Description
Climate Justice and Social Inequality are closely intertwined especially for communities in the Global South. The relationship between climate change and social inequality is characterized by a vicious cycle, where initial inequality makes disadvantaged communities suffer disproportionately from the adverse effects of climate change, resulting in the escalation of inequality. There are three mechanisms through which this process unfolds. First, inequality increases the exposure of disadvantaged communities to the adverse effects of climate change. Second, given the exposure level, inequality increases the disadvantaged communities susceptibility to damages caused by climate hazards. Third, inequality decreases these groups’ relative ability to cope with and recover from these damages. In this context, drawing from ethnographic fieldwork in two ecologically sensitive regions of India’s Eastern (coal mining region) and Southern (biodiverse Highlands region) parts, this paper explores how communities in the Global South at the margins of caste relations experience and respond to exacerbated consequences of climate change. The paper argues that the unequal power relations through control of resources are (re)produced in climate change discourses in complex ways. In both cases, caste inequalities reinforced through various market interventions and integrations make the marginalised Dalits–the victims of climate change in India in terms of exposure, damages and ability to cope up. The paper further reflects on the necessity to understand the role of pre-existing social inequalities, in this case, caste-based on resource distribution and control to advance climate justice scholarship.
