Climate justice in Latin America: Mapping the key emerging debates

The concept of climate justice has been evoked in Latin America to demand solutions to the climate crisis and social justice. These are claims about extractivism, sacrifice of territories, and of the struggle against ‘solutions’ that do not solve climate change, but that intensify the negative impacts of climate change and generate inequalities. Climate justice thus opens up a diversity of relevant debates on both climate issues and for social justice, including fair distribution, rights, responsibilities, and recognition. In this chapter, we discuss the emerging debates on climate justice in Latin America based on an evaluation of published literature on this topic. The literature shows that climate justice in this region is closely linked to people’s lives and livelihoods. Environmental resistance is intertwined with existing conflicts for social justice as people face environmental threats in their daily lives. In Latin America, climate injustice is real for millions of people who breathe polluted air in cities and are exposed to pesticides in agricultural areas. In addition, the region is faced by a myriad of interconnected challenges, including the desertification of soils, the disappearance of ancient forests, the melting of glaciers, the spread of infectious diseases, resource scarcity, as well as frequent and severe floods, droughts, heat waves, and cold spells. In recent years, climate justice has been revitalized by young activists claiming to stop environmental destruction. This shows that the region is a fertile ground for an in-depth study on climate justice and related issues that we identified, such as water, energy, food justice, inclusion, and social justice.