The Impact of Climate Change on Minorities and Indigenous Peoples

Climate change is attracting ever more attention from the media, academics, politicians and even businesses, as evidence mounts about its scale and seriousness, and the speed at which it is affecting the world. But rarely does its impact on minorities and indigenous groups get a mention, even though they are among the worst affected.

The effects of the changing climate are bad enough in themselves – more frequent hurricanes and droughts, burning temperatures, new plagues of diseases and worse floods, for instance. But the general failure to recognize and respond to minorities’ resulting problems greatly exacerbates their suffering. Disadvantage and discrimination affect them at every stage, including in the immediate aftermath of climate-related disasters and during official planning at local, national and international levels for coping with the current and future impacts of climate change.

The close relationship of some indigenous peoples and minorities with their natural environments makes them especially sensitive to the effects of global warming. In some cases, peoples’ ways of life and even their very existence are being threatened by climate change, and by the rapidly increasing cultivation of biofuels, which are being touted as part of the ‘solution’.

This briefing sets out some of the evidence on how minorities and indigenous people are being affected by climate change. It shows how discrimination against them means that they are not getting the help they need, or influence over governments’ plans for combating and adapting to climate change. Finally, it highlights some of the opportunities for change.