A Reflection on Climate Justice

On November 28, 2019, the NSTP students of Xavier - Ateneo, held a campaign/bike
caravan in order to show support for the climate justice through decarbonisation. Our class
section was able to participate in that movement because of our concern for the mother Earth,
wherein we believe that it is our only home. As what we have observed during these past
years, we have been experiencing a great climate change in which it caused many floods and
sometimes longer times of drought. In addition to that, many people who live in poverty are the
primary ones who are being affected by such calamities. Since then, both the young and old
alike participated in the said activity.

Many times that people shouted not only for beating poverty but also cried against the
effects of climate change. However, no matter how loud their shout and cry is, some leaders in
the government still do not listen, there are still people who uses coal and other non-renewable
resources for energy, some are still continuing to oppress the poor and the needy. In one way or
another, this has to stop; thus, the term “climate justice”. They believed that this is a
consequence of their actions. So, climate change is now not only a global issue but an issue
that has to be put into conversation for awareness and prevention. As Mary Robinson said,
climate justice “insists on a shift from a discourse on greenhouse gases and melting ice caps
into a civil rights movement with the people and communities most vulnerable to climate impacts
at its heart.” Big companies have to stop producing single-use plastics and other things, world
leaders need to communicate and abide the needs and become the aid of their people, because
this climate change became an issue to human rights.

As an Atenean student who is very much concerned of the environment due to its vital
role in the human life, climate justice really calls for me to heed it and respond against climate
change in my own little way – that is, by planting and taking care of the trees, et cetera.
Therefore, with my fellow youth, there is a bigger chance that climate change will slow down
and the earth will be back to its normal state, for the sake of the next generations.

“Now, thanks to the recent marches, strikes and protests by hundreds of thousands of
schoolchildren, we have begun to understand the intergenerational injustice of climate change.”
– Mary Robinson