On Wednesday 3 June, Edinburgh Earth Initiative hosted What climate justice means to me, an event centred on student perspectives and the many ways climate justice is understood, experienced and put into practice.
The event brought together student speakers and University collaborators to reflect on climate justice from personal, local and global perspectives. Across the afternoon, speakers explored how climate change disproportionately affects vulnerable communities, and why fairer, more effective responses must begin by recognising unequal responsibility, unequal risk and the voices of those most affected.
Through research, lived experience and community-focused work, the event invited attendees to think more deeply about what climate justice means in practice. It also built on wider conversations at the University of Edinburgh about climate justice, including Dr Elizabeth Cripps’ book What Climate Justice Means and Why We Should Care and her Edinburgh Earth Initiative talk in February 2025
Island perspectives on an unequal crisis
Yusra Patel, an MSc Data, Inequality and Society student and Mastercard Foundation Scholar, opened the event with Last to Pollute, First to Drown: A Mauritian Perspective. Drawing on her perspective from Mauritius, she brought attention to the wider experience of island states on the frontline of climate change, highlighting one of the clearest injustices of the climate crisis: those who have contributed least to greenhouse gas emissions are often among those facing the greatest risks.
For Mauritius, this story is inseparable from the ocean. Yusra noted that the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone covers 2.3 million square kilometres, around 1,127 times larger than its landmass. This shifted the discussion beyond land alone, showing how climate justice is also about ocean, culture, identity, community and survival.
Her closing message captured the urgency of the perspective she shared: the last to pollute should never be the first to lose their land, ocean, people or culture.
Climate justice through lived experience
In A personal story of climate justice, Mariam Asghar, a PhD candidate in Politics and Earth Fellow, brought an intimate and reflective perspective to the event. Her contribution showed how climate justice is not only understood through policy, research or global debate, but through people’s own lives and relationships to place, community, memory and belonging.
Her talk kept the human realities of climate change at the centre of the discussion. It reminded attendees that climate justice is about more than identifying who is most at risk. It is also about listening to how people understand, experience and respond to environmental change in their own lives.
Climate vulnerability, debt and responsibility
Keaobaka Bome, an MSc Climate Change Finance and Investment student and Mastercard Foundation Scholar, explored the financial and political pressures that shape climate risk in Debt, Risk Perception and Justice in a Warming World. Her talk showed how vulnerability is shaped not only by exposure to climate impacts, but also by the resources, choices and constraints available to communities as they respond.
By focusing on debt, risk perception and global inequality, Keaobaka highlighted the close relationship between climate justice and economic justice. For many climate-vulnerable countries, preparing for a warming world is not simply a matter of having the right technical solutions. It is also shaped by debt burdens, limited public finances and unequal access to the resources needed to adapt.
Trees, transformation and community connection
Rachel Orchard, a PhD researcher in forest and peatland restoration and Earth Fellow, and Richard Pollard, Head of The Tree Council’s National Schools Programme, presented Trees and Transformation: connecting communities to trees and woodlands. Their session brought the discussion closer to Scotland, exploring the relationship between climate justice, nature restoration and community participation.
Richard introduced The Tree Council’s Growing Together programme, which supports community tree nurseries, volunteering, skills development and local tree propagation. He also brought this sense of connection into the room through a tree speaker, a device that allows people to listen to the vibrations of leaves and branches. As attendees held hands, they heard the tree’s vibrations carried through one another, offering a memorable reminder of the connections between people, trees and the wider natural world.
Rachel then reflected on woodland restoration in the Scottish context, where questions of land ownership, rural power and community participation are deeply connected. Her presentation asked what justice means in landscapes shaped by concentrated landownership and overlapping ideas of community, including residents, workers, landowners, students, institutions and visitors.
Together, their contribution raised an important question: when we talk about communities in climate and nature restoration, who do we mean, and who gets to decide?
