As early as 1911, coal miners in Britain carried caged canaries into mining pits. Any sign of distress from the small birds, which are incredibly sensitive to the presence of harmful gases such as carbon monoxide, meant immediate evacuation. Today’s canaries in the coal mine are low-income, minority communities whose exposure to environmental risks in the United States and elsewhere puts them at the frontlines of the global climate crisis.

We have a finite period to respond to their distress more seriously and prevent disaster. 

Plaquemines to the Pacific

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, thanks to chronically poor investment in infrastructure, housing, and other services, low-income communities of color in the United States are poorly equipped to deal with the effects of climate change and yet face disproportionate exposure.

A study conducted by the Environmental and Climate Justice Program of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) found 68 percent of African Americans live within 30 miles of a coal-fired power plant – the zone of maximum exposure – and air in communities of color is 40 percent more polluted than white communities. People of color spent in excess of $40 million on energy in 2009; yet only one percent of African Americans are in energy-related careers and less than one percent of revenue from the energy industry went to African Americans.

In Orleans Parish, Louisiana, for example, the population is 60 percent Black or African American and the per capita income is well below $28,000 a year. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has warned it faces some of the worst impacts of climate change on the planet, including sea level rise of up to 10 inches, threefold tidal flooding events, and “submersion under 3.4 feet of Gulf water by the end of the century.” Communities like Charleston, Hialeah, Gulfport-Biloxi, and Plaquemines have already experienced major flooding, including Hurricane Katrina.

A Native American community on Isle de Jean Charles recently made headlines as one of the first to receive federal funding to relocate due to rising sea levels. The innovative funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development may help the community adapt to climate change, but will do little to mitigate the loss of hundreds of years of tribal history.

The picture does not get better in my temporary new home, the Pacific Northwest. In Seattle, ocean acidification threatens marine life while drought and forest fires (the amount of forestland that burns every year is projected to quadruple by 2080) threaten to scorch the earth. In a region with 271 federally recognized tribes and a significant immigrant-refugee population, the cumulative impacts could be devastating.

My Own Backyard

The science of climate change can be abstract or even seem far-fetched without the benefit of seeing its impacts at the local level. In my own studies, understanding the connections between man-made carbon emissions, solar radiation in the atmosphere, and global warming was distancing at best. I did not see myself in these explanations of a global challenge nor what it could mean for my family or friends – not until I experienced it myself.  

During a recent visit to my home country, Swaziland, I visited our family farm. In families like my own, patrilineal inheritances of land and cattle are the only guaranteed sources of stability and security. My grandfather left our family with an 11-hectare farm and a handful of cattle. When I arrived home, I found my grandmother, who has never owned a vehicle in her life, battling to keep our last four cattle alive with drinking water from a metered tap in the yard while vast fields that once produced maize, beans, and other crops lay idle and unfarmed, dry and cracked from the scorching sun.

My family’s experience is not unique. A United Nations report estimates more than 25 percent of the country’s 1.2 million people face acute food insecurity as a result of El Niño-related climate events. The cyclical global climate phenomenon has been especially strong this year, creating drought conditions over much of Southern and Eastern Africa.

Sixty-three percent of the Swaziland population already lives under the breadline and chronic food insecurity is exacerbated by a dependence on farming for sustenance. Some 135,000 children are among those facing food shortages, thousands of cattle (a symbol of wealth) have perished, and fundamental water sources in the poorest regions are running dry.

In February, the government of this small land-locked country declared a state of emergency.

A Timeline for Action

From urban African American communities and Native American tribes in the United States to millions of smallholder farmers across sub-Saharan Africa, people who hail from communities on the frontlines of climate change are generally not well represented among the government and non-government institutions trying to address the problem.

According to a report prepared for the Green 2.0 initiative, people of color account for less than 15 percent of staff in mainstream environmental organizations, and the numbers are as low as five percent in leadership and board positions. This needs to change if we expect decision-making bodies to keep up with the problem.

The Paris Agreement is the first universal, legally binding deal on climate change. It is also a timeline for action. While the agreement opened for signatures on April 22, 2016, it is expected to enter into force in 2020. This means there is a finite period to truly come to terms with what it takes to respond to the implications of climate change.

Communities of color are the fastest growing minority group in the United States and low income communities in the developing world certainly outnumber their affluent neighbors. They are also proving to be more concerned about the state of our planet than their mainstream counterparts. If we are going to make meaningful steps towards adaptation and mitigation, it is going to take a fundamental shift in the way that we do business and who is engaged in the process.

As we move towards climate readiness and stability, we are faced with a unique opportunity to bring these groups into the fold and produce more inclusive, equitable, and universally applicable solutions. Changing the way we use water and energy, protecting cultural heritage – these are not goals that can be accomplished without the participation of everyone concerned. 

If we continue to ignore these communities, the canary in the coal mine will go unheeded – to everyone’s great peril.