About the Climate Equality Working Group
Welcome to BCCE’s Climate Equality Working Group. This working group will focus on the many complex inequality issues that arise from climate change and the potential role of discrimination law and broader legal work in this area. It is led by Beth Goldblatt from the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Cristy Clark from the University of Canberra Law School in Australia.
Upcoming Events
Round table exploration of the issues surrounding climate change and class discrimination law
Thursday, May 8
New York 8am; Buenos Aires 9am; London 1pm; Sydney 10pm
Zoom Link: https://zoom.uts.edu.au/j/82925447828
Climate change, while unsparing in its impact on all life on earth, affects people unequally. Disadvantaged groups are often worst affected by climate challenges due to their social and geographic location in poor communities and reduced capacity to manage the costs of adaptation. For example, people living in poorly built housing and facing high energy bills may struggle to cool their homes during heatwaves. People working in poorly regulated industries may face harsher working conditions as the climate warms. Access to healthcare, education and social security, as well as to local services such as transport and childcare, already impacted by climate change, will need to be improved and adapted to these new conditions. Many of these problems reflect unequal access to resources, income, and wealth, exacerbated by growing economic inequality in society. We know these inequalities intersect with other forms of disadvantage based on race, gender, disability, age, migrant status and so on.
Can discrimination law, which is criticised for its inability to address structural inequality, and its limited acceptance of class as a ground of discrimination, play a role in responding to class-based inequality that is worsened by climate change. What examples of class-based discrimination in the context of climate change have already been documented? Are there any examples of policy, legislation or litigation that tackle this challenge?
We warmly invite you to join us for a roundtable discussion on the issues surrounding climate change and class discrimination law.
We see this roundtable as a preliminary scoping activity towards further engagement by the two working groups and a contribution towards the development of a research agenda on this topic.
Agenda
The discussion will start with a panel of short working papers, chaired by Professor Emerita Geraldine Van Bueren KC (Queen Mary University of London):
- Prof. Beth Goldblatt (Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney), Opening Remarks
- Dr. Rosana Garciandia (The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London), An intersectional approach to UN human rights treaties: a way to tackle the unequal effects of climate change on people based on class-based inequality
- Prof. Margot Young (Allard Law, University of British Columbia), The ongoing litigation by youth bringing constitutional challenges to inadequate government policy on climate change in Canada – and a consideration of the class-based discrimination aspects of this litigation.
- Amarmend Sainbayar (PhD Candidate, University of Kassel and Hans-Böckler-Foundation), The intersection of disability rights, class discrimination, and climate change, particularly regarding the legal frameworks in Germany and Japan.
- Dr. Cristy Clark (School of Law, University of Canberra), Closing Remarks
About Us
Co-Directors
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Beth Goldblatt
Beth Goldblatt is a Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia and a Visiting Professor in the School of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. She is an international expert on social and economic rights and equality and non-discrimination law. With colleagues, Beth established the UTS Faculty of Law’s large and active Feminist Legal Research Group and she teaches ‘Gender and the Law’. She is the inaugural co-chair of the Faculty’s Equity and Diversity Group and sits on the UTS Diversity and Inclusion Implementation Committee. Beth is a member of the Australian Discrimination Law Experts Group. Her work covers many aspects of equality with a recent focus on climate change, its impact on inequality, and the role of law in contributing to climate justice.
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Cristy Clark
Dr Cristy Clark is an academic at the University of Canberra Law School, Australia. She is an expert on the human right to water. Her research focuses on the intersection of human rights, neoliberalism, and the environment, and she is the co-author of The Lawful Forest: A Critical History of Property, Protest and Spatial Justice (2022).
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Volunteers
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Claire Reichle