A Conversation with Climate Activist and Researcher, Maria Alejandra Escalante
The CJRF published this blog as part of our efforts to present at South by Southwest in 2022. We’re thrilled to announce that our panel proposal, “Why We Need to Go All in on Climate Justice,” featuring Maria Alejandra Escalante and climate policy expert, and lawyer, Farhana Yamin, was successful! To learn more about this inter-generational conversation, visit our page on the SXSW schedule.
Maria Alejandra Escalante is a queer, feminist researcher from Colombia and the climate and environmental justice advocacy officer for FRIDA|The Young Feminist Fund.
Her research and activism focus on the intersection between ecologies, sovereignties of the body-territory, and participatory funding models.
Escalante spoke with the CJRF about her work and why she sees redistribution of power and resources as fundamental in the fight for climate justice.
What does climate justice mean to you?
I’ll start by defining what climate justice means from a historical perspective. Colonialism built a reality that classified Black and Indigenous Peoples as other than human and viewed the lands that they inhabited as commodities. The slave trade and extraction of natural resources paved the way for the wealth and industrialization of the nations that now hold the most power.
The climate crisis stems from this human-made catastrophe: rising carbon emissions and global temperatures, global economic and social disparities, and the destabilization of the earth’s ecosystem, all of which are born from the development model of our societies. This was reiterated only a short time ago with the IPCC report and reconfirms what socio-environmental movements have claimed for decades.
Climate justice means transforming the climate crisis through equity and justice, acknowledging that, while every sector, country, and individual can do something to solve this crisis, we need historic polluters and fossil fuel corporations to pay back the wealth they have gained from this exploitative system.
To center equity and justice in this transformation also means rooted, systemic changes of the social, political, and economic structures that caused the climate crisis we face today. Climate justice proposes major transformations towards the well-being and coexistence of humans and non-humans on this planet.
How has your identity informed the work that you do?
People of my generation and younger are witnessing the world falling apart. As a young person, I carry a type of uncertainty that has no precedent in human history: will we make it? Will we actually be able to continue life as we know it in our own lifetimes? As younger people, every decision we make now carries the awareness of the planetary emergency that we face.
As a feminist born and raised in Colombia, I grew up seeing the lack of access that Black, Brown, Indigenous, gender non-conforming people, women, and youth have to decision making spaces. I come from a place of economic inequalities, warfare, and racism, and I am convinced that real transformations can only happen when the voices and experiences of those that have been marginalized by political, economic and gender norms grow their power and own the use and management of their bodies and territories. I am a queer person because I don’t want to belong to the women/men binaries and the hierarchy of humans over nature that colonialism and patriarchy have designed for all.
What role have you seen young people playing in the climate justice movement?
Over the past decade, I see younger people politicizing and elevating a sense of urgency and strategy in the environmental movement. Youth activists are clear in making demands that go beyond temporary policy reforms and technological fixes to the climate crisis. Instead, we know that the multiple crises that we are in —ecological and health crises — demand that we change everything.
Feminist youth are at the heart of deep transformations in the climate and environmental movement. We look at our current compounded crises as result of a system that reinforces and recreates violence towards women, trans, gender non-conforming people, indigenous and black communities, in the same way that it keeps exploiting the natural systems.
As youth, we know that the climate crisis is not just an environmental problem. From wealth accumulation to the end of white supremacy, to commodification of natural goods, to gender-based oppression — all of it is interrelated and it all needs to change now. If we are serious about the transformations that need to happen in the world, we need to talk about the redistribution of power from those who have had it for decades to those who have been traditionally marginalized.
What is the FRIDA Fund and what led you to this organization?
FRIDA is a youth-led feminist fund dedicated to resourcing and supporting girls, young women, trans, non-binary, and intersex youth who are doing feminist and intersectional work at the grassroots level. They organize in collectives, movements, or NGOs, based in the Global South or periphery regions. FRIDA respects activists’ autonomy and provides core, flexible, and recurrent grants. We use a participatory model in which groups themselves have the power to say where resources go. Youth and people on the ground are experts of their own realities. We try to give trust and power back to movements on the ground.
Photo credit: FRIDA Fund
I had never worked in philanthropy before FRIDA. I had always been on the other side of philanthropy as a youth organizer on climate and environmental justice issues, always asking for funding and adjusting our messages so that funders and donors would support our ideas, initiatives, and projects. By getting to know FRIDA, I have learned about the importance of redistribution of power and resources. It’s not only about money, but also spaces, opportunities, and narratives for youth-led transformative change.
Can you briefly describe your research focus for non-academics and people who are not involved in climate justice?
My research, work, and activism revolve around dismantling the notion that there is a hierarchical division between humans and nature, where natural goods are conceived as resources for exploitation in the name of profit. I also want to show that the same rationale of division and devaluation is used in our societies against women and gender non-conforming people. This mindset of the superiority of mankind over nature and of men above others are similar in that they homogenize, destroy, and erase diversity. I aim to show that diversity of bodies and ecologies is one of the most powerful traits of resilient ecosystems. Defending and funding diversity and alternatives is essential right now.
We are in an unprecedented climate emergency, where the dependency on fossil fuels and capitalism is limiting our chance to solve the crisis. Thus, to get out of this social, economic, and ecological crisis, we need to uplift the knowledge and experiences of those who have been on the margins and those who are already creating a different, more harmonious world to live in.
What do you hope SXSW attendees get out of the discussion, “Why We Need to Go All in on Climate Justice?”
I hope to show that the climate emergency is a crisis rooted in racist, colonial, capitalist, and patriarchal structures, and that technical or market-oriented solutions are utterly insufficient to confront it. To really fix this crisis, we need the kind of systems thinking and systems-solving that center new leadership. I want attendees to see that existing alternatives, communities, and movements lack political power, visibility, and resources. Yet, these are the communities that are better positioned to lead the way out of this crisis. These are the very people who – despite significant risk and repression – are reimagining and building a better, more equal, and more just world.
The way we choose to look at the climate crisis will also influence the way we look for solutions. If we start to name the climate emergency as an issue of justice and equity, this could lead us to build more cohesive responses across sectors — whether it be in philanthropy, academia, politics, the private sector, or media. This session will inspire attendees to act and spark curiosity and boldness from all of us.
We’ve got the resources, and we’ve got the tools, it’s only a matter of political will. The change is going to happen, and we all need to find ways to become allies of movements on the ground.
To hear more insights from Maria Alejandra Escalante, support the CJRF in our quest to present at South by Southwest in 2022. CJRF’s panel proposal, “Why We Need to Go All in on Climate Justice” will feature a conversation between Maria Alejandra Escalante and climate policy expert, and lawyer, Farhana Yamin.
Visit the proposal page to read more and vote today! Check out this blog for instructions on how to vote.