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Inequality and climate change

The double threat to life on Earth

September 16^th, 2019

The twin threats of climate change and rising inequality are challenging and unprecedented obstacles for our species.

And they are deeply intertwined.

A girl stands in a home in San Andres, Isla Verde that was destroyed by Typhoon Nina in 2015. ©Hannah Reyes Morales

While almost nobody will be immune to the increasingly savage effects of a heating planet, it is the poor, already shouldering a disproportionate burden, who are going to be pushed further back.

Inequality is a paradox of our times; although innovation has exploded and poverty has gone down almost everywhere, we still see a widening and unprecedented gap between the haves and have nots.

And inequality has a powerful accomplice in climate change. They tag-team to push the most vulnerable, particularly women, further down. It’s a cruel irony that the poorest, who have done the least to heat the planet, suffer first, and the most.

UNDP has gathered the work of several leading photographers to take a penetrating look at these important issues.

The photos will display at the Photoville Exhibit at Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York, 12-15 & 19-22 September.

Ami Vitale

Nikon Ambassador and National Geographic photographer

Drought and climate change have dramatically changed the way animals and humans interact in Kenya.

The competition for resources, particularly water, has become life or death for all species.

Protracted drought means tribespeople dig deeper wells which animals fall into, and either die or poison the water—an increasingly precious resource.

Poachers have ravaged elephant and rhino populations, which has changed the landscape dramatically.

“The removal of a keystone species has a huge effect on the ecosystem and impacts all of us. Without rhinos and elephants and other wildlife we suffer more than loss of ecosystem health. We suffer a loss of imagination, a loss of wonder, a loss of beautiful possibilities. Saving nature is really about saving ourselves,” Ami says.

Solmaz Daryani

Iranian documentary photographer

Lake Urmia in northwest Iran was once the biggest salt lake in the Middle East.

As little as ten years ago it was home to many species of birds and a popular destination for vacationers. Bathers swam in the saline water and applied the black mud to treat skin diseases.

“My grandfather had built a motel beside the lake. Less than a decade ago, he hosted dozens of tourists a day,” Solmaz says.

Now most of the lake has dried up, the result of a changing climate, unlimited development, and poor water management.

Lake Urmia is a stark example of the tragic intersection between mismanagement, inequality and climate. It prompts the question, is sustainable development a luxury only for the rich? How do we proceed if the poor cannot afford to use their resources to ensure their prosperity.

It is also for Solmaz a deeply personal illustration of how climate change robs us of our culture and our past.

“My childhood in Sharafkhaneh seems like a long time ago,” she says. “The motel is deserted, and the almond trees have shriveled. The port is sparsely populated, and it no longer resembles the place where I left my childhood memories.”

Johnny Miller

Specializing in urbanization, development, and infrastructure

“The inequalities in our social fabric are oftentimes hard to see from ground level. Visual barriers prevent us from observing the incredible contrasts that exist in our cities,” Johnny says.

In the series ‘Unequal Scenes’ Johnny uses a drone camera to see the world in a new way. The scars within our urban fabric, so apparent from above, can provoke a sense of surprise—we literally see the ‘wrong side of the tracks’.

A new vantage point is reached by placing a remote-controlled drone above these liminal spaces. The drone distances the photographer and the viewer of the photograph, both physically and mentally, and provokes an analysis of the distant gaze. It forces us to confront the ethics of representation, and the limitations (and freedom) of using technology in image-making. How high does the drone need to be to reach an ‘ethical’ altitude? Who should have access to the airspace and the technology? Are drone images fundamentally different from Google Earth or a printed map?

If the images provoke fear, despair, or an unsettling realization of complicity—good. They are intended to.”

Hannah Reyes Morales

Filipina photographer and National Geographic Explorer

Philippine fisherfolk live with the devastating paradox at the heart of the Anthropocene era: The communities who are least responsible for climate change are also the most vulnerable.

Archipelago life is deeply interdependent. The survival of all is intertwined, not just with the sea, but also with the deepening climate crisis.

The Philippines has incredible biodiversity, with 10 percent of the world’s coral reefs, and more documented species of marine life than anywhere else on Earth.

Yet the nearly two million Filipinos who depend on these waters are struggling to survive. They catch nearly half of all fish but remain among the poorest and most marginalized.

Our warming planet and rising oceans threaten coral reefs and coastal communities alike. This is where the glaring dilemma offers its own answer—these fisherfolk are at the frontline of the country’s fight against climate change.

Felipe Fittapaldi

Brazilian photographer based in Rio de Janeiro

Climate change has combined with human development in the delta of Paraíba do Sul river in Brazil to produce one of the most dramatic cases of sea erosion.

Sea level rise in the region is ten times higher than the global average and hundreds of homes, offices and shops in the once-thriving tourist town of Atafona have crumbled away.

More than 12 dams and hundreds of irrigation canals have been built in the region in recent years. This, along with constant droughts, has significantly affected the flow of the river and disrupted the sediments which would normally buffer a rising ocean.

Atafona is a harbinger. Brazil has 12 to 16 percent of the world’s renewable water resources—the world’s largest supply. Yet it now faces the stark consequences of past abuses. In 2015, two other important rivers, São Francisco and Rio Doce, were condemned. And São Paulo, the country’s biggest city, is running dry.

The decaying landscape of Atafona. Brazil, 2015. ©Felipe Fittipaldi

The exhibition, which will also show the work of Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times photographer Josh Haner, as well as Pulitzer Prize winner, Muhammed Muheisen who has spent the last decade documenting refugee crises around the world.

At the Photoville panel discussion on 20 September 2.30-3.30 Felipe Fittipaldi, will join National Geographic photo editor Jennifer Samuel, and UNDP policy specialists Cassie Flynn and Sameera Savarala as they discuss the need for and the challenges of conveying the double threat of global inequality and climate change through photography.