Guest column Poor communities need to tell their own climate story

AS climate change continues to accelerate around the globe, driven by human activity, thereby influencing carbon inequalities, poor communities never had the chance to articulate their own situations and problems, let alone telling their own stories. It is their voice, which should be instrumental in transforming their lives, change their immediate environment and achieve resilience rather than relying on third parties which have their own biases and subjectivities.

At the root of poor people’s emission inequalities and climate crises maybe the lack of collaborations, sharing and networking necessary to build strong and fortified fronts to communicate their own standpoints and ideologies.

Although the media has an instrumental role to inform and educate the people, the major undoing is that communities have invested lots of trust in the media is such a way that they no longer have confidence to tell their own stories.

Communities need to build their own interactive and collaborative information networks to reach out to one another, establish coalitions and tell their own climate stories according to their own needs and worldview.

This would contribute to the attainment of emissions targets, living low carbon lives and also in building resilient communities.

If communities are assisted in coming up with their own platforms, knowledge sharing and information banks then it will be easier for them to communicate their climate challenges and successes as well.

Low carbon emission reductions and resilience can never be realised from outside but from within hence these coalitions are necessary.

The problem is that there are people who call themselves enforcers, influencers or opinion leaders who continue to communicate on behalf of these communities yet it must be more profound than that. If deeper and underlying issues continue to be suppressed without targeting the real situations involved, then no resilience will be achieved.

Resilience is not only communicated or imagined, it is built overtime and one other way is to engage those whose lives and hopes appear to be shattered and irredeemable.

In the background of these communities, there should be facilitators not interpreters or modifiers lest these climate stories and resilience practices may get distorted on the way.

Operating and participating in climate action strategies by the vulnerable communities would give them a chance to tell their stories from their own perspectives and points of view, according to their own underlying needs and backgrounds.

When communities tell their own climate stories more than they are reported, they will be able to cover blind spots and information gaps created by the media and opinion leaders.

The people’s stories that are human centred and poverty specific would mirror their own climate situations, carbon inequalities and resilience options. People’s carbon situations are different but their entire picture must never be erase. Therefore, climate stories can be told from different perspectives to create diversity, be closer to one another and reduce distances.

The people know their situations better hence they are the right ones to decide which climate problems to share or solve rather than seek to deal with their situations through third parties.

While reporting on these issues by the media is essential, sometimes they miss out on the real and underlying issues. In the discourse of the underprivileged, disadvantaged and the marginalised, issues of climate blindness need to be avoided as much as possible in order to facilitate resilient building.

The perpetuation of poverty and nursing of vulnerabilities have contributed to the creation of institutions of poverty and carbon emission inequalities hence these two horrible institutions require eradication.

If these institutions cannot be eradicated, then they need to be managed within the framework of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs 1 (no poverty), 2 (zero hunger), 3 (good health and wellbeing) and 13 (climate action) among others are central in realising this objective.

Diverse voices will help shape the climate narratives so that target audiences don’t miss out on essential resilience building information. In this regard, people should be assisted to tell their own stories because they have nothing to hide to the world. These are the stories that will change their situations and transform their lives thereby contributing to the building of sustainable communities and resilient livelihoods.

Through the use of their experiences as coalitions and networks, knowledge empowering platforms would be nurtured, grown and strengthened. These are the climate solutions and action strategies that will be designed to solve problems and build future networks with their children in mind.

Climate narratives that seek to grow climate crises directly or indirectly should never be allowed to find their way into the progressive and empowering climate discourses. While developing countries are still within the framework and parameters of their carbon budgeting, rich countries still need to comply.

This also includes rich and polluting nations’ obligation to fund developing countries’ adaptation and mitigation programmes in order to strategically situate the poor communities in enabling environments and situations to build confidence and tell their own stories.

Furthermore, place those people from marginal environments and disadvantaged groups at the heart of resilience building in order to narrow the inherent and glaring carbon emissions and resilience gaps.

Poor communities remain entrenched in poverty, hunger and energy poverty because of historical climate injustices which have contributed to their failure to speak out, recover their voices and tell their stories using locally designed communication tools, physical features and socio-cultural networks.

Instead of the people shaping their own lives through their credible and representative narratives, the climate impacts continue to shape lives of the world’s poorest and the most vulnerable.

This comes as a result of the communities in developing countries not being in a position to tell their own stories as they are not in control of their own lives.

They have lost their identity, self-esteem, confidence and humanism/ ubuntu to define their own climate destinies.

If poor communities are not placed at the centre of resilience building, then they can never have the chance to articulate their challenges to solve their problems and transform their situations for better livelihood options and recovery. By sidelining these essential community groups, a dangerous climate change culture continue to be nurtured.

Peter Makwanya is a climate change communicator. He writes in his personal capacity and can be accessed on: petrovmoyt@gmail.com.