Climate crisis and inequality: the green gap
An environmental justice forum for presidential candidates in the 2020 election will take place on 8 November in South Carolina, the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (NBCSL) has just announced, my colleague Nina Lakhani, Guardian US environmental justice reporter, writes.
This is the first event focussed on environmental and climate justice issues – such as access in the United States to clean air and water, public transport, healthy food, and flood resistance -which disproportionately affect people of colour, indigenous and low income communities. Inequality around such essentials has been called a “civil rights emergency” in the age of Donald Trump.
It will be a Q&A format with candidates to appear on stage one by one in the Martin Luther King Jr. Auditorium of South Carolina State University. Questions for candidates can be submitted via ejpresforum.org.
Unsurprisingly, US Senator and currently Democratic front-runner-by-a-whisker, Elizabeth Warren is one of the first to confirm that she’ll take part. Last week Warren published an ambitious plan to tackle decades of environmental discrimination.
Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), former Maryland US Representative John Delaney (who is still in the 2020 race, at least officially and in his own mind, despite not making the party threshold for appearing in the debates these days), and entrepreneur Tom Steyer, who makes his debate debut tonight, have also confirmed. You can check here for an up-to-date list of participants ejpresforum.org.
NBCSL is partnering with a bunch of interesting groups for the event including the Pee Dee Indian Tribe of South Carolina, South Carolina Environmental Justice Network, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, NAACP, National Wildlife Federation, National Children’s Campaign, and South Carolina State University.
The event signals how pressing environmental justice issues are in the country’s most marginalized communities – yet it’s an area most candidates have yet to address.
NBCSL President Gilda Cobb-Hunter, said the event, ‘Moving Vulnerable Communities from Surviving to Thriving’ will give candidates a rare opportunity for candidates to show votes “where they stand on clean water, clean air and so many of the important issues that people living on the front lines of environmental degradation face.
”Candidates who want to earn the votes of communities impacted by environmental justice should step up, hear our concerns and explain their plans for a cleaner, healthier future for all… [and] show us where they stand on clean water, clean air and so many of the important issues that people living on the front lines of environmental degradation face.”
The NBCSL will hold a second event on gun violence and mental health in December at its Annual Legislative Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
