While American voters are anxiously awaiting the results of our presidential election, there is one issue that truly affects us all: the growing climate crisis. The havoc wreaked across the Southeastern United States by Hurricane Helene was a devastating reminder that as this crisis worsens, even people far from vulnerable coastal communities will be affected.
This understanding is at the core of the work that more than 160 AJWS-supported land, water and climate justice organizations do across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Time and time again, we see that those contributing least to the climate crisis pay the heaviest toll in its wake. And that’s why so many of these activists draw a direct line between the U.S. elections and their ongoing fights to protect their communities from the effects of the climate crisis.
“The U.S. election significantly impacts our work [because] the U.S. sets a global example, and its leadership is critical in shaping the fight against the climate crisis,” say leaders of Kenyan AJWS partner deCOALonize.
The organization was founded in 2016 as a coalition of Kenyan human rights, environmental and energy justice organizations (including several other AJWS partners) to fight the harmful rise of coal mining and production. They’ve built a massive, successful social movement in Kenya pushing back against their government’s relentless drive to create environmentally-damaging projects that would displace Indigenous communities. In 2019, for example, their advocacy won out when Kenyan courts froze plans for a coal-fired power plant that would have negatively impacted more than 1.1 million people.
But these hard-fought successes need international support to continue, they say, even if their 2019 victory was achieved during the last American administration. No success is guaranteed forever.
“A leader who dismisses climate change as a hoax would embolden coal industries and weaken global climate efforts, making it harder for us to advocate against coal and push for clean energy,” they say. Whereas, “a leader committed to climate action would strengthen international cooperation, support clean energy transitions and bolster our efforts to promote climate justice.”
In El Salvador, AJWS partners La Unidad Ecológica Salvadoreña (UNES) have watched fragile ecosystems suffer as the country’s booming sugarcane industry pollutes water sources with no fear of government intervention. Without pressure from its global importing partners, including the U.S., to process sugar responsibly, these industries will continue to destroy El Salvador’s land and water, and the lives of rural Salvadorans.
“The United States continues to have an historic responsibility in the climate crisis,” say leaders of UNES. “To the extent that a presidential candidate does not recognize climate change and refuses to renounce international agreements aimed at finding mitigating solutions… not only is the American population at risk, but also entire nations and life on the planet in general.”
For now, AJWS partners around the world wait, along with the rest of us, to see the outcome of these unprecedented, high stakes elections. And while they’ll continue to defend their communities against the dangerous effects of the climate crisis no matter who emerges victorious, their call is clear:
“We expect the new president to assume greater ambition fighting this crisis, acting responsibly and with scientific proof,” says UNES. “This is our demand for true climate justice.”
