A/77/549 IV. Towards environmental justice, climate justice and racial justice A. Concerns with the dominant approaches 61. The responses and momentum of the global system remains woefully ill equipped to halt racially discriminatory and unjust features and consequences of ecological crisis. The Special Rapporteur is concerned that dominant international approaches to governing environmental and climate issues amount to a doubling down on racial inequality and injustice. Racially discriminatory mitigation and overreliance on market-based solutions 62. In several submissions it was noted that some “green” solutions to climate change challenges actually reinforce or perpetuate racial marginalization and inequities. The transition to alternatives to fossil fuels in some contexts is resulting in “green sacrifice zones” 114 meaning that racially and ethnically marginalized groups are disproportionately exposed to human rights violations associated with the extraction or processing of these alternatives. 115 Critiques of “green capitalism” or “green growth” point out that these approaches promote energy transitions that “tend to presuppose the perpetuation of colonial arrangements”. 116 They seek to maintain unsustainable levels of consumption in the global North through transitions that require tremendous destructive extraction from the global South. As “green new deals” proliferate in the global North, their efficacy is contingent on their capacity to address the root causes of ecological crisis and undo the systemic racism embedded in fossil fuel economies. 117 Even development initiatives and seemingly “green” private ventures in global South countries can mask their profit-seeking arc, resulting in worsened environmental conditions and conflicts. 118 63. Consultation participants reported that, in large part, because many climate related initiatives are designed without the input, consideratio n or leadership of racially marginalized peoples, they can reinforce patterns of racial discrimination already present in national and international economies. Overreliance on technocratic knowledge and the exclusion of local communities from climate chang e leadership have worked to distract from the systemic changes demanded by front -line communities and required to truly solve the ongoing crisis. 119 64. For example, carbon capture and storage technologies are increasingly promoted as processes that can collect carbon dioxide generated by industrial activities before they reach the atmosphere, and transport captured emissions to sites where they can be used or stored. However, in one submission it was reported that carbon capture is neither necessary to avoid catastrophic levels of warming nor feasible at scale. 120 In fact, it warns that carbon capture distracts from the reforms needed to ensure a fossil fuel-free future, an outcome which is essential to the health and rights of the marginalized communities on the front lines of the climate and environmental crisis. __________________ 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 22-24043 Christos Zografos and Paul Robbins, “Green sacrifice zones, or why a green new deal cannot ignore the cost shifts of just transitions”, One Earth, vol. 3, No. 5 (November 2020). Claire Burgess, “Australia’s lithium extractivism is costing the Earth”, M edium, 10 June 2022. Jason Hickel, “The anti-colonial politics of degrowth”, Political Geography, vol. 88, supplement C (June 2021). Submission from Sealey Huggins. Guiseppina Siciliano and others, “Environmental justice and Chinese dam -building in the global south”, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, vol. 37 (April 2019); and Shun Deng Fam, “China came, China built, China left? The Sarawakian experience with Chinese dam building”, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, vol. 46, No. 3 (December 2017). Submission from Gonzalez. Submission from the Center for International Environmental Law. 19/24