The fight against climate change often centers on shifting to renewable energy sources and reducing carbon pollution—two needed actions which cannot be worthwhile unless we reconsider the whole way in which we are exploiting our resources, and who is paying the highest price for it. In this sense, we need to look at how land is being used, controlled and managed. Indeed, thinking about climate change as a self-contained ‘environmental’ matter, is in itself where the problem starts. This is an intersectional issue par excellence, due to the fact that it impacts human activities (specifically urban life), and is impacted by them. And urbanization is one of the key contributors to climate change.
This dossier encompasses three investigations. The first investigation – in light of the ongoing Israeli war on Palestine and Lebanon – looks at how occupation, war and inevitably destruction, result in widespread toxic substances, dead wildlife, and an atmosphere choked with fumes, contributing directly to global warming. The second explores the effects of real estate and neoliberal urbanization on climate change in Lebanon. And finally, the third investigation addresses the adverse impacts of climate change on the urban poor, especially those living in slums, worsened by their informal legal status, limited access to housing, and social protection.
