Tackling social and economic inequalities must be at the heart of any effective climate change action.
Climate action needs a new approach
Ravaging fires and flooding, widespread ecological destruction, increasing dispossession and displacement: year after year, climate change action shows its tragic shortcomings because people and socio-territorial inequalities are not at the center of commitments, policies, and follow-up mechanisms. As long as global agreements and national and local agendas neglect serious and purposive debate about climate injustices and how to tackle them, collective efforts will not be able to address climate change causes and effects. This premise is the point of departure for the Global Platform for the Right to the City (GPR2C) work at the intersection of climate justice and socio-spatial justice through a human rights and community-driven approach.
The right to the city can bring together multiple urban and social demands around one powerful claim. According to the GPR2C, the Right to the City is the right of all inhabitants—present and future, permanent and temporary—to inhabit, use, occupy, produce, govern, and enjoy just, inclusive, safe, and sustainable cities, villages, and human settlements, defined as commons essential to a full and decent life. The Right to the City envisions cities and human settlements as common goods that should be shared and benefit all members of the community. This principle crystallizes in the following eight components of the Right to the City that must be translated into policy and practice: 1) non-discrimination; 2) gender equality; 3) inclusive citizenship; 4) enhanced political participation; 5) fulfilled social functions; 6) quality public services and public spaces; 7) diverse and inclusive economies; 8) rural-urban linkages.
The climate justice perspective acknowledges that climate change disproportionately affects marginalized people—such as women, children, and the elderly, racialized groups, and Indigenous Peoples, among many others—as well as the need for climate strategies to not only consider those inequalities but to address them. The current “loss and damage” discussions have also called attention to the differentiated impacts caused by climate change, especially in urban informal settlements. Whereas economic (housing, public services, etc.) or non-economic (culture, memories, etc.), these so-called “unavoidable” climate impacts affect mainly individuals and communities whose human rights are repeatedly violated, and therefore they should be the ones primarily benefiting from mitigation and adaptation policies and financing. Moreover, a feminist climate justice perspective brings relevant contributions to this agenda, calling attention to four specific dimensions of climate justice: recognition of diversity (identities, knowledge, and experiences); redistribution of resources; representation and meaningful participation (women and marginalized groups in decision-making processes); and reparation and non-repetition (past and future harm caused by climate change).
Connecting climate and environmental debates with urban justice is fundamental to more effective climate action since adverse effects of climate change are ravaging urban communities, mainly poor, peripheral, and racialized groups; while at the same time, cities are enormous contributors to greenhouse emissions and to the worsening of climate change effects. In that way, local actors—both governmental and non-governmental—should be protagonists in climate change governance, bringing the perspective of local communities and vulnerable groups most affected by climate events. This has been progressively being acknowledged, for example, through the current elaboration of a “Special Report on Climate Change and Cities” by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations body responsible for assessing climate change scientific information to support national government’s commitments and actions.
Nevertheless, much needs to be done in order to improve interactions and collaboration between both fields. This was emphasized, for instance, by the relatively weak bridges between the two major events held in November 2024: the 12th World Urban Forum (WUF12 in Cairo), organized by the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat); and the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29 in Baku) convened by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). In the first case, although climate change was a topic at several WUF12 sessions, most of them lacked a human rights and climate justice perspective, focussing instead on private sector innovation and a technological approach—for example, through the promotion of the “smart cities” paradigm. In the second case, even though COP29 had one full day dedicated to urban issues, it only addressed them in a disintegrated way, considering major “urban themes” separately, not acknowledging the impacts urban planning can have in worsening or preventing the adverse impacts of climate change, mainly on the most marginalized groups.
How to advance climate justice through the right to the city?
In that framework, the GPR2C and its allies are stressing the need to advance climate justice through a right-to-the-city perspective. This means that climate action should be based on human rights principles, consider socio-territorial aspects, and be designed and implemented with community participation in decision-making processes.
But, what are the practical implications? How can it be done?
Firstly, a human rights approach to climate action implies that human rights cannot be violated while addressing climate change. This is a call against greenwashing measures that often employ the narrative of “green solutions” while simultaneously violating the rights of the groups in already vulnerable situations. Additionally, it is relevant to highlight that the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment has been recently recognized by the United Nations as a human right, key to the realization of other rights. Together with several international organizations and activists, the GPR2C highlights that this rights’ approach should also be intersectional, acknowledging the differentiated impacts of climate change at the overlapping dimensions of oppression and privilege related to crucial social markers such as gender, race, class, age, and ability.
Secondly, considering socio-territorial aspects while addressing climate change relates to the fulfillment of the social and environmental functions of property/land and the city as a whole, meaning that collective and sustainable interests should prevail with regard to private and for-profit motives. This is directly connected with the right to adequate living conditions, including access to housing, public services, public transport, and sustainable and just access to nature-based commons.
Thirdly, climate action must not be carried out only by top-down decisions, without social participation or considering the needs and demands of communities. Communities are the most affected by climate change impacts and therefore should be part of the solutions. It is also necessary to recognize and value communities’ local and traditional knowledge and learn from the social technologies already being carried out—with great protagonism from women. Strengthening this social knowledge by providing proper technical and financial conditions for their development makes climate action substantially more efficient and inclusive. For instance, in 2023 Habitat International Coalition-Latin America (HIC-AL) convened a regional forum to highlight and exchange community experiences addressing climate change and is now working to influence global debates and agendas.
Connected to this aspect, the GPR2C has been calling attention to the need for more accessible data and knowledge on climate change to enhance social participation and community responses to adverse climate impacts. Information on this topic is usually too technical and restricted to a very specific audience, with most relevant documents available only in English. Without open access to quality information, civil society cannot adequately participate and monitor climate plans at local and national levels. Meanwhile, global climate change decisions continue to be negotiated by the same “experts”, many of them white men and from the Global North). Lack of open information can also deepen inequalities regarding access to climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, exposing already vulnerable groups to greater climate impacts.
In an effort to democratize access to climate information and provide inputs to organizations working in urban contexts, the GPR2C has recently launched a Glossary on Climate Change, which includes climate jargon, concepts, and governance frameworks, explained through a critical and human rights perspective. By decoding this technical universe, the Glossary can be a tool for civil society to better understand how climate governance is organized and how to influence climate change debates and discussions.
Through the dissemination of the Glossary contents and by organizing training sessions, the intention is to provide more resources to civil society to press for a wider climate change debate, including more actors and perspectives, in an effort to democratize the negotiations. This should encompass official and governmental instances but also other autonomous and self-managed forms of community participation. Other partner initiatives, such as the IIED’s “Guide to climate negotiations terminology”, also contribute to this matter by providing useful information for stakeholders to participate in international climate negotiations.
Local initiatives and global agendas: what’s in store for 2025?
The above-mentioned climate justice aspects guide the advocacy efforts of a joint project currently being developed by three GPR2C’s members: Instituto Pólis (Brazil), Kota Kita (Indonesia), and Development Workshop (Angola). The initiative aims at advancing the climate justice agenda by claiming the right to the city, strengthening social movements locally, in their national contexts, and also globally. This encompasses, for instance, training sessions with civil society organizations and social movements, as well as participatory methodologies for climate risk diagnosis, eviction prevention, and green budgeting.
COP30, to be held in Brazil in late 2025, is emerging as a process full of expectations concerning climate change negotiations. As the first COP being held in a more open and participatory context, this edition will also be decisive due to unfulfilled gaps and unestablished consensus left by COP29 in Azerbaijan―especially in terms of the failure to engage developed countries to finance the most vulnerable countries and communities affected by climate change. In that context, the GPR2C will continue to be mobilized to guarantee that more urban actors have the conditions to engage in climate discussions and advocacy at local and national levels.
Several organizations and networks working on urban justice are convinced that climate justice can only be achieved if urban communities and marginalized groups, the most affected by climate change’s adverse impacts, are taken into account in the formulation and implementation of mitigation and adaptation measures. Tackling social and economic inequalities must be at the heart of any effective climate change action.
about the writer
Kelly Agopyan
Project advisor at Polis Institute (Brazil) and the Global Platform for the Right to the City. PhD researcher and specialist on gender and public policies with a focus on the right to the city, care and climate justice.
about the writer
Lorena Zárate
Lorena Zárate is co-coordinator of the Global Platform for the Right to the City and former president of the Habitat International Coaltion.
Kelly Komatsu Agopyan and Lorena Zárate
São Paulo and Ottawa
