'Same storm, different boat’ – tackling the unequal impacts of environmental pollution and climate change

These inequalities exist on multiple levels: globally, within countries and even within cities. Globally we see inequality within the green energy transition.

While countries in the global North reduce CO2 emissions by transitioning to renewable energy through solar panels and wind turbines, countries in the global South that supply critical resources for these products suffer from pollution and overexploitation. An example is the Democratic Republic of Congo that supplies cobalt needed for rechargeable batteries.

Meanwhile, within the Kingdom of the Netherlands we see that the European part of the Kingdom is the biggest polluter, but that the Caribbean part is hit harder and faster by climate change due to its geographic position and limited capacity to mitigate the effects of climate change.

And even within cities we see inequalities. Families with higher education and incomes are often better able to protect themselves against the negative impacts of environmental pollution, for example by purchasing air filters for their homes.

These differences cannot be ignored. Yet little is done to track which groups are hit harder. If this information is available, it’s not accessible to the people concerned. We can help by paying closer attention to these issues and doing our own research. We can also contribute to civic initiatives and university projects that seek and bundle such information for further research. We can also help through solidarity, and fortunately solidarity is a resource that we can use infinitely.