
* [[Fairy Creek old-growth logging protests|Fairy Creek timber blockade]]
* [[Grassy Narrows road blockade]]
* [[Mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows|Grassy Narrows mercury poisoning]]
* [[Trans Mountain pipeline]]
* Cases of [[Environmental racism in Nova Scotia]]

===== Dominican Republic =====
Environmental justice movements arising from local conflicts in the Dominican Republic:
* [[Pueblo Viejo mine]]

==== Guatemala ====
Environmental justice movements arising from local conflicts in Guatemala include

* [[Escobal mine protests|Escobal mine]]

==== El Salvador ====
Environmental justice movements arising from local conflicts in El Salvador include:

* '''El Dorado Mine, owned by [[Pacific Rim Mining Corporation]]'''

The Canadian company Pacific Rim Mining Corporation operates a gold mine on the site of El Dorado, San Isidro, in the department of Cabañas. The mine has had hugely negative impacts on the local environment, including the reduction of accessibility to fresh water due to the water intensive mining process, as well as the contamination of the local water supply, which negatively affected the health of local citizens and their live stock. Also, Salvadorian investigators found dangerously high levels of arsenic in two rivers close to the mine.

The operations of the mine has caused conflicts, increased divisions in the community, and prompted threats and violence against opposition to the mine. Following the suspension of the project in 2008 due to resistance from local groups, this violence escalated. As of today, at least half a dozen deaths among local group opposing the mine have been related with the presence of Pacific Rim. The strength of opposition to the mine contributed towards a national movement against the project. In 2008 and 2009, both the incumbent and elected Salvadorian presidents agreed publicly to deny the extension of the licence to Pacific Rim to connote its operations. More recently, the new president Sanchéz Cerén stated “mining is not viable in El Salvador.”<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Chavez |first1=Patricio |last2=Global Campaign to Dismantle Corporate Power |last3=Martinez-Alier |first3=Joan |last4=Transnational Institute - TNI |date=2022-02-14 |title=Pacific Rim at El Dorado mine, El Salvador {{!}} EJAtlas |url=https://ejatlas.org/conflict/el-dorado-el-salvador |access-date=2023-05-18 |website=[[Environmental Justice Atlas]] |language=en}}</ref>

==== Honduras ====
Honduras has experienced a number of environmental justice struggles, particularly related to the mining, hydroelectric, and logging industries. One of the most high-profile cases was the assassination of [[Berta Cáceres|Berta Caceres]], a Honduran indigenous and environmental rights activist who opposed the construction of the Agua Zarca Dam on the Gualcarque River. Caceres' murder in 2016 sparked widespread outrage and drew international attention to the risks faced by environmental and indigenous activists in Honduras.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Honduras|url=https://www.globalwitness.org/tagged/honduras/ |access-date=2023-05-06 |website=Global Witness |language=en}}</ref>

==== Mexico ====
Environmental justice movements arising from local conflicts in Mexico include

* [[Dolores mine]]
* [[El Chanate mine]]
* [[La Revancha mine]]

==== Nicaragua ====
Environmental justice movements arising from local conflicts in Nicaragua include:

* [[Nicaragua Canal|'''Nicaragua Grand Canal''']]

In 2012, the Nicaraguan government approved the construction of the Grand Canal, which will be 286&nbsp;km long. A large section of the new canal will run through Lake Nicaragua, which is an important source of fresh water for the country. The canal will also have a width of 83 meters, and depth of 27.5 meters, making it suitable for large-range ships. Related infrastructures include two ports, an airport and an oil pipeline. 

Opponents to the construction of the canal, such as the Coordinadora de la comunidad negra creole indígena de Bluefields (CCNCB), fear the impacts it will have on the biodiversity, and protected areas like Bosawás and the Bluefields wetlands. Opponents also fear the impacts on the Indigenous and tribal people that the canal would displace, such as the Miskito, Ulwa and Creole. To date, the Nicaraguan government has not made public the results of various viability studies.

Since the approval of the construction of the canal, environmental justice and indigenous groups have presented petitions for review to national courts, as well as one to the International Human Rights Commission. In 2017, these groups suffered a setback, when the National Court rejected the petition to refuse the "Law of the Grand Canal”.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Neotrópica |first=Fundación |date=2019-08-18 |title=Interoceanic Grand Canal project, Nicaragua {{!}} EJAtlas |url=https://ejatlas.org/conflict/gran-canal-nicaraguas-project |access-date=2023-05-18 |website=[[Environmental Justice Atlas]] |language=en}}</ref>

==== United States ====
{{Main|Environmental racism in the United States}}{{See also|Environmental Racism#United States}}
Definitions of environmental inequality typically emphasize either 'disparate exposure' (unequal exposure to environmental harm) or 'discriminatory intent' (often based on race). Disparate exposure has health and social impacts.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Downey |first1=Liam |date=May 2005 |title=Assessing Environmental Inequality: How the Conclusions We Draw Vary According to the Definitions We Employ |journal=Sociological Spectrum |volume=25 |issue=3 |pages=349–369 |doi=10.1080/027321790518870 |pmc=3162366 |pmid=21874079}}</ref> Poverty and race are associated with environmental injustice. Poor people account for more than 20% of the [[Air pollution#Health effects|human health impacts]] from industrial toxic air releases, compared to 12.9% of the population nationwide.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite book |last1=Pastor |first1=Manuel |title=Racial/ethnic Inequality in Environmental-hazard Exposure in Metropolitan Los Angeles |date=2001 |publisher=Policy Research Program, California Policy Research Center |oclc=47019125 }}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref> Some studies that test statistically for effects of race and ethnicity, while controlling for income and other factors, suggest racial gaps in exposure that persist across all bands of income.<ref>{{cite web |author=Michael Ash |title=Justice in the Air: Tracking Toxic Pollution from America's Industries and Companies to Our States, Cities, and Neighborhoods |url=http://www.peri.umass.edu/justice/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725114107/http://www.peri.umass.edu/justice/ |archive-date=2011-07-25 |access-date=2011-05-12}}</ref>

States may also see placing toxic facilities near poor neighborhoods as preferential from a [[Cost Benefit Analysis]] (CBA) perspective. A CBA may favor placing a toxic facility near a city of 20,000 poor people than near a city of 5,000 wealthy people.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Sandler |first1=Ronald D. |last2=Pezzullo |first2=Phaedra C. |title=Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social Justice Challenge to the Environmental Movement |date=2007 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-19552-2 |pages=57–83 }}</ref>  Terry Bossert of [[Range Resources]] reportedly has said that it deliberately locates its operations in poor neighborhoods instead of wealthy areas where residents have more money to challenge its practices.<ref>[http://powersource.post-gazette.com/powersource/latest-oil-and-gas/2016/04/18/Executive-s-remark-about-shale-gas-well-sites-prompts-sharp-criticism-calls-for-review/stories/201604180027 Range Resources exec's well-site remarks drawing sharp criticism: Does Range avoid rich neighborhoods?]—''[[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]]'' (April 18, 2016)</ref> [[Housing Discrimination in the East Bay|Northern California's East Bay Refinery Corridor]] is an example of the disparities associated with race and income and proximity to toxic facilities.<ref>{{Cite news |date=2016-03-30 |title=Petrochemical Industry in East Bay North Coast Refinery Corridor |language=en-US |work=FracTracker Alliance |url=https://www.fractracker.org/2016/03/north-coast-refinery-corridor/ |access-date=2017-03-18}}</ref>

In Seattle, Washington, the Duwamish River Community Coalition (DRCC) was formed in 2001 in response to the designation of the Duwamish River as a Superfund site.<ref>{{Cite web |title=What is the Superfund? |url=https://www.drcc.org/what-is-superfund |access-date=2023-11-27 |website=Duwamish River Community Coalition |language=en-US}}</ref> DRCC works with local communities and both private and public organizations to address the disparate exposure to air and water pollution families of the Duwamish Valley face. Residents of the Duwamish Valley are a population made of primarily South and Central American immigrants of low income, indigenous peoples, and refugees.<ref>{{Cite web |title=River For All |url=https://www.drcc.org/river-for-all |access-date=2023-11-27 |website=Duwamish River Community Coalition |language=en-US}}</ref>

===== African-Americans =====
African-Americans are affected by a variety of Environmental Justice issues. One notorious example is the "[[Cancer Alley]]" region of Louisiana.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-03-02 |title=Environmental racism in Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley', must end, say UN human rights experts |url=https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1086172 |access-date=2022-06-30 |website=UN News |language=en}}</ref> This 85-mile stretch of the [[Mississippi River]] between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is home to 125 companies that produce one quarter of the petrochemical products manufactured in the United States. The nickname was given due to the high rates of residents diagnosed with cancer compared to the United States average.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=James|first=Wesley|date=2012|title=Uneven magnitude of disparities in cancer risks from air toxins|journal=International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health|volume=9|issue=12|pages=4365–4385|doi=10.3390/ijerph9124365|pmid=23208297 |pmc=3546767 |doi-access=free}}</ref> The [[United States Commission on Civil Rights]] has concluded that the African-American community has been disproportionately affected by Cancer Alley as a result of Louisiana's current state and local permit system for hazardous facilities, as well as their low socio-economic status and limited political influence.<ref name="Shrader-Frechette 2002">{{cite book |doi=10.1093/0195152034.001.0001 |title=Environmental Justice |date=2002 |last1=Shrader-Frechette |first1=Kristin |isbn=978-0-19-515203-6 }}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref> Another incidence of long-term environmental injustice occurred in the "West Grove" community of Miami, Florida. From 1925 to 1970, the predominately poor, African American residents of the "West Grove" endured the negative effects of exposure to carcinogenic emissions and toxic waste discharge from a large trash incinerator called Old Smokey.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Alfieri |first1=Anthony V. |title=Paternalistic Interventions in Civil Rights and Poverty Law: A Case Study of Environmental Justice |journal=Michigan Law Review |date=2014 |volume=112 |issue=6 |pages=1157–1177 |id={{ProQuest|1522269740}} |jstor=23813069 |ssrn=2354382 |url=https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol112/iss6/15/ }}</ref> Despite official acknowledgement as a public nuisance, the incinerator project was expanded in 1961. It was not until the surrounding, predominantly white neighborhoods began to experience the negative impacts from Old Smokey that the legal battle began to close the incinerator.

More so, many African-American residents have experienced missed or overlooked health issues that were cause by the environmental disparity of their communities. Unfortunately, many of these complications were overlooked by the healthcare industry and comprised the health of those struggling with respiratory and heart problems. The American Heart Association has compiled data analysis that shows the relationship between air pollution exposure and cardiovascular illness and death.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Salas |first1=Renee N. |title=Environmental Racism and Climate Change — Missed Diagnoses |journal=New England Journal of Medicine |date=9 September 2021 |volume=385 |issue=11 |pages=967–969 |doi=10.1056/NEJMp2109160 |doi-access=free |pmid=34407333 }}</ref>

===== Indigenous Groups =====
Indigenous groups are often the victims of environmental injustices. [[Uranium mining and the Navajo people|Native Americans have suffered abuses related to uranium mining]] in the American West. Churchrock, New Mexico, in Navajo territory was home to the longest continuous uranium mining in any Navajo land. From 1954 until 1968, the tribe leased land to mining companies who did not obtain consent from Navajo families or report any consequences of their activities. Not only did the miners significantly deplete the limited water supply, but they also contaminated what was left of the Navajo water supply with uranium. Kerr-McGee and United Nuclear Corporation, the two largest mining companies, argued that the Federal Water Pollution Control Act did not apply to them, and maintained that Native American land is not subject to environmental protections. The courts did not force them to comply with US clean water regulations until 1980.<ref name="Shrader-Frechette 2002" />

The [[Inuit]] community in [[northern Quebec]] have faced disproportionate exposure to [[persistent organic pollutant]]s (POPs) including [[Dioxins and dioxin-like compounds|dioxins]] and [[polychlorinated biphenyl]]s (PCBs). Some of these pollutants may include pesticides used decades before in the United States.<ref name=":0" /> PCBs [[Bioaccumulation|bioaccumulate]] and [[Biomagnification|biomagnify]] within the fatty tissues of organisms, so the traditional high-fat sea animal diet of the Inuit has posed significant health impacts to both adults and unborn infants.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |last1=Johansen |first1=Bruce E. (Bruce Elliott) |title=The Inuit's Struggle with Dioxins and Other Organic Pollutants |journal=The American Indian Quarterly |date=2002 |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=479–490 |doi=10.1353/aiq.2003.0041 }}</ref> Although the production of PCBs was banned internationally in 2001 by the [[Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants]], they can exist in the environment and biosphere for decades or longer. They pose a significant risk to newborns due to intrauterine exposure and concentration within breast milk.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Montano |first1=Luigi |last2=Pironti |first2=Concetta |last3=Pinto |first3=Gabriella |last4=Ricciardi |first4=Maria |last5=Buono |first5=Amalia |last6=Brogna |first6=Carlo |last7=Venier |first7=Marta |last8=Piscopo |first8=Marina |last9=Amoresano |first9=Angela |last10=Motta |first10=Oriana |title=Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) in the Environment: Occupational and Exposure Events, Effects on Human Health and Fertility |journal=Toxics |date=July 2022 |volume=10 |issue=7 |pages=365 |doi=10.3390/toxics10070365 |pmc=9323099 |pmid=35878270 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2022Toxic..10..365M }}</ref>

===== Latinos =====
The most common example of environmental injustice among Latinos is the exposure to pesticides faced by farmworkers. After DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides were banned in the United States in 1972, farmers began using more acutely toxic organophosphate pesticides such as [[parathion]]. A large portion of farmworkers in the US are working as undocumented immigrants, and as a result of their political disadvantage, are not able to protest against regular exposure to pesticides or benefit from the protections of Federal laws.<ref name="Shrader-Frechette 2002" /> Exposure to chemical pesticides in the cotton industry also affects farmers in India and Uzbekistan. Banned throughout much of the rest of the world because of the potential threat to human health and the natural environment, [[Endosulfan]] is a highly toxic chemical, the safe use of which cannot be guaranteed in the many developing countries it is used in. Endosulfan, like DDT, is an organochlorine and persists in the environment long after it has killed the target pests, leaving a deadly legacy for people and wildlife.<ref name="ejfoundation.org">[http://www.ejfoundation.org/page246.html Endosulfan - a Deadly Chemical] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090219205051/http://www.ejfoundation.org/page246.html|date=February 19, 2009}}</ref>

Residents of cities along the US-Mexico border are also affected. [[Maquiladora]]s are assembly plants operated by American, Japanese, and other foreign countries, located along the US-Mexico border. The maquiladoras use cheap Mexican labor to assemble imported components and raw material, and then transport finished products back to the United States. Much of the waste ends up being illegally dumped in sewers, ditches, or in the desert. Along the Lower [[Rio Grande Valley (Texas)|Rio Grande Valley]], maquiladoras dump their toxic wastes into the river from which 95 percent of residents obtain their drinking water. In the border cities of [[Brownsville, Texas]], and [[Matamoros, Tamaulipas|Matamoros, Mexico]], the rate of [[anencephaly]] (babies born without brains) is four times the national average.<ref name="bullard">{{cite journal |last1=Bullard |first1=Robert D. |last2=Johnson |first2=Glenn S. |title=Environmentalism and Public Policy: Environmental Justice: Grassroots Activism and Its Impact on Public Policy Decision Making |journal=Journal of Social Issues |date=January 2000 |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=555–578 |doi=10.1111/0022-4537.00184 }}</ref>

===== Youth =====
''[[Held v. Montana]]'' was the first state [[constitutional law]] climate lawsuit to go to [[trial]] in the United States, on June 12, 2023.<ref name=Guardian_20230612>{{cite news |last1=Noor |first1=Dharna |title=Young Montana residents bring climate change case to court for first time ever |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/12/montana-young-residents-first-ever-climate-change-trial |newspaper=The Guardian |date=12 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230612103609/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/12/montana-young-residents-first-ever-climate-change-trial |archive-date=12 June 2023 |url-status=live }}</ref> The case was filed in March 2020 by sixteen youth residents of [[Montana]], then aged 2 through 18,<ref name=Guardian_20220413>{{Cite news |last1=Uyeda |first1=Ray Levy |title=Fossil fuels v our future: young Montanans wage historic climate fight |newspaper=The Guardian |date=April 13, 2022 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/13/young-people-montana-fossil-fuels-climate-crisis |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230310133419/https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/13/young-people-montana-fossil-fuels-climate-crisis |archive-date=March 10, 2023 |url-status=live }}</ref> who argued that the state's support of the [[Fossil fuel|fossil fuel industry]] had worsened the [[effects of climate change]] on their lives, thus denying their [[constitutional right|right]] to a "clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations"<ref name=MontanaConstitution>{{cite web |title=The Constitution of the State of Montana |url=https://courts.mt.gov/external/library/docs/72constit.pdf |website=courts.mt.gov |publisher=Montana Judicial Branch |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230528082413/https://courts.mt.gov/external/library/docs/72constit.pdf |archive-date=May 28, 2023 |date=March 22, 1972 |url-status=live }}</ref><sup>:Art.&nbsp;IX, §&nbsp;1</sup> as required by the [[Constitution of Montana]].<ref name=NYTimes_20230324>{{Cite news |last1=Gelles |first1=David |title=In Montana, It's Youth vs. the State in a Landmark Climate Case |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=March 24, 2023 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/climate/montana-youth-climate-lawsuit.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230614235620/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/24/climate/montana-youth-climate-lawsuit.html |archive-date=June 14, 2023 |url-status=live }}</ref> On August 14, 2023, the trial court judge ruled in the youth plaintiffs' favor, though the state indicated it would appeal the decision.<ref name=APNews_20230814>{{cite news |last1=Hanson |first1=Amy Beth |last2=Brown |first2=Matthew |title=Young environmental activists prevail in first-of-its-kind climate change trial in Montana |url=https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-youth-montana-trial-c7fdc1d8759f55f60346b31c73397db0 |work=AP News |date=August 14, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230817023428/https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-youth-montana-trial-c7fdc1d8759f55f60346b31c73397db0 |archive-date= August 17, 2023 |url-status=live }}</ref> Montana's Supreme Court heard oral arguments on July 10, 2024, its seven justices taking the case under [[wikt:advisement|advisement]].<ref name=APnews_02240610>{{cite news |last1=Brown |first1=Matthew |last2=Hanson |first2=Amy Beth |title=Republicans urge reversal of landmark ruling in Montana climate change lawsuit by young plaintiffs |url=https://apnews.com/article/youth-climate-lawsuit-montana-supreme-court-faece0aec42abc7f5302c40e31faacea |work=AP News |date=July 10, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240711020853/https://apnews.com/article/youth-climate-lawsuit-montana-supreme-court-faece0aec42abc7f5302c40e31faacea |archive-date=July 11, 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref> On December 18, 2024, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the county court ruling.<ref name=NYTimes_20241218>{{cite news |last1=Zraic |first1=Karen |title=Youth Climate Activists Get Major Win in Montana Supreme Court |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/climate/held-montana-youth-climate-lawsuit.html |work=The New York Times |date=18 December 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241219000610/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/18/climate/held-montana-youth-climate-lawsuit.html |archive-date=19 December 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== South America ===
Environmental justice struggles have been a significant feature of social and political movements in South America, where communities have faced the impacts of environmental degradation and resource extraction for decades. In particular, mining in South America has led to conflicts between mining companies, governments, and local communities over issues such as land rights, water use, and pollution. Indigenous peoples in particular have been disproportionately affected by mining, with many communities experiencing displacement, loss of traditional livelihoods, and negative health impacts from exposure to toxic chemicals and pollution. A report by Global Witness identifies South America as the most dangerous region in the world for environmental activists, with at least 98 people killed in 2019.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Defending Tomorrow |url=https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-activists/defending-tomorrow/ |access-date=2023-05-06 |website=Global Witness |language=en}}</ref>

==== Argentina ====
Environmental justice movements arising from local conflicts in Argentina include

* [[Bajo de la Alumbrera mine]], [[Catamarca Province|Catamarca, Argentina]]: The Bajo de la Alumbrera mine is an open-pit copper and gold mine located in the northwestern province of Catamarca, Argentina. The mining project began in the late 1990s and has since been the center of a significant environmental justice conflict. The mine is operated by Glencore, which owns 50% of the stocks, while Canadian companies [[Goldcorp]] and [[Yamana Gold]] hold 37.5% and 12.5% respectively. People have raised concerns over the mine's potential environmental impacts, including water pollution, deforestation, and the displacement of indigenous communities. The mine's operators have also faced accusations of human rights violations, including the use of excessive force against protesters and the violation of workers' rights. Despite these concerns, the mine continues to operate, and its expansion plans have been met with significant resistance from local communities and environmental groups. After La Alumbrera started operations, other mining projects were rejected in Catamarca.<ref>{{Cite web |last=EJOLT |title=Bajo la Alumbrera mine, Catamarca, Argentina {{!}} EJAtlas |url=https://ejatlas.org/conflict/bajo-la-alumbrera-mine-argentina |access-date=2023-05-06 |website=[[Environmental Justice Atlas]] |language=en}}</ref>

==== Brazil ====
Environmental justice movements arising from local conflicts in Brazil include

* [[Belo Monte Dam|Belo Monte Hydroelectric Dam]], Para, Brasil: Belo Monte is a hydroelectric project on the [[Xingu River|Xingú River]] in Brazil that began construction in 2011 and was completed in 2019. It is currently the fifth-largest hydroelectric dam in the world, by installed capacity. It is owned by a consortium called Norte Energia, mostly owned by the government and funded primarily by BNDES, with mining giant Vale owning around 5% of it. The project is the largest infrastructure complex of the Brazilian government's plan to build over 60 large dams in the Amazon Basin over the next 20 years, which has received numerous criticisms and open resistance from organizations, public opinion, and inhabitants of the region. Its construction has been highly conflictive, having been opposed by indigenous peoples, who were not consulted before the authorization of construction. The project has been criticized for lacking environmental impact assessments prior to the start of the works. The Belo Monte Dam has diverted the flow of the Xingu, devastating an extensive area of the rainforest, affecting over 50,000 people and displacing over 20,000. The dam threatens the survival of indigenous tribes that depend on the river.<ref>{{Cite web |last=EJOLT |title=Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, Para, Brasil {{!}} EJAtlas |url=https://ejatlas.org/conflict/belo-monte-hydroelectric-dam-para-brasil |access-date=2023-05-06 |website=[[Environmental Justice Atlas]] |language=en}}</ref>

==== Ecuador ====
Notable environmental justice movements in Ecuador have arisen from several local conflicts:

* Chevron Texaco's oil operations in the [[Lago Agrio oil field|Lago Agro oil field]] resulted in spillage of seventeen million gallons of crude oil into local water supplies between 1967 and 1989. They also dumped over 19 billion gallons of toxic wastewater into unlined open pits and regional rivers.<ref name="Davidov-2010">{{cite journal |last1=Davidov |first1=V |date=2010 |title=Aguinda v. Texaco Inc.: Expanding Indigenous "Expertise" Beyond Ecoprimitivism |journal=Journal of Legal Anthropology |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=147–164|doi=10.3167/jla.2010.010201 |s2cid=158703832 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Represented by US lawyer [[Steven Donziger]], Indigenous people [[Aguinda v. Texaco, Inc.|fought Chevron in US and Ecuadorian courts]] for decades in attempts to recover damages.<ref name="Davidov-2010"/>
* The [[Yasuní-ITT Initiative|Yasuni-ITT Initiative]] attempted to prevent oil extraction from [[Yasuní National Park|Yasuni National Park]] in 2007, but failed and drilling began in 2016.

==== Peru ====
Notable environmental justice conflicts in Peru include

* [[Las Bambas copper mine]]
* [[Yanacocha|Yanacocha gold mine]]
* Green space disparities in Lima which has led to higher environmental risks in coastal desert communities compared to wealthier ones<ref>García, R., J. Miyashiro, C. Orejón and F. Pizarro (2014) Crecimiento urbano, cambio climático y ecosistemas frágiles: el caso de las lomas de Villa María del Triunfo en Lima Sur. Lima. Available online at: http://urbano.org.pe/descargas/investigaciones/PERU-HOY/PH-2014.pdf</ref>

In late March, 2024, the [[Inter-American Court of Human Rights]], based in Costa Rica, ruled that the government of [[Peru]] is liable for physical and mental harm to people caused by a metallurgical facility's pollution, and ordered the government to provide free medical care and monetary compensation to victims.<ref name=InsideClimateNews_20240329>{{cite news |last1=Surma |first1=Katie |title=International Court Issues First-Ever Decision Enforcing the Right to a Healthy Environment |url=https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29032024/international-court-right-to-healthy-environment/ |work=Inside Climate News |date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240406165152/https://insideclimatenews.org/news/29032024/international-court-right-to-healthy-environment/ |archive-date=6 April 2024 |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Transnational Movement Networks ==
Many of the Environmental Justice Networks that began in the United States expanded their horizons to include many other countries and became Transnational Networks for Environmental Justice. These networks work to bring Environmental Justice to all parts of the world and protect all citizens of the world to reduce the environmental injustice happening all over the world. Listed below are some of the major Transnational Social Movement Organizations.{{sfn|Pellow|2007|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}}

* [https://amazonwatch.org/ Amazon Watch] - organization that campaigns for the protection of the rainforest, and the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin in Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil.

*[[Basel Action Network]] – works to end toxic waste dumping in poor undeveloped countries from the rich developed countries.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ban.org/ |title=Basel Action Network |publisher=BAN |access-date=2012-11-06}}</ref>
*[https://ejatlas.org/]—a network of activist-researchers that document environmental justice issues around the world.
*Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade (EJOLT) is a multinational project supported by the [[European Commission]]. Civil society organizations and universities from 20 countries in Europe, Africa, Latin-America, and Asia are building up case studies, linking organizations worldwide, and making an interactive global map of Environmental Justice.<ref>{{cite web |title=Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade |url=http://www.ejolt.org/ |access-date=2012-11-06 |publisher=EJOLT}}</ref>
*GAIA ([[Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance]]) – works to find different ways to dispose of waste other than incineration. This company has people working in over 77 countries throughout the world.
*GR ([[Global Response]]) – works to educate activists and the upper working class how to protect human rights and the ecosystem.
*[[Global Witness]] - an international NGO that investigates and exposes environmental and human rights abuses, corruption, and conflict associated with the exploitation of natural resources.
*[[Greenpeace International]] – which was the first organization to become the global name of Environmental Justice. Greenpeace works to raise the global consciousness of transnational trade of toxic waste.
*[[Health Care without Harm]] – works to improve public health by reducing the environmental impacts of the health care industry.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://noharm.org/|title=Health Care Without Harm|website=noharm.org}}</ref>
*[[Indigenous Environmental Network]] - a North American network of indigenous peoples' organizations that work to protect the environment and promote sustainable development.
*[[International Campaign for Responsible Technology]] – works to promote corporate and government accountability with electronics and how the disposal of technology affect the environment.
*[[International POPs Elimination Network]] – works to reduce and eventually end the use of [[persistent organic pollutant]]s (POPs) which are harmful to the environment.
*[https://ndncollective.org NDN Collective] - is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous, supporting campaigns like ‘Land Back’, which aims to return Indigenous lands back to Indigenous people.
*PAN ([[Pesticide Action Network]]) – works to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with alternatives that are safe for the environment.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.panna.org/|title=Pesticide Action Network - Reclaiming the future of food and farming.|website=www.panna.org}}</ref>
*[https://www.redlatinoamericanademujeres.org/ Red Latinoamericana de Mujeres Defensoras de Derechos Ambientales] - a regional network that works to promote the rights of women environmental defenders and protect the environment in Latin America.
'''Global Environmental Activism and Policy'''

Global environmental inequality is evidence that vulnerable populations are disproportionately victimized by environmental degradation as a result of global capitalism and land exploitation.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Environment |first=U. N. |date=2018-05-19 |title=Global Gender and Environment Outlook (GGEO) |url=http://www.unep.org/resources/report/global-gender-and-environment-outlook-ggeo |access-date=2022-05-11 |website=UNEP - UN Environment Programme |language=en}}</ref> Yet, studies prove these groups have pioneered the need for intersection between human and environmental rights in activism and policy because of their close proximity to environmental issues.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=Women at the frontline of climate change: gender risks and hopes |url=https://wrd.unwomen.org/explore/library/women-frontline-climate-change-gender-risks-and-hopes |access-date=2022-05-11 |website=UNW WRD Knowledge Hub |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":2" /> It is important for environmental regulation to acknowledge the value of this global grassroots movement, led by indigenous women and women of the global south, in determining how institutions such as the United Nations can best deliver environmental justice.<ref name=":4">{{cite journal |last1=Zein-Elabdin |first1=Eiman |title=Development, Gender, and the Environment: Theoretical or Contextual Link? Toward an Institutional Analysis of Gender |journal=Journal of Economic Issues |date=December 1996 |volume=30 |issue=4 |pages=929–947 |doi=10.1080/00213624.1996.11505859 }}</ref><ref name=":02">{{cite book |last1=Hoover |first1=Elizabeth |title=The River Is in Us: Fighting Toxics in a Mohawk Community |date=2017 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |doi=10.5749/j.ctt1pwt6mk |isbn=978-1-5179-0303-9 |jstor=10.5749/j.ctt1pwt6mk }}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref><ref name=":12">{{cite journal |last1=Whyte |first1=Kyle Powys |title=Indigenous Women, Climate Change Impacts, and Collective Action |journal=Hypatia |date=2014 |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=599–616 |doi=10.1111/hypa.12089 }}</ref> In recent years, the United Nations' approach to issues concerning environmental health has begun to acknowledge the native practices of indigenous women and advocacy of women in vulnerable positions.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /><ref>{{cite web |title=Report of the International Indigenous Women's Environmental and Reproductive Health Symposium |date=2012 |url=https://www.iitc.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/FINALREPORTOF2nd-INTERNATIONAL-INDIGENOUSWOMENSYMPwith-namesFIN.pdf}}</ref>  Further research by the science community and analysis of environmental issues through a gendered lens are essential next steps for the UN and other governing bodies to curate policy that meets the needs of the women activists leading the environmental justice movement.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rim |first=Kyung-Taek |date=June 2017 |title=Reproductive Toxic Chemicals at Work and Efforts to Protect Workers' Health: A Literature Review |journal=Safety and Health at Work |language=en |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=143–150 |doi=10.1016/j.shaw.2017.04.003 |pmc=5447413 |pmid=28593069}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Baden |first1=Sally |last2=Goetz |first2=Anne Marie |title=Who Needs [Sex] When you can have [Gender]?: Conflicting Discourses on Gender at Beijing |journal=Feminist Review |date=July 1997 |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=3–25 |doi=10.1057/fr.1997.13 }}</ref><ref name=":4" />

== Outer space ==
Over recent years social scientists have begun to view outer space in an environmental conceptual framework.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gorman |first1=A. |title=The cultural landscape of interplanetary space |journal=Journal of Social Archaeology |date=2005 |volume=5 |issue=1 |pages=85–107 |doi=10.1177/1469605305050148 |s2cid=144152006 }}</ref> Klinger, an environmental geographer, analyses the environmental features of outer space from the perspective of several schools of geopolitical.<ref name="Klinger2021">{{cite journal |last1=Klinger |first1=J.M. |title=Environmental Geopolitics and Outer Space |journal=Geopolitics |date=2021 |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=666–703 |doi=10.1080/14650045.2019.1590340 |s2cid=150443847 }}</ref> From a classical geopolitical approach, for instance, people's exploration of the outer space domain is, in fact, a manifestation of competing and conflicting interests between states, i.e., outer space is an asset used to strengthen and consolidate geopolitical power and has strategic value.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Olson |first1=V.A. |title=Political ecology in the extreme: Asteroid activism and the making of an environmental solar system |journal=Anthropological Quarterly |date=2012 |volume=85 |issue=4 |pages=1027–44 |doi=10.1353/anq.2012.0070 |s2cid=143560250 }}</ref> From the perspective of environmental geopolitics, the issue of sustainable development has become a consensus politics.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Swyngedouw |first1=E. |title=Interrogating post-democratization: Reclaiming egalitarian political spaces |journal=Political Geography |date=2011 |volume=30 |issue=7 |pages=370–380 |doi=10.1016/j.polgeo.2011.08.001}}</ref> Countries thus cede power to international agreements and supranational organizations to manage global environmental issues.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1002/9780470998946.ch27 |chapter=The Geopolitics of Nature |title=A Companion to Political Geography |date=2003 |last1=Castree |first1=Noel |pages=421–439 |isbn=978-0-631-22031-2 }}</ref> Such co-produced practices are followed in the human use of outer space, which means that only powerful nations are capable of reacting to protect the interests of underprivileged countries, so far from there being perfect environmental justice in environmental geopolitics.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dunnett |first1=O. |last2=Maclaren |first2=A. |last3=Klinger |first3=J. |last4=Lane |first4=K. |last5=Sage |first5=D. |title=Geographies of outer space: Progress and new opportunities |journal=Progress in Human Geography |date=2019 |volume=43 |issue=2 |pages=314–336 |doi=10.1177/0309132517747727 |s2cid=149382358 |url=https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/publications/geographies-of-outer-space-progress-and-new-opportunities(40ba81c0-2b24-498d-a94b-5ace7b48d3b0).html |doi-access=free |hdl=2164/11959 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

Human interaction with outer space is environmentally based since a measurable environmental footprint will be left when modifying the Earth's environment (e.g., local environmental changes from launch sites) to access outer space, developing space-based technologies to study the Earth's environment, exploring space with spacecraft in orbit or by landing on the Moon, etc.<ref name="Klinger2021"/> Different stakeholders have competing territorial agendas for this vast space; thus, the ownership of these footprints is governed by geopolitical power and relations, which means that human involvement with outer space falls into the field of environmental justice.<ref name="Klinger2021"/>

=== Activities on Earth ===
On Earth, the environmental geopolitics of outer space is directly linked to issues of environmental justice - the launch of spacecraft and the impact of their launch processes on the surrounding environment, and the impact of space-based related technologies and facilities on the development process of human society.<ref name="Klinger2021"/> As both processes require the support of industry, infrastructure, and networks of information and take place in specific locations, this leads to continuous interaction with local territorial governance.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Redfield |first1=P. |title=Space in the tropics: From convicts to rockets in French Guiana |date=2001 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=978-0-520-92342-3 }}{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</ref>

==== Launches and infrastructures ====
Rockets are generally launched in areas where conventional and potentially catastrophic blast damage can be controlled, generally in an open and unoccupied territory.{{sfn|Klinger|2017|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}} Despite the absence of human life and habitation, other forms of life exist in these open territories, maintaining the local ecological balance and material cycles.{{sfn|Klinger|2017|p={{page needed|date=May 2024}}}} Toxic particulate matter from rocket launches can cause localized acid rain, plant and animal mortality, reduced food production, and other hazards.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Marion |first1=G.M. |last2=Black |first2=C.H. |last3=Zedler |first3=P.H. |title=The effect of extreme HCL deposition on soil acid neutralization following simulated shuttle rocket launches |journal=Water, Air, and Soil Pollution |date=1989 |volume=43 |issue=3–4 |pages=345–363 |doi=10.1007/BF00279201 |bibcode=1989WASP...43..345M |s2cid=92352489 }}</ref>

Moreover, space activities result in environmental injustice on a global scale. Spacecraft are the only contributors to direct human-derived pollution in the stratosphere, which comes mostly from the launch activities of rich economies in the northern hemisphere, while the global north bears more of the environmental consequences.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Carslaw |first1=K. |last2=Wirth |first2=M. |last3=Tsias |first3=A. |last4=Luo |first4=B. |last5=Dornbrack |first5=A. |last6=Leutbecher |first6=M. |last7=Volkert |first7=H. |last8=Renger |first8=W. |last9=Bacmeister |first9=J. |last10=Peter |first10=T. |title=Particle microphysics and chemistry in remotely observed mountain polar stratospheric clouds |journal=  Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres|date=1998 |volume=103 |issue=D5 |pages=5785–5796 |doi=10.1029/97JD03626 |bibcode=1998JGR...103.5785C |url=https://elib.dlr.de/10391/1/13-hv.pdf }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Perlwitz |first1=J. |last2=Pawson |first2=S. |last3=Fogt |first3=R. |last4=Nielsen |first4=J. |last5=Neff |first5=W. |title=Impact of stratospheric ozone hole recovery on Antarctic climate |journal=Geophysical Research Letters |date=2008 |volume=35 |issue=8 |page=L08714-n/a |doi=10.1029/2008GL033317 |bibcode=2008GeoRL..35.8714P |s2cid=129582603 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Environmental injustice is further evidenced by the limited research into the effects on downstream human and non-human communities and the inadequate tracking of pollutants in ecological chains and environments.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kolumbayeva |first1=S. |last2=Begimbetova |first2=D. |last3=Shalakhmetova |first3=T. |last4=Saliev |first4=T. |last5=Lovinskaya |first5=A. |last6=Zhunusbekova |first6=B. |title=Chromosomal instability in rodents caused by pollution from Baikonur cosmodrome |journal=Ecotoxicology |date=2014 |volume=23 |issue=7 |pages=1283–1291 |doi=10.1007/s10646-014-1271-1 |pmid=24990120 |bibcode=2014Ecotx..23.1283K |s2cid=23785137 }}</ref>

==== Space-based technologies ====
While space-based technologies have been applied to tracking natural disasters and the spread of pollutants,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Gabrys |first1=J. |title=Program earth: The making of a computational planet |date=2016 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |location=Minneapolis |isbn=9780816693146}}</ref> access to these technologies and the monitoring of data is deeply uneven within and between countries, exacerbating environmental injustice. Further, the use of technology by powerful countries can even lead to the creation of policies and institutions in less privileged nations, changing land-use regimes to favor or disadvantage the survival of certain human groups. For example, in the decades following the publication of the first report on the use of satellite imagery to measure rainforest deforestation in the 1980s, several environmental groups rose to prominence and also influenced changes in domestic policy in Brazil.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rothe |first1=D. |last2=Shim |first2=D. |title=Sensing the ground: On the global politics of satellite-based activism |journal=Review of International Studies |date=2018 |volume=44 |issue=3 |pages=414–437 |doi=10.1017/S0260210517000602|s2cid=148578610 |url=https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/sensing-the-ground(8006f67e-edca-4c38-a86d-a19037fce752).html }}</ref>

== See also ==
{{div col|colwidth=25em}}
*[[Alton, Rhode Island]] – a town struggling with a large, polluting dye company
*[[Carbon fee and dividend]]
*[[Climate resilience]]
*[[Degrowth]]
*[[Ecocide]]
*[[Ecological civilization]]
*[[Environmental anthropology]]
*[[Environmental archaeology]]
*[[Environmental contract]]
*[[Environmental crime]]
*[[Environmental dumping]]
*[[Environmental history]]
** [[Environmental history of the United States]]
*[[Environmental Justice Foundation]]
*[[Environmental justice and coal mining in Appalachia]]
*[[Environmental racism in the United States]]
*[[Environmental sociology]]
*[[Equality impact assessment]]
*[[Extinction debt]]
*[[Fenceline community]]
*[[Global waste trade]]
*[[Green New Deal]]
*[[Greening]]
*[[Health equity]]
*[[Human impact on the environment]]
*[[Hunters Point, San Francisco, California]] – a neighborhood next to a Superfund site
*[[List of environmental lawsuits]]
*''[[Max Liboiron#Pollution is Colonialism|Pollution is Colonialism]]''
*[[Nativism (politics)|Nativism]]
*[[Netherlands fallacy]]
*[[Political representation of nature]]
*[[Resource justice]]
*[[Rights of nature]]
*[[Rural Action]] – an organization promoting social and environmental justice in Appalachian Ohio
*[[Sustainable development]]
*[[Toxic 100]]
*[[Toxic colonialism]]
*[[Solarpunk]]
*[[Urban forest inequity]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist |30em}}

==Sources==
{{Refbegin |30em |indent=yes}}
* {{cite book |last1=Cole |first1=Luke W. |last2=Foster |first2=Sheila R. |title=From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement |date=2001 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-1537-6 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Klinger |first1=Julie Michelle |title=Rare Earth Frontiers: From Terrestrial Subsoils to Lunar Landscapes |date=2017 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=978-1-5017-1458-0 }}
* {{cite book |doi=10.4337/9781843765486 |title=The Environmentalism of the Poor |date=2002 |last1=Martinez-Alier |first1=Joan |isbn=978-1-84376-548-6 }}
* {{cite book |last1=McDonald |first1=David A. |title=Environmental Justice in South Africa |date=2002 |publisher=Juta and Company Ltd |isbn=978-1-919713-66-3 }}
* {{cite book |last=Nixon |first=Rob |year=2011 |title=Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor |publisher=Harvard University Press |doi=10.4159/harvard.9780674061194 |isbn=978-0-674-06119-4 |jstor=j.ctt2jbsgw |oclc=754842110 }}
* {{cite book |last=Nixon |first=Rob |date=March 13, 2013 |title=Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor |publisher=Harvard University Press |orig-year=2011 |isbn=9780674072343 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Pellow |first1=David Naguib |title=Resisting Global Toxics: Transnational Movements for Environmental Justice |date=2007 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-26423-5 }}
* {{cite book |doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199286294.001.0001 |title=Defining Environmental Justice |date=2007 |last1=Schlosberg |first1=David |isbn=978-0-19-928629-4 }}
{{Refend}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin |30em |indent=yes}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Bell |first1=Karen |title=Can the capitalist economic system deliver environmental justice? |journal=[[Environmental Research Letters]] |date=2015 |volume=10 |issue=12 |pages=125017 |doi=10.1088/1748-9326/10/12/125017 |bibcode=2015ERL....10l5017B |doi-access=free |hdl=1983/5c7c9d17-dec3-4182-9d35-5efd75830ac8 |hdl-access=free }}
* {{cite book |last1=Foster |first1=John Bellamy|author-link1=John Bellamy Foster|last2=Clark |first2=Brett |last3=York |first3=Richard |title=The Ecological Rift: Capitalisms War on the Earth |date=2010 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-1-58367-219-8 |jstor=j.ctt9qg075 }}
* {{cite journal |last1=Mohai |first1=Paul |last2=Pellow |first2=David |last3=Roberts |first3=J. Timmons |title=Environmental Justice |journal=Annual Review of Environment and Resources |date=November 2009 |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=405–430 |doi=10.1146/annurev-environ-082508-094348 |doi-access=free }}
* Rosier, Paul C. ''Environmental Justice in North America'' (Routledge, 2024) [http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=60255 online book review]
* {{cite journal |last1=Ripple|first1=William J.|author-link1=William J. Ripple|last2=Wolf|first2=Christopher|last3= van Vuuren|first3=Detlef P.|last4=Gregg|first4= Jillian W.|last5=Lenzen|first5=Manfred |date=9 January 2024 |title=An environmental and socially just climate mitigation pathway for a planet in peril|journal=[[Environmental Research Letters]]|volume=19 |issue=2|page=021001|doi=10.1088/1748-9326/ad059e|doi-access=free|bibcode=2024ERL....19b1001R}}
* {{cite book |last1=Pellow |first1=David Naguib |title=What is Critical Environmental Justice? |date=2017 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-1-5095-2532-4 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Sandler |first1=Ronald D. |last2=Pezzullo |first2=Phaedra C. |title=Environmental Justice and Environmentalism: The Social Justice Challenge to the Environmental Movement |date=2007 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-19552-2 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Shiva |first1=Vandana |title=Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Crisis |date=2008 |publisher=South End Press |isbn=978-0-89608-782-8 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Taylor |first1=Dorceta E. |title=The Rise of the American Conservation Movement: Power, Privilege, and Environmental Protection |date=2016 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-7397-1 }}
* {{cite book |last1=White |first1=Robert |title=Controversies in Environmental Sociology |date=2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-45123-9 }}
* {{cite book |last1=Zehner |first1=Ozzie |title=Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism |date=2012 |publisher=U of Nebraska Press |isbn=978-0-8032-4336-1 }}
{{Refend}}

===Primary sources===
{{Refbegin |30em |indent=yes}}
* {{cite book |last1=Wells |first1=Christopher W. |title=Environmental Justice in Postwar America: A Documentary Reader |date=2018 |publisher=University of Washington Press |isbn=978-0-295-74369-1 }}
{{Refend}}

===Interviews===
{{Refbegin |30em |indent=yes}}
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlv-TrjzV98 Interview with Dr. Heather Eaton on the issue of Christianity and Ecological Literacy], Green Majority radio program, 13 July 2007.
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW6UglKLDyk Interview with Dr. Christopher Lind on the issue of "Ecojustice" and Biblical Hermeneutics], Green Majority radio program, 21 December 2007.
* {{cite journal | last1 = Ralston | first1 = Shane | year = 2009 | title = Dewey and Leopold on the Limits of Environmental Justice | url = https://philpapers.org/rec/RALDAL | journal = Philosophical Frontiers | volume = 4 | issue = 1 | page = 85 }}
* {{cite book |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-61071-5_2 |chapter=Environmental Justice and Indigenous Environmental Justice |title=Decolonising Blue Spaces in the Anthropocene |date=2021 |last1=Parsons |first1=Meg |last2=Fisher |first2=Karen |last3=Crease |first3=Roa Petra |pages=39–73 |isbn=978-3-030-61070-8 }}
*[https://wcfia.harvard.edu/publications/centerpiece/fall2018/transcript_jodidi11-5-2018 Democracy's Crisis: On the Political Contradictions of Financialized Capitalism] {{full citation needed |date=June 2025}}
{{Refend}}

==External links==
* [https://commonslibrary.org/climate-justice-needs-an-intersectional-approach-toolkit/ Climate justice needs an intersectional approach : toolkit], Commons Social Change Library, 2023.
* [https://commonslibrary.org/climate-justice-feminism/ Climate justice and feminism resource collection], Commons Social Change Library, 2020.
* {{cite IEP |url-id=enviro-j |title=The American Environmental Justice Movement}}[https://www.empathyworksfilms.net/future-projects] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180226032310/https://www.empathyworksfilms.net/future-projects |date=February 26, 2018 }}
*[http://www.ejnet.org/ej/ Environmental Justice & Environmental Racism]
*[http://www.ejolt.org/ EJOLT] is a mixed civil society and research long-term project linking environmental justice organizations from 20 countries
*[http://www.ace-ej.org/ Alternatives for Community and Environment]- is an Environmental Justice group based in Roxbury, Massachusetts
* http://www.cbecal.org - [[Communities for a Better Environment]]
*[https://greenaction.org/ Greenaction]
*[http://www.innercitypress.org/ejreport.html Weekly Environmental Justice Reports] from [[Inner City Press]]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20090227110409/http://www.roap.unep.org/program/Documents/Law08_presentations/Handout%20list.pdf International Conference on Environmental Justice and Enforcement].
*[http://www.ssbx.org/ Sustainable South Bronx]- is an internationally recognized leader on poverty alleviation, public health concerns and climate crisis solutions
*[https://newint.org/topic/environmental%20justice Environmental Justice articles] from [https://web.archive.org/web/20090201033156/http://www.newint.org/ ''New Internationalist'' magazine]
*[https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL34384.pdf Federal Pollution Control Laws: How Are They Enforced?] [[Congressional Research Service]]
*[https://www.epa.gov/environmentaljustice Environmental Justice, Environmental Protection Agency]
*[https://www.ipcc.ch/ The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]

{{Types of justice}}
{{Green politics}}
{{Environmental humanities}}
{{Environmental social science}}
{{Environmental justice}}
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[[Category:Environmental justice| ]]
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