A/HRC/48/78 B. Summary of deliberations 25. During the thematic session, the Working Group discussed human rights approaches to environmental injustice, racial disparities, unequal protection and the unique impact of the climate crisis and environmental racism on people of African descent. The session comprised three panel discussions. 1. Environmental racism: Earth, wind and fire (and water) 26. In her introductory remarks, the Chair of the Working Group stressed the importance of centring people of African descent in order to recognize the racial dimension of the climate crisis. Race was used to normalize exploitation and disregard, opening opportunities to generate profit at the expense of people’s lives, resources and lands. The Chair recalled the opening screening of “Mossville: When Great Trees Fall” and the discussion thereon coorganized with the Mossville team, and thanked it for making such an important documentary, which showed the deadly cost of environmental racism. Other climate justice experts would take the floor during the session and examine how systemic racism and the environment and climate crisis were affecting people of African descent. 27. Rosamund Kissi-Debrah, World Health Organization advocate for health and air quality and co-founder of the Ella Roberta Family Foundation, spoke about her 9-year-old daughter, Ella, who died in 2013 from a severe form of asthma. Ella was the first person in the United Kingdom to have air pollution listed as a cause of death on her death certificate. A second coroner’s inquest into Ella’s death, in a landmark decision in December 2020, found that air pollution had been a significant contributory factor to both the induction and exacerbations of her asthma. Between 2010 and 2013, Ella was exposed to levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter (mainly from traffic emissions) in excess of World Health Organization guidelines. Even though the failure to reduce the level of nitrogen dioxide to limits set by the European Union and domestic law was recognized as a cause of her death, Ella’s mother was not informed by health professionals of the health risks posed by air pollution and its potential to exacerbate asthma, or of steps that might have prevented Ella’s death. There was no dispute at the inquest that atmospheric air pollution was the cause of many thousands of premature deaths every year in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Delays in reducing the levels of atmospheric air pollution caused avoidable deaths.9 Ella’s mother was campaigning to create “Ella’s law”, which would replace outdated clean air legislation. The twenty-sixth session of the Conference of the Parties (see para. 23 above) was an opportunity to ask leaders what they were doing to protect the right to clean air, to advocate for and demand monitoring of air quality, to educate and raise the awareness of those most at risk, and to ensure that waste was not simply dumped in people’s backyards. 28. Dr. Angelique Walker-Smith, National Senior Associate for Pan African and Orthodox Church Engagement at Bread for the World, discussed the lack of environmental justice in the climate crisis and how it affected the people of Africa and people of African descent around the world. She referred to Flint, Michigan, in the United States of America, a community affected for years by toxic water because of government negligence and disregard for Black and brown lives. In 2014, the town decided to switch its drinking water supply from a municipal water system to a local river in order to save money. Inadequate treatment and testing resulted in major water quality and health issues for Flint residents. Grievances were systematically ignored and even dismissed by government officials, despite reports for 18 months of the odour, discoloration and bad taste of the water, as well as skin irritation and hair loss. The Michigan Civil Rights Commission had concluded that the poor governmental response to the Flint crisis was the result of systemic racism. Dr. Walker-Smith pointed out that African Americans were five times as likely as other people to live in areas of concentrated poverty, which were more exposed to climate shocks and lacked community amenities that could mitigate the effects of climate change, such as trees that help to clean the air and to cool neighbourhoods during heatwaves. The historic reality of colonialism and structural racism had designed systems that lived on today through environmental racism and a myriad of other injustices that had grown out of the same evil roots. Global protests for 9 6 See www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Ella-Kissi-Debrah-2021-0113-1.pdf.